UPS is a deeply philanthropic company committed to Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. Thanks to an on-going collaboration with The Martin Agency, an award-winning full-service marketing group, they live this commitment not just within the walls of their own company but by prominently lifting up diversely owned small and medium businesses (SMBs) to international platforms. Returning in September 2022 as the official shipping partner of NYFW: The Shows, UPS wasn’t content to simply watch from the sidelines - they strutted their values on the runway and took fashion week by storm, relaunching their clothing line: Be Unstoppable. 

Online is the new local. As such, UPS needed a website emblematic of the spirited and thriving Latin community they were representing. A store every bit as exciting and edgy as La Bodega Baque itself. An informational hub where people could go to view and purchase the relaunched clothing collection, while also learning about the underlying philanthropic efforts surrounding the project. 

Hazil Studios took the reins by building a completely customized Shopify website to feature the UPS x Awake NY clothing line for NYFW. We worked closely with TMA, who provided expert design guidance and stunning imagery, to bring to life La Bodega Baque’s online presence.

Of course, there’s nothing quite like an in-person SoHo shopping experience during NYFW. Thankfully, the many features of Shopify POS enabled us to seamlessly unite in-person selling with the counterpart online stores.
For this project, Hazil Studios was assigned three tasks: 

Shopify POS On-site Integration for UPS x Awake NY 

The key to success for this milestone was to synchronize the POS at La Bodega Baque with the online store we’d just built for UPS in order to promote omni-channel selling. Given the limited-edition and popular nature of the clothing line, it was bound to sell out. One of the greatest aspects of Shopify POS is its ability to seamlessly connect all facets of a business so they work together in tandem, not in parallel. Hazil Studios integrated the POS and managed the inventory, so everyone was able to purchase pieces without fear of the shown available numbers being inaccurate. 

Set up Shopify POS for Latinx SMBs featured at La Bodega Baque

An exciting challenge of incorporating the inventory from the Latinx SMBs with Shopify POS for La Bodega Baque was that all this information had to be integrated separately from the UPS clothing collections.

Challenge: We wanted to allow each SMB live-access to their own sales and inventory. At first, it was recommended that the most organized way of achieving this was to have twelve different POS systems integrated with the twelve different SMBs’ personal online stores (which would have been doable but a logistical nightmare for Brand Ambassadors on-site).

Solution: We proposed a custom online marketplace where all inventory to be sold from these featured Latinx stores at La Bodega Baque could be tracked. Each SMB owner would have access to their own dashboard within this marketplace, where they could track their business progress at the pop-up as it was happening in real-time. This would enable us to only need one additional POS setup outside of the original for the UPS specific inventory. The simplicity of this work-around made the day run much more smoothly for the Brand Ambassadors taking sales at the pop-up and the SMB owners were thrilled. 

Train Brand Ambassadors at La Bodega Baque on the tech 

To complete the turn-key experience for La Bodega Baque, Hazil Studios: 

• Ordered the POS hardware
• Installed the systems
• Verified and managed the inventory 
• Trained the Brand Ambassadors on the tech prior to the opening of La Bodega Baque

The Brand Ambassadors were on the ground at the pop-up selling the merchandise. As such, it was important for them to be intimately acquainted with the tech and processes involved. Hazil Studios’ Founder & CEO and Head of Tech were on the ground in SoHo on Opening Day, getting everyone up to speed on the different facets of POS. Our team then remained available throughout the weekend, managing inventory changes and staying in close contact with all twelve SMBs in case any issues came up. We wanted to ensure everything would go off without a hitch, and it certainly did!