Background
Retailers needed to be prepared for anything in the lead-up to Black Friday 2022. Crew Clothing, a prominent fashion retailer, recognised they couldn’t depend on historical data from previous years to accurately predict their upcoming peak season engagement and sales, especially with lingering post-pandemic consumer behaviour changes and the cost-of-living squeeze. While Crew Clothing already had some analytics tools in place, the solutions were not granular enough, nor could they present a unified view of in-store and online data in real time.
The challenge
To maximise the Black Friday revenue opportunity, Crew Clothing needed a comprehensive real-time dashboard that combined in-store and online activity, demonstrated channel impact, and allowed them to monitor and interrogate category spending, which would enable the CRM and marketing team to optimise their campaigns to achieve the best results.
Watch the full customer story
Watch our video which covers the full impact of Apteco software on Crew Clothing, presented by Steven Moriarty and James Flynn.
The Apteco Solution
Plinc and Crew Clothing collaborated to define the business requirements and expectations. The decision was to leverage Apteco Orbit to create bespoke dashboards for in-day revenue reporting. These dashboards, customised to Crew Clothing's specific needs, displayed a variety of vital metrics, helping teams to understand, drill-down and react to activity throughout the day, such as sales today, net spend, average sale value, spend by channel, spend by hour, and spend by category. The Apteco implementation uses a linked system architecture, where certain intra-day/week tables are rebuilt continuously from this source, delivering updates at least every 15 minutes. This data can then be accessed within Orbit for dashboarding and campaigning purposes.
The teams quickly set about meticulously defining metrics and validating data accuracy. The resulting dashboards were accurate and easy to understand, making them accessible to various teams within the organisation. Furthermore, eliminating reliance on third-party reporting snapshots provided Crew Clothing the flexibility to update metrics and requirements directly in the Orbit marketing platform.
The real-time dashboards empowered Crew Clothing to monitor category spend, allowing the CRM and marketing teams to optimise campaigns dynamically. With instant access to trend metrics, as well as the underlying data for audience selection, Crew Clothing became reactive in its marketing efforts, adjusting strategies on the fly based on real-time analysis.
The dashboard was a great piece of work that would appeal to most businesses. Real-time, accurate reporting on key metrics…what business wouldn't want to know that?
Steven Moriarty, Senior Data and Insights Manager, Crew Clothing Company
Steven Moriarty, Senior Data and Insights Manager, Crew Clothing Company
The impact on the business
The collaboration between Crew Clothing and Plinc, powered by Apteco's Orbit, is a testament to the transformative impact of real-time analytics on retail operations. By addressing an urgent need and expanding the scope of analytical capabilities, the project met its immediate objectives and positioned Crew Clothing for sustained success in the dynamic retail landscape.
Crew Clothing gained the ability to monitor and respond to real-time trends, enabling agile decision-making during critical sales periods.
The CRM and marketing teams optimised campaigns based on up-to-the-minute insights, enhancing effectiveness.
The dashboards were unconfined to a single team; they were shared across various departments, fostering a data-driven culture within the organisation.
The success of the initial implementation has laid the groundwork for more in-depth data analysis, promising continued improvements in efficiency, customer experience, and overall business performance.
While planning for Black Friday, our e-commerce team saw an opportunity to build a real-time view of in-day performance. Plinc helped create a visual dashboard, and for the first time, we as a business had access to data in real time that could inform in-day decision making.
Steven Moriarty, Head of Customer Data and Insight, Crew Clothing
Steven Moriarty, Head of Customer Data and Insight, Crew Clothing