Connecting Modern Commerce to Houser Shoes’ Legacy Systems

While its in-store experience has long been central to the business, Houser Shoes has steadily expanded its digital presence over the years, recognizing the growing importance of eCommerce as part of a broader omnichannel strategy.

Kadro first began working with Houser Shoes more than 12 years ago, helping them launch their original Magento-based eCommerce platform. Over time, that partnership evolved through multiple platform iterations, including Magento 1, Adobe Commerce, and most recently Shopify.

Each phase brought new capabilities, as well as new challenges. After more than a decade on Magento, Houser Shoes found itself facing an increasingly complex and costly technology stack — one that required ongoing development effort just to maintain.

When it came time to evaluate the next chapter of their digital platform, Houser Shoes turned to Kadro to migrate their Adobe Commerce website to Shopify. The goals of the project included the following: retain all pre-existing backoffice, omni-channel, and marketplace integrations; simplify their e-commerce operations; and achieve a website with increased page speed.

When Houser Shoes originally adopted Magento more than a decade ago, the platform represented the cutting edge of customizable eCommerce. At the time, merchants who wanted flexibility had limited options. Magento offered the ability to tailor nearly every aspect of the platform.

But that flexibility came at a cost.

Over the years, Houser Shoes accumulated significant custom code, integrations, and extensions to support its growing operations. Each upgrade cycle required careful planning and development work to ensure compatibility. Even relatively small changes often required engineering resources.

Gradually, the cost of maintaining the platform, both financially and operationally, continued to rise. What had once been an advantage began to feel more like a burden.

The reality was that Houser Shoes, a family-owned retailer focused on selling shoes and serving customers, was increasingly forced to operate like a software company. Routine updates required developer involvement, extensions could conflict with one another, and infrastructure maintenance and security updates became ongoing responsibilities.

Total cost of ownership (TCO) grew beyond licensing fees. It included development time, infrastructure management, ongoing maintenance, and the operational overhead required to keep the platform running smoothly.

At the same time, the internal team at Houser Shoes remained relatively lean. Managing a complex eCommerce platform simply wasn’t where they wanted to invest their time.

Instead, they needed a platform that would allow them to focus on what they do best: selling shoes and delivering great customer experiences.

As Houser Shoes evaluated its next platform, the goal was clear: reduce complexity while maintaining the flexibility needed to support their business.

Shopify quickly emerged as a compelling solution.

One of the most important factors? Total cost of ownership. Unlike Magento, Shopify provides a fully managed infrastructure. Security patches, hosting, and core platform updates are handled automatically, eliminating a significant amount of operational overhead. This allowed Houser Shoes to move away from the constant maintenance cycle associated with Magento.

Equally important was ease of use.

Shopify’s intuitive interface enables business users to manage many aspects of the site, including products, promotions, apps, and content, without needing developer support. For a small internal team, this meant faster updates and greater independence.

In addition, Shopify provides a reliable and well-documented API, enabling developers to build robust integrations and custom functionality without modifying the platform’s core code. This approach significantly reduces the amount of custom software required while still allowing the system to integrate with complex backend systems.

Finally, Shopify’s extensive app ecosystem made it easy to extend the platform with new capabilities. Instead of installing and maintaining custom extensions, Houser Shoes can often add functionality simply by configuring an app.

The result was a platform that offered both flexibility and simplicity, allowing Houser Shoes to focus on business growth rather than platform maintenance.

For Houser Shoes, eCommerce works hand-in-hand with its network of physical retail stores.

The company operates 12 physical store locations in addition to its online store. These retail locations play a critical role in both inventory management and order fulfillment. Because of this, the new platform needed to support a true omnichannel retail model, integrating seamlessly with Houser Shoes’ existing operational systems.

At the center of Houser Shoes’ technology stack is a customized IBM AS/400 system running JD Edwards ERP. This legacy system manages core business functions including product data, inventory, and order processing.

While the system is powerful and deeply embedded in Houser Shoes’ operations, integrating a modern SaaS platform like Shopify with a decades-old ERP requires significant technical expertise.

Kadro’s engineering-first approach made this integration possible. By leveraging Shopify’s APIs and building custom integration layers, Kadro connected the new Shopify storefront to Houser Shoes’ existing ERP environment, allowing critical data to flow smoothly between systems. Products, customers, and orders now move between Shopify and the AS400 backend in a coordinated way, preserving the operational workflows Houser Shoes relies on.

The architecture also supports key omnichannel capabilities, including:

• Order fulfillment from both the central warehouse and individual retail stores

• Inventory synchronization across online and in-store channels

• Support for multiple dropshippers

• Integration with external marketplaces

As part of the migration, Kadro and Houser Shoes also took the opportunity to improve the structure and consistency of Houser Shoes’ product data.

After more than a decade on multiple versions of Magento, the product catalog had naturally accumulated a mix of outdated records, inconsistent attributes, and variations in how products were categorized.

Working together, Kadro and Houser Shoes standardized product attributes and taxonomy, cleaned up redundant or outdated records, and refined how product data was structured within the ERP system.

The result? A cleaner, more consistent product catalog that makes it easier for Houser Shoes’ team to manage products while supporting stronger search, merchandising, and reporting across the eCommerce experience.

Since migrating to Shopify, Houser Shoes has significantly simplified the management of its eCommerce platform. With infrastructure, updates, and security handled by Shopify, the internal team can focus on merchandising, marketing, and customer experience rather than software maintenance.

The amount of custom software required to run the site has also been dramatically reduced. Instead of maintaining complex Magento extensions, Houser Shoes can leverage Shopify’s built-in capabilities and app ecosystem.

Early performance metrics also point to improvements in key areas such as site speed and overall platform performance.

These improvements reinforce the original goal of the migration: reducing total cost of ownership while enabling Houser Shoes to operate more efficiently.

Cleaner Data, Smarter Merchandising

Standardized and optimized product data improved catalog management, strengthened search and merchandising, and enabled more accurate reporting across the entire eCommerce experience.

Houser Shoes’ migration to Shopify marks an important shift in how the company approaches eCommerce technology. By moving away from a heavily customized platform that required constant maintenance, Houser Shoes has adopted a modern, scalable solution that aligns with its core business goals.

Today, Shopify serves as the digital hub connecting Houser Shoes’ online storefront, retail locations, backend ERP systems, and external marketplaces. The result is a streamlined omnichannel commerce platform that supports both the company’s physical retail heritage and its growing digital presence.

With Kadro continuing to provide support and guidance, Houser Shoes is well positioned to evolve its eCommerce strategy, without needing to operate like a software company to do it.