Nearly 75% of consumers say the way they shop in stores has changed significantly over the past three years, according to Retail Systems Research (RSR). While being able to physically investigate a product in context is a clear value prop of the brick-and-mortar experience, consumers increasingly see stores as destinations for high-quality service, immersive experiences and activations, and even digital order fulfillment.
As an omnichannel retailer, “everything we do has to be even more omni,” explained Scott Devlin, CIO of The Vitamin Shoppe in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “If people are going to shop to get their vitamins, they’ve got choices. We wanted to get the best experience. With our legacy POS solution, everything omnichannel that we did was going to be sub-optimized. It was a different architecture, and it wasn’t as flexible and agile as more modern technology. We wanted to find a solution that was going to keep pace with our digital side.”
The retailer embarked on a journey to select a new POS provider that could better evolve with its omnichannel business model, which was already robust. In addition to the table stakes fulfillment offerings — buy online/pick up in-store and buy online/ship from store — the Vitamin Shoppe has built an expansive ecosystem of “on-demand delivery” partners and has become known for its clienteling-based sales model, driven by its “health enthusiasts.” The retailer also has rolled out new digital content and service offerings, including the Whole Health Rx telehealth service.
Devlin and a broader “task force” found that Jumpmind checked all the boxes and provided a foundation for future iteration and innovation. After starting their partnership in August 2023, the companies moved “in earnest” through an initial pilot in May 2024 and started their full deployment in June 2024. The technology will be live in The Vitamin Shoppe’s 697 stores by the end of this month. With this rollout nearly complete, the retailer can fully determine how the new in-store tech can optimize both customer and “health enthusiast” (read: store associate) experiences.
Driving Engagement and Efficiency Across Channels
All Vitamin Shoppe stores will be equipped with one fixed POS station and two iPads. The fixed POS runs Jumpmind Commerce, a cloud-native, mobile-first POS for associates. Customers at checkout also have access to CX Connect, an interactive solution designed to deliver personalized content, offers and experiences to customers. Tablet-toting health enthusiasts not only can use the POS to check out customers from anywhere in the store; they also can use a homegrown clienteling app, called “V-book,” to offer more detailed, personalized service in store aisles. At the corporate office, The Vitamin Shoppe uses Jumpmind Promote to offer unified promotions across the retailer’s digital and physical channels.
Some capabilities that are especially valuable for Vitamin Shoppe as it aims to improve omnichannel alignment and boost basket size include letting customers log into their loyalty accounts at checkout, view their purchase history and access their points, according to Joe Corbin, President and CEO of Jumpmind. Associates can then focus on asking the customer if they want to donate to a charity or sign up for a product subscription.
This interactive exchange between the health enthusiast and the customer is something Corbin calls “hybrid checkout,” and he believes it presents many growth opportunities to retailers. “You have two parties involved in [the checkout experience] at the same time, and you’re really allowing the consumer to own their journey just as much as the associate does,” he explained.
This approach is already driving big benefits for The Vitamin Shoppe. The retailer has seen a boost in product subscriptions, because customers in the checkout flow can quickly and easily see how much they’ll save in the long term if they sign up. Additionally, shoppers are redeeming loyalty program rewards at a higher rate.
Transitioning from legacy systems to an API-first approach also is enabling The Vitamin Shopper to take an agile, data-driven approach to improving the customer experience. “Digital agility and the ability to react quickly to the next thing is a major benefit to the customer,” Devlin said. “And we don’t know what that next thing is, but we’re able to move more quickly with the foundation we have now.”
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Driving Tech Alignment and Buy-in for Maximum Impact
Considering the size of its store footprint and complexity involved, this process was “really fast” and sets a new standard for tech rollouts, according to Corbin. “You always try to get to pilot quickly, but there was a lot on Scott and his team, including the store operations groups, and there’s a ton of change management, plus the devices,” he said in the joint interview with Devlin.
Devlin and his team had a major incentive for moving the project along: the retailer’s contract with its legacy provider was up on Christmas Eve, and they wanted the process done quickly so stores weren’t managing two different tech solutions. But core to the project’s success was the organizational “task force,” which was involved in every stage of the selection and implementation process.
“We created a task force that included the project team, but there were also district sales managers, field training managers and store managers,” Devlin explained. “So we had really good representation from all areas of the country that really know the stores. They represented some of the stores in the initial pilot and continued to give us feedback as the rollout happened.”
The task force was able to identify some user interface (UI) issues with the tech that had a significant impact on employee and customer adoption. “All of a sudden, we had a bunch of customers using the devices, so we had to move some things around on the customer display and removed some functions to clean things up,” Devin said.
For example, if an associate was interacting with the fixed station and the customer was interacting with the mobile customer display, there had to be a smooth workflow between the devices so that the associate knew what the customer was seeing and interacting with. “A combination of training and refining the workflow a little bit [had an impact], but with CX Connect, which is on the customer-facing iPad, the potential is huge,” Devin said. “I expect us to continue to regularly refine the workflow as we find ways to make the customer experience better, whether we find ways to inject some messaging or some kind of personalized offer.”
