Image: FashionUnited, Wired Smarter

“We strongly believe that the retail of the future is still developing in physical retail,” said Sandrine Deveaux, executive vice president of future retail at luxury fashion platform Farfetch, during a talk at Wired Smarter. The multi-track business conference, which took place on October 11 in London, explored the future of retail, money and security, bringing together industry experts and executives to share insights through exhibits, presentations and panel discussions.
“One thing about luxury is that emotion is driven by the people. The magic is still happening in seeing the product, trying on the product and interacting with the sale associate who makes all of these experiences really unique,” Deveaux, who is at the helm of Farfetch’s retail innovation unit, continued in the talk titled ‘Digitally enhanced: The store of the future is here, almost’. This is why the e-tailer acquired British luxury boutique Browns back in 2015 as part of its omni-channel growth strategy.
“We really quickly used it as a test lab where we started to launch new types of models,” Deveaux said. In recent years, the retailer took Browns as a platform for innovation looking to blend physical and digital components in its brick-and-mortar stores. Following the closure of the Browns East Shoreditch store in September, Farfetch now focuses on its flagship Browns Brook Street, which opened last year in the heart of Mayfair.
Browns as a “test lab” for new retail models
In luxury retail, one of the most important factors, according to Deveaux, is the empowerment of the sales associates and customer recognition. “What matters is how you connect the sales associate with what the customers have been browsing on your website and how you create that immersive data so that when the customer gets into your store you already know what they have been viewing, what they like,” she explained.
At Browns, sales associates are provided with their own dedicated app that serves as a link between the online and in-store experience to access customer profiles, view global inventory, send product recommendations to customers and connect smart mirrors, handle payments and manage other in-store operations. “We have an uplift in incremental sales of around 30 percent in our store because of that technology. The reason being is that more and more of those new retail formats tend to be more entertaining and engaging than just a big dump of all their stock,” Deveaux said.
Through the in-store app, sales associates are able to tell the story of a product without it being stocked in the store. “If you can present a customer with an outfit or a look that combines these products that are in the warehouse, that's very engaging. We have seen a triple-digit improvement in conversion rate for that,” she continued.
Touching on crypto and web3, Deveaux made it clear that everything has to be linked to the physical store. “Don't think you have to just launch a non-fungible token (NFT) tomorrow. It has to be aligned with the physical experience,” she said. “So what we've been doing first of all is trying to tap into these communities by enabling them to buy their products on Farfetch using crypto. This is so basic.”
Farfetch launched in-store crypto terminals at Browns back in February this year and recently started accepting crypto payments in 37 countries on their e-commerce platform as well. “It's a way to acquire this new customer and to give them a sense of actually buying on Farfetch,” Deveaux concluded.

Blending physical and digital: The future of retail according to Farfetch

Image: Deveaux

Please, call it a comeback. That’s what Deveaux has been planning for their first runway show since the COVID-19 lockdown.
At New York Fashion Week, the brand founded by Andrea Tsao had a relaunch that saw them stepping out of its previously minimalist comfort zone. Founded in 2015, the brand was known for approachable, relaxed silhouettes and neutral colors. As they are now rebooting themselves for the next decade, they are still trying to stay true to their DNA but begin an evolution.

  
  Image: Deveaux

“It’s important now for us to show people that we’re sticking to a lot of our roots, but also trying new things,” Tsao said to FashionUnited. “This season was the most color we’ve ever done. We’re also bringing back our menswear, which we paused during the lockdown. We’re excited to relaunch menswear because we’ve seen a lot of crossover between women shopping for men’s pieces and men shopping for some women’s pieces. We’re also launching accessories. The goal was to push ourselves creatively this time. We’re still sticking to our functional roots, and creating tailored pieces, but we’re also trying to create pieces like we’ve never done before.”
To that extent, their spring/summer 2023 collection included expected pieces from the brand, like a beige jacket with statement pockets, but these contrasted against blue and orange striped long-sleeve T-shirts and nearly sheer yellow blouses. They also didn’t shy away from color with blue blazers, orange dresses, and asymmetrical ocean blue slip dresses.
“The brand is a few years old now, and I wanted to showcase a new life for it,” Tsao said to FashionUnited. “We were known for minimalist, subdued, sophistication before. We’re still doing that, but we also wanted to showcase we’re capable of doing more creative pieces. It’s been a grueling nine months trying to create this collection, but we’re happy it finally happened.”
Tailored pieces had a nearly genderless approach to them, sheer shirts would’ve fit either men or women, and a casual hoodie paired with a black jumpsuit worn by an older model transcended both gender and age expectations. Deveaux managed to offer a little something for everyone, which is no easy feat, but mission accomplished.

