A medium-sized online retailer in the bicycle industry wanted to develop its business model and strengthen its brick-and-mortar presence in order to be able to offer and supplement its online-exclusive services and products offline throughout Germany. The objectives were to improve service for existing customers, tap into new target groups and sharpen the brand's positioning as a premium lifestyle brand for sporty mobility. To achieve this, all online services and products were to be linked to the stationary world and the omnichannel shopping experience for customers was to be seamless and even more personalized.
The CEO brought in the interim manager at the end of 2019 as an expert in retail and e-commerce to plan and manage this profound transformation - and to secure the company's business model in the long term.
Challenges in dovetailing online and offline as well as branding
After taking stock, the interim manager initiated a kick-off meeting with all stakeholders in December 2019 to identify the initial situation and desired state as well as to define goals and a detailed roadmap. A clear goal for the retail business was to double the number of stores each year over the next few years - from 3 to 12 stores.
In his analysis, the interim manager identified numerous challenges - particularly in terms of dovetailing online and offline, but also in terms of branding overall.
One major problem was that standard processes were not in place. The 3 stores were already very heterogeneous. This applied to sales, location, depth and breadth of the product range as well as store concepts and visual merchandising. Customers could sometimes only guess from the logo that the locations were branches of one and the same company. There was also no organized customer experience in the stores. Each branch had developed its own solutions and processes.
Management had lost track of the brand and processes
In fact, management had lost track of the processes in the branches. This also applied to internal processes such as the reservation of goods, online orders and customer events. In addition, the relationship between the stores and central departments such as logistics, e-commerce or marketing was difficult, as there were no clear rules for cooperation. And if such rules existed, they were usually not adhered to by the branches.
Developing smooth processes for sales and the customer journey
The interim manager's most important task was therefore to develop and establish binding processes for all branches and the head office. In the first step, he coordinated the processes for reserving goods, online orders, customer events and marketing campaigns across the board as part of an agile approach involving all stakeholders.
In the next step, he revised the product range so that all online retail product categories were also represented in the stores. In doing so, he took into account the special requirements of bricks-and-mortar retail by limiting the depth of the bricks-and-mortar range in order to avoid slow-moving items in the stores. For customers who demand these products, online retail now acts as an "extended shelf".
The store concept was redesigned to arrange the product categories more logically for customers, making the in-store customer journey smoother and increasing customer satisfaction. The interim manager developed the visual merchandising for the showrooms and accessories in cooperation with an agency in order to improve the visibility of products and information and achieve a higher output per square meter.
Coherently coordinating sales channels and marketing
A major challenge in this mandate was to coordinate the sales channels. To this end, the interim manager initiated agreement workshops between marketing, e-commerce and the newly created retail division, in which the marketing measures for the entire year were jointly defined.
In these and other rounds, the pricing policy for shelf prices and special offers was also optimized. The participants developed clear rules so that customers receive the same price for the same products online and offline - and marketing messages are played out in the same way across all channels.
Target group approach tested and optimized on all sales channels
In order to better address the target groups, the interim manager analysed customer behaviour on the sales channels. He segmented existing and potential new target groups and observed customer behavior across the entire cross-channel customer journey. He used test & learn approaches to identify the most successful marketing activities. He placed a particular focus on leveraging synergies between the sales channels. The approaches for home video consulting, store to web/web to store services and after sales were redesigned, tested and implemented in this way.
Sales increased by 35% after 12 mandates
After 12 months of the interim mandate, the positive results speak for themselves. The number of stores doubled in 2020 as planned. Service productivity is growing rapidly and customers are more satisfied thanks to new exclusive services. This was confirmed in a customer survey. It showed that the perception of the brand has changed positively thanks to a bricks-and-mortar presence, a better product range and exclusive services. The first building blocks for a premium lifestyle brand for sporty mobility have been laid.
A visit to the store has now become an important touchpoint in the customer journey. Customers are offered new services that perfectly combine the online and offline shopping experience, such as reserving products online for collection at the store or making an appointment online for a personal consultation at the store.
The interim manager has firmly anchored his expert knowledge in the company through training courses and seminars for personnel organization, sales and visual merchandising. The employees are proud of the profound change in the organization and of their own development.
The next steps are now to address new customers through further new store openings and additional exclusive products and services - both online and offline.
