July 31, 2023 | by Amber Hovious — VP, Marketing & Partnerships, Teamwork Commerce

Originally posted in: retailcustomerexperience.com

In the dynamic realm of the luxury fashion industry, change is an inherent characteristic. High-end apparel retailers thrive on their ability to adapt and showcase resilience in the face of uncertainty.

High-end retailers have unique requirements as customers demand convenience and have become accustomed to personalized experiences. As soon as shoppers walk into a store, they expect high-quality interactions that are tailored to their specific needs. It is essential for retailers to make their customers feel valued in order to earn and retain their loyalty.

Gone are the days when simply offering high-quality products and exquisite craftsmanship was enough to satisfy discerning consumers. Now, high-end apparel brands must go beyond traditional measures of success and focus on delivering a timely and timeless form of meaningful value. By embracing the latest technological innovations, retailers can live up to evolving needs of today’s retail environment.

Tailored Interactions

The latest state-of-the-art solutions can enable retailers to deliver personalized customer experiences. Teamwork Commerce’s Mobile Point of Sale System (POS), is specifically designed to cater to the unique needs of high-end retailers. The comprehensive POS solution enables retailers to gain valuable insights into customer profiles. By analyzing buying habits, purchase history and frequency, retailers can better understand customer preferences and tailor their offerings accordingly.

Teamwork Commerce’s Mobile POS system not only streamlines the entire POS processes versus cash registers, like scanning items and accept payments, but also provides retailers with the ability to seamlessly implement and manage customer loyalty programs. By leveraging this POS software, clothing and apparel retailers can effectively incentivize repeat purchases, cultivate long-lasting relationships with their customers, and ultimately drive growth in their business.

What’s more, Teamwork Commerce and Endear’s joint clienteling solution delivers an all-in-one platform on mobile POS, not only providing retailers with a flexible means of completing transactions in-store, but technology that enables them to learn more about their customers, understand their needs and provide an unrivalled customer experience on the spot. 

Powerful Inventory is a Must

Inventory management plays a crucial role in the efficient operation of retail stores, particularly in the high-end apparel industry. Unlike other retail categories that may deal with large quantities of a single product, high-end apparel stores typically have limited stock for each item. As a result, having accurate knowledge of the location and availability of these items becomes paramount for effective store management.

To access all this information in real-time, retailers need a robust inventory solution that is integrated with their wider retail ecosystem – covering their supply chains, online platforms, stock levels and physical stores. Teamwork Commmerce’s Inventory Control solution enables retailers to maintain accurate and up-to-date inventory reports, providing valuable insights into the availability of sizes and colors across various locations and warehouses. This accurate inventory-related information prevents retailers from overselling products while helping them avoid out-of-stock situations. 

In the ever-evolving luxury retail industry, providing elevated and personalized experiences has become a defining characteristic of high-end customer service. With access to detailed information about individual customer preferences, high-end retailers can now curate their offerings and create unique experiences to meet the different expectations of customers. By effectively managing their inventory, these retailers can ensure that they have the right products available at the right time, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience and solidifying their position in the luxury space.

Want to see how choosing the right POS for your retail can help your business grow? Book a customized demo here.

Sustainability is no longer an option but a necessity for the retail industry. In the United States alone, retail generates over $2 billion in waste each year. Moreover, the industry is responsible for 4% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Adopting environmentally friendly practices benefits retailers not only in terms of the environment, but also in regard to brand reputation, operational efficiency, and meeting the changing expectations of environmentally conscious customers.

Technology has the potential to play a significant role in helping retailers to implement sustainable initiatives. From supply chain management to in-store services, retailers can deploy advanced solutions to reduce their environmental impact and make strides towards becoming more environmentally friendly in the long-term. These principles enable retailers to offer sustainable products, reduce waste, optimize resources, and effectively collaborate across the supply chain to drive positive environmental impact and meet the expectations of eco-conscious consumers.

