Exclusive Aptos Customer Insights:
How Holistic Unified Commerce Is Helping Companies Adapt
By Joe Skorupa
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• Seamless interactions that span stores and online • Creating a culture of innovation • Fulfillment (and returns) flexibility
Feeling inspired, and with each retailer’s permission, I summarized a few of these retail success stories. Keep reading for a look at how L.L.Bean, New Balance, Boot Barn, SNIPES USA and The Vitamin Shoppe are adopting a Unified Commerce approach to delight their customers and improve business agility and operational performance.
I was one of several hundred attendees at Aptos Engage 2022, an annual gathering of retailers, technologists and industry insiders. During that event, dozens of retail executives took to the stage to share behind-the-scenes accounts of how their businesses were transforming to meet the needs of modern consumers. While the stories shared were as unique as the retailers themselves, a few common themes emerged as to where retailers were prioritizing their investments and focus.
• Inventory visibility • API-driven extensibility
Joe Skorupa
Consultant, Editor at Large, RIS News
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About the Author
Joe Skorupa is a consultant and Editor at Large for RIS News, an EnsembleIQ media portfolio. Joe has been frequently named as one of the top influencers in retail technology and is a regular speaker at industry conferences and webinars. He was named the top retail blogger in the country by Folio Magazine. His role as editorial director at RIS News enabled its website, www.risnews.com, to win the Folio Magazine award for best B2B retail website two years in a row.
L.L.Bean: Spotlight on Ship from Store
Outdoor clothing and gear retailer L.L.Bean embarked on a “Stores + Omnichannel Journey” with an Aptos OMS implementation in September 2021, according to Dan Tarkinson, Director of IT Applications and Information Services, and Chrissy Atwood, Senior Project Manager, Retail Stores, at L.L.Bean. According to Tarkinson and Atwood, the goal was “omnichannel evolution, to continue to progress from multichannel to omnichannel, from manual to seamless, with integrated and consistent customer experiences.” The project started with an implementation of Aptos Store, completed in 2021, and continued with Aptos OMS and Buy Online Ship from Store functionality in September 2021. Next steps will include adding BOPIS in 2022 and Endless Aisle in 2023.
For the Buy Online Ship from Store functionality, L.L.Bean wanted the system to confirm store inventory, eliminate phone calls to stores and eliminate store associates taking payment over the phone. After implementation, “the process was reduced from 14 minutes to four minutes,” and now “stores just have to pick and pack as they receive orders,” eliminating the manual phone process. Interestingly, L.L.Bean uses Aptos ONE as an “integration system to hook enterprise systems into back-end systems because it is API based and the applications can make API calls through Aptos ONE.” Applications serviced this way include “customer experience, promotions, Bean Bucks, employee look up, purchase history and tax.” The results from L.L.Bean’s Ship from Store launch exceeded expectations from the very first day of its go live.
New Balance: Spotlight on Inventory Management
“Real-time inventory and supply chain visibility are the biggest challenges in retail today,” says James Hawkins, Product Manager, Global Retail Technology, for New Balance. In 2021, New Balance had to manage going from “sufficient inventory in stores to super lean,” which required “improving assortment strategy and increasing margins by lowering markdowns and average carried inventory,” explained Hawkins. This period also saw double-digit e-commerce growth, which meant “returns were also up.” In response, New Balance upgraded to the latest versions of Aptos Merchandising last March and Aptos Analytics in April. Other Aptos solutions are also in use, including POS and Sales Audit.
To manage inventory, New Balance has “merchandise planners for both stores and e-commerce,” with store planners managing traditional OTB weekly and reforecasting quarterly. The e-commerce planners manage the “warehouse inventory against the model/product forecast.” New Balance operates e-commerce orders as a location within the Aptos suite, and “orders placed by customers are set to a specific warehouse based on routing logic.” As e-commerce continues to grow, New Balance is “focusing more on the retail consumer.”
Boot Barn: Spotlight on Returns Management
“Retailers need a plan to cope with the high cost of returns,” says Julie Ting, VP of IT at Boot Barn. To help make smart adjustments, Boot Barn uses several Aptos solutions, including Merchandising, Sales Audit, CRM and POS. “Returns are product specific,” says Ting. At Boot Barn, the “top returns are for fit/sizing issues (25%) and changed mind (20%).” The Boot Barn’s policy is to “charge a $10 shipping fee that can be waived if [an item is] returned to a store.” Incenting shoppers to go back to the store for a return is viewed “as a customer interaction to create stickiness or convert into an exchange or different purchase to save the sale.”
The basic “return policy is 30 days” but is extended for purchases made during the holiday season. Boot Barn lets stores keep returned products for inventory to sell to walk-in customers or to fulfill online orders from the store. Having a strategic return policy is important since “four in 10 people indicate return policies influence their purchase decisions.” Also, “returns increase customer interactions with associates, expand product and brand knowledge, drive loyalty membership, and increase upsell and cross-sell opportunities.”
SNIPES USA: Spotlight on Omnichannel Inventory
This fast-growing sneaker and streetwear retailer has a fully integrated omnichannel approach to inventory. According to John Fiduccia, Director of Omnichannel Systems, SNIPES USA had 100 stores and an e-commerce site when he joined the company; however, it soon acquired Jimmy Jazz (180 stores) and eXpressions (45 stores). Despite the complexity of operating 325 stores and three websites across three brands, the retailer has been able to “make all inventory available to cross-channel, online, offline, and endless aisle, to everyone everywhere.” According to Fiduccia, “E-commerce and stores interact everywhere, offer easy returns and will offer advanced BOPIS.”
The Vitamin Shoppe: Spotlight on Innovation
One of the highlights of Engage was the presentation by Andy Laudato, Executive VP and COO of The Vitamin Shoppe. Laudato recently published a book titled “Fostering Innovation: How to Build an Amazing IT Team” and has become one of retail’s most engaging speakers. Laudato notes that innovation is an imperative in retail and “you have to innovate or disappear.” However, to achieve it, “you first have to get your house in order.” To Laudato this means reimagining Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a pyramid of IT needs. The bottom level is described as Keep the Lights On (scalable and fast). The next level is Lean and Efficient (drive costs down through efficiency and continuous improvement, optimizing vendor relationships, reducing work-in-process, and embracing automation). The next level is Create Value (prioritization and strategic alignment to maximize business value). And finally, at the top of the pyramid is Innovation.
What does innovation mean? It means “spending time, talent and treasure on things that probably won’t work,” says Laudato. However, you have to “reward, not punish, risk taking” and understand that “people won’t innovate if they don’t feel safe.” It is also important to understand that “companies don’t innovate, people do.” So, it is important to “put your very best people on innovation.” The Vitamin Shoppe currently uses Aptos ONE, Aptos Store, Aptos CRM/Loyalty and Aptos Sales Audit. For Laudato, one of the major benefits of using Aptos ONE is that it “allows us to interact instead of just transact.”
Get Started on Your Unified Commerce Journey
In today’s dynamic retail environment, a Unified Commerce approach is required to engage, support and empower shoppers across channels and touchpoints. There has never been a more important time to meet shoppers on their terms and to increase flexibility — and profitability — within your retail operations. As you get started on your Unified Commerce journey, Aptos is here to help. We offer the most advanced and complete solution on the market for Unified Commerce, and our team has extensive experience in helping retailers around the world deliver unified experiences.
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