One of the things we think about when we think about the future of retail is we have to compete with these e-commerce players who have all this data, who are constantly using data to optimize their conversion. How do you translate that and get that leverage in the store experience?
Alex Chang
Head of eCommerce at Lolli and Pops
Lolli and Pops wins with RetailNext
Situation
As the Vice President of Product at Lolli & Pops, Jessica Mennella leads the buying team, and is responsible for much of the visual merchandising at the company's stores across the United States.
Each store has a wide selection of confectionery SKUs, and for its scooped sweets and bulk items, stores have up to 350 bins or more.
Challenge
Re-assorting and setting the stores can be a difficult challenge, involving many meetings withe Jessica's planning team, and often requiring a lot of travel.
On a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, Jessica found herself chatting online with her planner. As they discussed 10-15 stores, each with a slightly different layout that had been planned to roughly 80 percent, they struggled to finish and to fine-tune the layout facing issues like where to visually place dark chocolates in a store filled with sours.
Solution
The RetailNext merchandising solution allowed Jessica to observe snapshots of stores, displays, and product assortments. Despite low bandwidth on the airplane Wi-Fi, Jessica was able to access stores and see how they were laid out, pulling up still image snapshots from locations, taking screenshots, and emailing the images-annotated with notes-to her planner. Upon arrival, Jessica and her planner had finished the exercise, finalizing the merchandising layout in every store.
Benefits
"Without using RetailNext and its merchandising solution, it would have taken at least another two rounds of meetings with my planner, and it would have required getting on airplanes and visiting many stores, as we really need visual cues. We could do store sets blindly, but it's very difficult to get it right. Without visual cues, it's difficult to understand and interpret verbal descriptions; you might think you're creating a perfect set, but it usually turns out to be a disaster.
Using the RetailNext platform, we were able to complete the store set working remotely, allowing us to immediately begin implementing and executing to plan, and servicing our clientele in a manner they expect."
-Jessica Mennella
Lolli and Pops wins with RetailNext
Situation
As the Vice President of Product at Lolli & Pops, Jessica Mennella leads the buying team, and is responsible for much of the visual merchandising at the company's stores across the United States.
Each store has a wide selection of confectionery SKUs, and for its scooped sweets and bulk items, stores have up to 350 bins or more.
Challenge
Re-assorting and setting the stores can be a difficult challenge, involving many meetings withe Jessica's planning team, and often requiring a lot of travel.
On a flight from Chicago to San Francisco, Jessica found herself chatting online with her planner. As they discussed 10-15 stores, each with a slightly different layout that had been planned to roughly 80 percent, they struggled to finish and to fine-tune the layout facing issues like where to visually place dark chocolates in a store filled with sours.
Solution
The RetailNext merchandising solution allowed Jessica to observe snapshots of stores, displays, and product assortments. Despite low bandwidth on the airplane Wi-Fi, Jessica was able to access stores and see how they were laid out, pulling up still image snapshots from locations, taking screenshots, and emailing the images-annotated with notes-to her planner. Upon arrival, Jessica and her planner had finished the exercise, finalizing the merchandising layout in every store.
Benefits
"Without using RetailNext and its merchandising solution, it would have taken at least another two rounds of meetings with my planner, and it would have required getting on airplanes and visiting many stores, as we really need visual cues. We could do store sets blindly, but it's very difficult to get it right. Without visual cues, it's difficult to understand and interpret verbal descriptions; you might think you're creating a perfect set, but it usually turns out to be a disaster.
Using the RetailNext platform, we were able to complete the store set working remotely, allowing us to immediately begin implementing and executing to plan, and servicing our clientele in a manner they expect."
-Jessica Mennella
Results
Optimized store layout and visual merchandising standards.
Reduced costs and improved efficiency for store implementation.