Boost Sales While Cutting Waste 

Due to ineffective forecasting, some retailers frequently find themselves with an overabundance of a particular item. The additional emissions produced by manufacturing, transporting, and storing these excess of products can have a significantly negative impact on the environment. To forecast effectively, retailers must have real-time visibility into their inventory and wider retail operations. With a single click, retailers can gain dynamic control over their inventory with Teamwork Commerce‘s Inventory Management solution.

Beyond automation and real-time reporting, the state-of-the-art solution offers retailers personalized recommendations based on their historical data and ongoing trends. These tailored reports, based on real-time first-party data, allow retailers to order the right items at the right time and in the right quantity, ultimately increasing efficiency and lowering waste and their carbon footprint by avoiding overstocking, streamlining the supply chain, and promoting sustainable sourcing, all moving towards a circular economy.

Furthermore, retailers are implementing omnichannel strategies, integrating online and offline sales channels, with Teamwork Commerce’s Order Management solution. Using this technology, retailers can improve inventory allocation across channels, reduce redundant transportation and packaging, and boost overall operational efficiency. This technology also enables BOPIS (Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store) and BORIS (Buy Online, Return In-Store) — retail strategies, that provide customers with convenience while also contributing to sustainability efforts, by optimizing how customers interact with the supply chain.

Make A Difference for Sustainable Retail with Every Purchase

According to a recent survey, 63% of consumers are taking steps to change their lifestyle, including adopting greener purchasing habits, in order to become more sustainable. What does this mean for retailers? In addition to providing the best in-store customer experience, retailers must prioritize and focus on sustainability in their brick-and-mortar operations. They can accomplish this in a variety of ways, including the use of mobile point of sale (POS) solutions to promote greener decision-making for customers at every single touchpoint.

Retailers can employ Teamwork Commerce’s cutting-edge Mobile POS solution to visualize and segment customer purchasing habits across all sales channels. They can utilize this technology to reward customers for participating in sustainability strategies and campaigns, such as offering exclusive discounts to customers who bring their own recyclable shopping bags.

Furthermore, retailers can use this solution to create individual customer profiles and store order receipts in the cloud to promote paperless transactions. This also eliminates the need for customers to carry receipts when exchanging items or processing returns for customers.

Confronting The Returns Crisis

In 2022, approximately 16.5% of retail purchases in the US were returned. These products often end up in landfill sites rather than back on shelves. Retailers must take action to improve customer satisfaction and reduce returns, by optimizing their retail supply chain.

Order Management Systems (OMS) can be an effective tool to helping minimize the number of products that consumers return products. Returns are frequently caused by incorrect or incomplete orders, and Teamwork Commerce’s OMS can assist in reducing this by ensuring that customer orders are processed correctly, with the correct products, quantities, and shipping information. By incorporating features such as real-time inventory management, automated order processing, and shipping carrier integrations, retailers can take a significant step toward becoming a ‘greener’ brand.

Furthermore, by providing valuable insights into order and return data, an OMS can assist retailers in identifying trends, improving processes, and making data-driven decisions. By analyzing factors such as return reasons, product categories, and customer behavior, retailers can identify opportunities to reduce returns and improve the customer experience.

Teamwork Commerce is Revolutionizing Sustainability in Retail

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The retail industry plays a significant role in our daily lives, but its operations often come at a cost to the environment. The need for a sustainable retail and greener processes in the industry has become increasingly apparent as the impact of the industry becomes more pronounced.

Retailers generate substantial amounts of waste, consume vast amounts of energy, and contribute to pollution throughout the supply chain. By implementing sustainable practices, retailers can mitigate their environmental impact, creating a greener operation from a sustainable supply chain to storefront, and appealing to the preferences of today’s conscious consumer.

Originally posted in: Retail TouchPoints

Today, consumers demand a seamless shopping experience at their own convenience. From curated discounts to automated checkout processes, convenience and customization have become key differentiators between success and failure in a fiercely competitive retail environment.

