Crew Clothing, the luxury casual wear retailer, has implemented a store management solution from software as a service (SaaS) start-up, StorIQ, across its 78 UK stores. The system has allowed Crew Clothing to re-envisage visual merchandising to improve the consistency of customer experiences across its store estate and enhance its overall performance.
With varying store formats, previously both Head Office and area managers at Crew Clothing faced numerous challenges to ensure that all stores complied with the latest visual merchandising, best practice and store layouts. Without an instant, visual record of what the whole estate looks like, checking consistency and effectiveness of displays proved laborious, time-consuming and inefficient. The implementation of StorIQ’s management solution has been described as ‘transformational’ as the cloud-based software enabled better ‘visibility’ between Head Office, and the retailers’ area and store managers.
The easy-to-use system means that store managers can now view examples of best practice displays and store layout plans, to ensure brand consistency in each store. By uploading images of the finished display, Head Office and area managers can now review and feedback on the display to store managers in real-time, assigning tasks as required. This increased level of communication between staff has afforded the fashion brand greater transparency across the estate and the opportunity to provide instant feedback has improved operational efficiency.
The technology also now allows Head Office to see an instant view of how the visual merchandising will work across the entire store estate, so they can better assess what will work well for each type of store at the initial planning and design stages. This has significantly reduced time wastage and the provision of unneeded display collateral.
Amy Bastow, Commercial Director at Crew Clothing, said: “The system enables us to do in 48 hours what would normally have taken two weeks. Reviewing campaign launches is now immediate, so we can tell stores what to change instantly, and our database of visuals means that we can view any area in the store – such as tills or fitting rooms – and make them consistent with the overall campaign strategy. It’s proved a great way to raise standards and consistency of delivery across all our stores.”
Peter Wake, founder and CEO of StorIQ, said: “The nature of StorIQ is such that ongoing use will increase ROI as companies build up more detailed data sets about their own returns on campaigns, tasks and objectives. We are delighted that the implementation with Crew Clothing is proving so successful and that the company is experiencing greater efficiency & transparency as a result of using a single platform for photo sharing and task management.”
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