Apparel: Vineyard Vines Gets the Customer in Its Sights with CrossView

- July 6, 2010

– July 6, 2010 –

Article Reprint from Apparel - http://www.apparelmag.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=CD746117C0BB4828857A1831CE707DBE&tier=4&id=DDBD514CD2A34180A29BCAEE328091A6

CrossView's cross-channel solution, built on IBM WebSphere Commerce, gives a mid-sized company an in-depth, holistic view of its customers rivaling that of the largest retailers.

In the late 1990s, when Ian and Shep Murray began selling their nautical-themed ties on the beach at Martha's Vineyard, their first customers were people who shared their love of the water and the good life, as well as their irrepressible sense of fun. As their company, Vineyard Vines, grew and added a full range of apparel and accessories, the Murray brothers, now co-CEOs, maintained their direct connection with customers. Their unique one-on-one marketing approach included appearances at regattas and horse races, and they have often introduced new products at the request of individual customers.

But as the company multiplied its sales channels -- telephone, web commerce, wholesale and finally retail -- its customer relationships became fragmented. Maintaining a customer's identity across channels was next to impossible. And without knowing who a customer was, how could you know what the customer wanted?

About four years ago, Vineyard Vines IT manager Dave Ruback began to investigate replacing the company's technology platforms, which were not designed for its current scale. "Our computer system was going to crash," Ruback says. The systems in the most imminent need of replacement were those supporting the design and wholesale functions. However, the company expected its future growth to come primarily from direct sales and retail, which Ruback calls a "different animal" from wholesale.

A scalable channel solution

To support its direct sales, the company chose IBM WebSphere Commerce for its scalability, its ease of integration with other systems, and its market-leading position. Ruback says, "If our requirements are unique, they can make it happen -- whether it's in-site search, or how we display the catalog or the images. For all these technologies, as they were improved and enhanced, WebSphere would be there at the forefront."

In July 2008, Vineyard Vines launched WebSphere Commerce in its call center, which takes catalog orders and handles returns. The next step was to put the e-commerce system -- which accounts for 25 percent of the company's sales -- onto the same platform so customers would have a consistent profile across the two channels.

To develop the new web store, Vineyard Vines brought in CrossView, a provider of cross-channel commerce solutions. CrossView's solution involves building retail touchpoints around a single central database -- in this case, the IBM WebSphere Commerce database -- rather than replicating data at the different touchpoints. Such integration enables a retailer to create an order in one channel, edit it in another, and complete it in a third, or to process a sale at a store and automatically email the receipt to the customer.

The new e-commerce site went live in September 2009, but while the redesign was still in progress, Vineyard Vines took ownership of its first six retail stores. "What had been a further-out plan became a reality," says Ruback. "Now there was a need to support retail store operations and transactions. … Obviously, they should be on the same platform [WebSphere Commerce], because you had the same customers and the same information." Ruback took a "big deep dive" into developing requirements for the retail system, conducted a search for a vendor, and ultimately decided to hire CrossView for this phase, too. The retail POS system is slated to be rolled out later this year.

Mixing and matching channels

Ruback is excited about the potential of the new solution to support any future sales channel that Vineyard Vines might use -- "kiosks, pop-up stores, wherever we're going." He also likes the flexibility that it allows for multi-channel transactions, because all transactions are visible to customers and sales associates. Some of the other solutions he looked at let customers place orders online and pick up their purchases in-store. "But can you go into the store, buy an item, and have them ship it to the house?" he asks. "CrossView can take really complex transactions and support them. … If the customer starts to shop [a certain] way, we can support that."

With a centralized database, sales associates also have access to inventory wherever it is located. In most environments, sharing inventory is so complex and difficult that companies discourage it. With CrossView, on the other hand, it becomes easy to transfer inventory between locations, or send an order to the distribution center to be packed up and mailed. "We can start sharing those risks of buying inventory across the different channels," Ruback says.

Most important, CrossView enables Vineyard Vines to develop a holistic view of each customer. With consistent, cross-channel customer profiles, the company can segment customers into distinct groups and gain insight into the behavior of each group. "If someone starts out buying a tie, what are they most likely to buy next?" Ruback says. "If it's a shirt, I should start marketing him a shirt."

Adds Quinn Veysey, the company's direct sales manager, "The beauty of WebSphere is in collecting all that data to find out if their commonality can influence future shopping behavior. We can tailor our messaging to the most appropriate thing the customer wants." Even though the retail store channel solution hasn't yet gone live, some surprising store-related findings have already emerged. For example, many web customers living near the company's Washington, D.C., store proved to be unaware of the store's location near them. Kevin Moffitt, CrossView's vice president of business strategy and customer experience, points out, "It's a big investment to have a store, so you want to get as much value out of it as possible by trying to bridge the channels together. You could personalize email to these customers, and provide directions to the store."

Veysey says he's been surprised by the impact that direct marketing efforts have on retail stores. In fact, mailing the catalog can result in more customers going to stores than buying directly from the catalog. "We're looking at the business more holistically now," he says.

The company's CEOs believe that having a complete view of the customer will be strategically important for Vineyard Vines. The Murray brothers say, "First, it allows us to improve customer service by understanding how and where our customer is shopping and what they are buying. Based on this information, we can establish better ways to serve them. Second, it makes shopping easier for our customers. All of their shopping history is saved in one place, accessible through so many different channels. … Third, it allows us to be better marketers. By having a clear view of our customer, we can establish the most effective ways to communicate with our customers."

Masha Zager is a New-York-based Apparel contributing writer specializing in business and technology.