Last year, ‘summer holidays/vacations’ ranked in the top four seasonal events for increased consumer shopping, according to YouGov. Busy shopping periods provide retailers with enormous growth opportunities, such as increased in-store footfall and website traffic. Retailers must cater to both: existing customers who return to purchase following a great previous experience as well as shoppers who sneak in to find great deals, a variety of choices and, of course, better customer service. However, it can also negatively impact retailers who fail to live up to the expectations of today’s consumers. 

Avoiding Costly Mistakes: The Need for Accurate Stock Control

Out-of-stock items can be highly frustrating for customers, who could ultimately turn to another retailer to make purchases instead. To earn and retain their loyalty, retailers must be able to offer the right product, through the right sales channel, at an appropriate time and price for their customers. As omnichannel capabilities evolve, it is becoming increasingly crucial for retailers to deploy advanced inventory solutions that can easily integrate with their wider retail tech stack, and communicate in real time to deliver fulfillment options that provide customers with a range of purchasing options.

Today, state-of-the-art solutions can provide accurate inventory-related information in real time, helping retailers make smarter decisions. Retailers can customize where inventory is assigned and how it will be fulfilled, in seconds. In fact, the latest inventory solutions can even alert retailers of when to order more, providing customized recommendations based on trends and historical performance data. What’s more, retailers can also assign a status for damaged or defective items and remove them from the on-hand inventory, synchronizing directly to the cloud.

Alternatively, retailers can leverage these disruptive solutions to deliver and improve omnichannel offerings such as buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) and buy online, return in-store (BORIS). This can further enable them to provide customers with clear and accurate inventory information in real time, creating a seamless experience and reducing the amount of time spent waiting around in-store, further helping retailers meet those challenging customer expectations.

Maximizing Loyalty Through Convenience

According to PWC, 73% of consumers globally agree that a positive experience is key in influencing their brand loyalties. Long queues and delays can be a nuisance for customers, compromising their overall experience with retail brands. To avoid this, retailers must find effective ways to bust queues to keep up during busy periods while ensuring a top-tier and convenient shopping experience for their customers.

A seamless and efficient checkout experience is crucial for boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty. In fact, 37.1% of retailers in the U.S. and the UK claimed that their customers would opt for other merchants if they did not offer consumers the ability to scan products and pay without waiting in a queue. To optimize their checkout process, retailers can lean on innovative solutions including advanced POS systems, mobile payment solutions and even self-checkout terminals.

The latest mobile POS systems can prove to be a game-changer, enabling staff to serve customers from any part of the store. This can significantly help retailers reduce checkout queues and serve their customers more quickly and seamlessly. Alternatively, retailers can utilize RFID-powered self-checkout solutions that optimize the checkout process by automatically scanning all of a shopper’s items at once. This can be significantly useful during busy shopping periods, with more customers completing their transactions in a much shorter amount of time.

With either of these solutions deployed, in-store associates can better devote their time to helping and interacting with customers, providing value to their shopping experience and ultimately increasing customer satisfaction levels.

Driving Retail Success with Tailored Interactions

One of the best ways to add value to the shopping experience of customers is to personalize their interactions at every retail touch point throughout their shopping journey. Retailers have already started to leverage data to curate customer experiences. However, to thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, they must be able to identify change, new trends, and habits as soon as they occur, This is only possible through harnessing data in real time.

With the right mobile POS solutions integrated with wider retail technologies such as inventory management solutions, data and analytics or even customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, in-store associates can access crucial data about customers’ preferences at the tap of a button. This helps them to better assist customers and deliver a highly personalized experience for shoppers.

As customers flock to stores and websites to purchase their summer essentials, retailers must be prepared to earn and boost their loyalty. Deploying cutting-edge solutions can enable retailers to capitalize on opportunities around these busy shopping periods.

Amber Hovious is the  VP of Marketing and Partnerships at Teamwork Commerce. She has been part of the Teamwork Commerce family for seven years, building out the marketing strategy, business growth and approach as well as cultivating a wide array of partnership relationships to drive long-term success.