TopShoe: 90 shoe retailers on one curated marketplace
Case summary
About TopShoe
TopShoe.nl is the collective e-commerce initiative of ANWR-Garant, bringing together more than 90 independent shoe retailers from the Netherlands. As a curated marketplace, TopShoe offers a unique combination of central management and local strength: retailers ship directly to consumers, while ANWR handles platform management, content, and marketing. The webshop features over 50,000 products and 400 brands.
“The Unified Commerce Suite from NextChapter enabled our marketplace model with strong usability and support for high volumes and multiple stores in one webshop. It allowed us to focus fully on operations and supporting our retailers, without getting lost in technology.”
- Maurice van Franck, Head of E-commerce & Digital
Ambitions and challenges
Independent retailers are under pressure in today’s rapidly evolving online landscape. Competing individually with major online players is nearly impossible. ANWR-Garant saw an opportunity and, together with retail entrepreneurs, developed the TopShoe webshop, which evolved into a curated marketplace — a joint platform where local entrepreneurs offer their products to a national audience.
To make this possible, a powerful technological backbone was needed—capable of handling multi-vendor processes, including (split) order allocation, a dedicated OMS per store with PostNL integration, intelligent pricing, and automated returns and refunds—without requiring every retailer to invest in complex IT systems.
What did TopShoe need?
To build a curated marketplace where more than 90 independent shoe retailers could collaborate, TopShoe needed a powerful and scalable Unified Commerce platform. A solution capable of supporting the complexity of a multivendor structure while fully automating all processes related to order management, returns, and refunds.
One of the key requirements was the ability to automatically assign orders to the appropriate retailer based on smart business rules. Webshop orders are automatically routed to the most suitable retailer, based on stock availability, location, and efficient fulfilment. If a single retailer cannot fulfill the entire order, it will be intelligently split across multiple stores. Each retailer had to be able to operate independently through an intuitive vendor console, without relying on additional IT support.
In addition, central access to and enrichment of product data played a major role. With a dynamic catalog of tens of thousands of products from hundreds of brands, a robust PIM system was essential. It needed to aggregate, structure, and synchronize product data from various sources across both ANWR-Garant and the participating retailers.
Finally, a reliable Order Management System (OMS) was needed to coordinate all processes — from order to return — and support ship-from-store operations, without placing unnecessary strain on individual stores or the ANWR customer service team. All of these requirements came together in the decision to choose NextChapter’s multiˣ suite as the backbone for their curated marketplace, TopShoe.
What NextChapter has accomplished for TopShoe
Together with NextChapter, the foundation for a powerful and scalable curated marketplace was laid in 2016. With NextChapter’s multiˣ suite, TopShoe now operates on a fully integrated and proven Unified Commerce system. The Suite has been configured for TopShoe with the following key functionalities:
OMS with automated order allocation based on smart business rules
CMS with advanced merchandising and promotional tools
Vendor console enabling retailers to manage and ship their own orders
multiˣ connector integrations with 15 different POS systems and Fashion Cloud
PIM processing millions of product records from various sources
Full automation of returns, cancellations, and refunds
Real-time visibility into order statuses, deliveries, and customer communication
Retailer webshops for shops that need a webshop with its own identity
Every order runs through an intelligent allocation process that determines the most suitable retailer for fulfillment, based on stock levels and customer location. Returns and refunds are handled automatically within the centralized system.
The final result
TopShoe has grown into one of the largest footwear platforms in the Benelux. Thanks to the scalable infrastructure, new retailers and brands can be added without affecting performance or workflows. Consumers benefit from a wide product offering, fast delivery, and a local touch, while retailers are fully supported and unburdened.
With the multiˣ suite as its foundation, ANWR-Garant has built an innovative marketplace ready for further expansion, cross-selling from other shops or product categories, or international scaling.
For example: TopShoe is now exploring cross-selling between Sport2000 and TopShoe. When an item is out of stock on one platform, the system checks availability on the other.
This professional setup has not gone unnoticed—TopShoe was awarded third place at the 2023 Shopping Awards in the Footwear category. A great recognition of their strong market position and customer-first approach.
What does the future hold?
TopShoe continues to innovate. A next step is onboarding brands via API, allowing the long tail assortment to grow without additional operational workload. The focus also lies on optimizing the customer journey with AI-driven personalization, smart marketing integrations, and advanced data enrichment—ensuring the platform remains relevant, scalable, and conversion-focused.
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