AllSaints follows a digital-first approach

British fashion brand AllSaints – part of Majid Al Futtaim Fashion in the Middle East – takes a digital-first approach to doing business. Instead of functioning as a retailer with an excellent digital strategy, the brand started to think, act and behave like a digital brand that happens to have some stores.

“AllSaints is known for its beautiful collection of products. But what we wanted to build was a business model that would be relevant in 2020 – underpinned by a ‘brand obsessed’ approach and influenced by the strategy of successful digital companies,” recollects CEO William Kim, during an exclusive interview with us.

Building a device agnostic, shoppable, customer-facing website was the first step for AllSaints in this digital transformation journey. “It took us 100 days, back in 2013, to code our own web platform,” recollects Kim. “Once this was in place, we spent the time to polish our customer-facing approach. After that, the next big step was connecting our over 3,200 employees across 28 geographies to understand and execute this digital-first vision.”

There is a ton of information on sales, inventory and customers. However, most companies don’t have a standardised report capturing these details. “We decided to take an effective approach. We are trying to run the business on an electric engine by building an efficient ecosystem with information on sales and inventory down to customer details. We can see what customers are browsing on AllSaints social media versus our peer group.”

“Around 23% of our customers tell us what they like and dislike while shopping with us. When they express dislike, we try and do something about it. That’s why our net promoter score rating ranges between 71 and 74. The average NPS in retail is 28,” Kim highlights. “The traditional, historical, cumbersome and archaic systems will not work to achieve them. Agile, dynamic and quick processes must replace these.”

Read the full article in our July-August edition