Tonys Chocolonely

Background

Tony’s Chocolonely, a mission-driven chocolate brand known for its commitment to a fairer cocoa industry, had been operating its e-commerce presence on a custom-built Sofia CMS platform. While functional, Sofia presented increasing limitations:

• High maintenance costs for development and updates

• Lack of scalability for new features and markets

• Complex content management requiring developer involvement for routine changes

• Inconsistent customer experience across regions

As Tony’s grew internationally, the business needed a flexible, scalable, and cost-effective commerce platform to support both its mission and its expansion.

Project Goal

Migrate Tony’s Chocolonely’s online stores from Sofia CMS to Shopify Plus across 7 key regions (Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, UK, US, Austria, and Sweden) while:

• Maintaining brand identity and storytelling across markets

• Empowering local teams with autonomy over their own content and campaigns

• Enabling growth through integrated tools for marketing, fulfilment, and personalisation

• Reducing technical debt and dependency on heavy development cycles

My Role

As IT Product Manager – Digital & E-Commerce, I led the end-to-end migration, bridging technology, design, and commercial needs:

• Owned the migration roadmap and cross-functional coordination (design, IT, e-commerce, retail, and agency partners)

• Scoped requirements for each region’s store, ensuring compliance with local regulations (tax, shipping, language)

• Acted as solution architect, selecting and integrating apps for personalisation, B2B ordering, and subscriptions

• Managed stakeholder communications (from the executive team to local market managers)

Key Actions & Deliverables

✅ Platform Audit & Requirements Gathering – Assessed limitations of Sofia CMS, defined “must-have” vs “nice-to-have” features for Shopify Plus.

✅ Multi-Market Strategy Design – Set up Shopify Plus with a core global theme and localised storefronts for 7 regions.

✅ Content & Data Migration – Coordinated product catalogue migration, page content mapping, and preservation of SEO equity (URL redirects, structured data).

✅ Checkout & Payment Localisation – Configured region-specific tax rules, shipping rates, and payment methods.

✅ Integration Ecosystem Build – Connected Shopify Plus with ERP, fulfilment partners, Klaviyo, subscriptions, and loyalty tools.

✅ B2B Enablement – Delivered a framework for wholesale customers, allowing Tony’s to manage corporate gifting and bulk orders.

✅ Training & Handover – Created documentation and ran workshops so local teams could manage content and campaigns independently.

Challenges & Solutions

Challenge: Migrating without disrupting peak sales periods (Valentine’s Day, Easter, Christmas).

Solution: Phased rollouts by region, with parallel runs and fallback plans in case of issues.

Challenge: Maintaining brand storytelling across different markets with different needs.

Solution: Built a flexible content system in Shopify Plus allowing markets to localise pages, while keeping core brand elements consistent.

Challenge: Managing 7 regions with different tax, legal, and fulfilment rules.

Solution: Used Shopify Plus scripts and tailored checkout flows for each market.

Results

📈 7 markets launched on Shopify Plus within 12 months

⏳ 30% reduction in time-to-market for new campaigns and product launches

💰 Lower platform maintenance costs (less reliance on custom development)

🌎 Improved local team autonomy – content, promotions, and landing pages could now be updated without IT bottlenecks

🚀 Foundation for future growth – platform now supports expansion into new regions and channels (B2B, subscriptions, D2C collaborations)

Conclusion

The migration to Shopify Plus transformed Tony’s Chocolonely’s digital operations, shifting from a rigid, developer-dependent system to an agile, scalable e-commerce platform. This not only improved operational efficiency but also empowered local teams to deliver Tony’s mission — making 100% slave-free chocolate the norm — more effectively across the world.