With mobile spending in November and December 2015 increasing 59% from the same period in 2014, reaching $12.7 billion, it’s ever-clearer that retailers must capitalize on making their mobile experience convenient for the consumer.
Designer apparel retailer Steven Alan is taking its first steps to bolster this experience for the consumer with the assistance of mobile retail platform NewStore. In transforming into a “mobile-first” retailer, Steven Alan can:
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Further expand its presence, both in-store and online, across the U.S.;
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Give its associates greater access to product information and inventory visibility; and
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Strengthen its credibility among consumers as a seller of luxury goods, particularly by keeping consumers in the store upon entering.
“There’s an expectation among customers in the luxury space that there is an instant gratification and perfection,” said Dawn Trenson, Director of E-Commerce at Steven Alan. “If the store doesn’t have a product, they’re going to another brand store to find the same item. They want something, they want it immediately and they want it how they want it. This enables us to provide that service as well.”
Luxury retailers appear to be having greater success than their peers when it comes to gathering sales through mobile, so many of them are already on a fast track to implementing a mobile-first mentality. The Criteo Fashion Flash Report revealed that global luxury and fashion brands have an average mobile share of e-Commerce sales of 33%. In the U.S., mobile’s luxury/fashion sales share is 8% higher than health & beauty sales, and 17% above home decoration.
Empowering The Associate With Information At Their Fingertips
With the NewStore mobile platform, Steven Alan can now provide store associates with mobile devices, granting them full inventory visibility that enables them to provide a better experience for the consumer once they walk into the store.
The solution’s associate-facing app shows product details such as apparel measurements, country of origin and fabric content, so that store employees can have all the same data as a shopper browsing the Steven Alan web site.
“If a customer walks into a brick-and-mortar store, sees a sweater and asks what percentage cashmere it is and where it’s made, the store associate can look at their iOS device and pull that information up,” Trenson said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Additionally, if we only have an extra small sweater available in our Tribeca store and this client really needs the small, the store associate will be able to simply look on the app and see what store has the inventory. Provided that a local Manhattan store has it, we can deliver it to that consumer on the same day within a number of hours.”
The application addresses the issue many retailers have, in which associates know less information about products than consumers do. Providing tablets with apps installed helps the associate identify the necessary information, and it brings in revenue; 90% of consumers are likely to buy in the store when helped by a knowledgeable associate, according to data from the Timetrade Retail Reality Check.
“Now that both sides will have the power of what apps can bring to a transaction, you’re getting augmented human contact,” said Phil Granof, CMO at NewStore. “To that end, it creates a new kind of experience that allows Steven Alan to direct what’s happening with respect to building their brand outside the four walls of the store. In building the brand both in and out of the store, they’re able to meet the needs of this Millennial shopper that has essentially been raised by mobile apps.”