  
  Image: Deveaux

Deveaux relaunches at New York Fashion Week

Ex-N-able Jamie Deveaux heads up Dropsuite A/NZ channel sales
Ex-N-able Jamie Deveaux heads up Dropsuite A/NZ channel sales
Will lead sales and go-to-market efforts in the A/NZ region in the new role. Credit:  Dropsuite
Former N-able director Jamie Deveaux has been appointed head of channel sales for Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ), expanding the company’s focus on managed service providers (MSP). Based in Sydney, Deveaux will lead sales and go-to-market efforts in the A/NZ region in the new role, focusing on building the vendor’s brand through its channel. He comes into the role after an eight-month stint as a sales consultant at Think Technology Australia. He also held the title of SolarWinds MSP director of sales for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region for over two years, which included during the time when the business rebranded back to N-able. Dropsuite CEO Charif El-Ansari said Deveaux's appointment was part of its strategy for continuing to build on its long term growth. Deveaux said that he decided to take the role as he held similar beliefs to that of El-Ansari. “The opportunity at Dropsuite appealed to me after sharing many of the same views as our CEO, Charif El-Ansari: championing and striving for operational excellence, speedy implementation of new great ideas and building a solid, committed team focusing on the users and partners of our products,” he added. Read More:

Ex-N-able Jamie Deveaux heads up Dropsuite A/NZ channel sales

Far from replacing the personal, face-to-face service at the heart of the luxury shopping experience, new technologies and digital channels are giving brands engaging and creative ways to enhance their customer relationships. Farfetch-owned Browns’ in-store app technology. (Farfetch)
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Key insights
Thanks in part to the pandemic, there is no shortage of luxury brands relying on websites, apps and social media accounts to connect with customers. Some brands, like Chanel and LVMH Japan, are rolling out a further layer of technology, including virtual reality and clienteling apps for store associates, to enhance in-store experiences. The ultimate aim for luxury brands is to harness data effectively so that they can offer every shopper individualised service and communications. This article first appeared in The State of Fashion: Technology, an in-depth report co-published by BoF and McKinsey & Company. The digital tools and touchpoints that are becoming part of the luxury customer experience, ranging from apps to online channels to virtual reality, are no substitute for personal, face-to-face service in physical stores. Instead, they are enabling brands and retailers to enhance the experience. Around 80 percent of luxury sales are influenced by digital touchpoints. Even luxury fashion brands that do not sell core products such as clothing and leather goods online — like Chanel — have websites, apps and social media accounts to connect with customers digitally. Meanwhile, brands that have historically leaned into new innovations are exploring emerging technology. For example, Gucci is using augmented reality (AR) for virtual try-on of sneakers and Burberry for uses like providing shoppers with a digital representation of its bags to better convey their shapes and sizes. Still, stores continue to be where the vast majority of sales happen, and store associates are at the centre of the luxury shopping experience. Hero, Getbee, Kering’s Luce and other clienteling apps designed for in-store associates to communicate with and sell to customers remotely were already on the rise before Covid-19 arrived in 2020 and became vital to many brands as the pandemic shuttered stores. Gucci, Balenciaga, Moncler and Burberry, among others, turned to clienteling as a way to stay connected with their customers. But as fashion businesses enter into post-pandemic recovery, apps are still important for enhancing the customer experience. Clienteling 2.0
When Farfetch-owned Browns opened its new high-tech flagship in London in April 2021, it leveraged technology such as apps to connect customers directly with “what is most important in the store, [and that] is the sales associate,” said Sandrine Deveaux, Farfetch executive vice president of future retail. Browns associates use an app that provides the usual clienteling features as well as what Deveaux called a “connected retail layer.” This layer allows associates to, for example, scan a QR code in the consumer-facing Browns app to connect to a shopper’s account on the store’s site. Associates can then pull physical items appearing on a shopper’s wishlist and recommend other relevant ones. They’re also able to send a list of items the shopper showed interest in during the in-store visit to their Browns account; suggest products not in the store, since only some of Browns’ extensive inventory is available on location; and provide a link so purchases can be made from their mobile phone. “About 30 to 35 percent of the in-store sales are done from stock which is not in the store,” Deveaux said. “Through that in-store app, the sales associate is really able to tell the story of this product and the consumers want to buy it even if they haven’t tried it [on].”
Thom Browne, a Farfetch partner, is among those using Farfetch’s technology. Its stores, which include locations in the US and Europe as well as several in China, South Korea and Japan, tend to be small and have limited space for stock so its associates use the tool to direct shoppers to its more expansive online catalogue. Telling a Product Story
Chanel has introduced elements of Farfetch’s technology at its Rue Cambon store in Paris and has been rolling it out to select locations. It is employing the tool not so much to sell products directly but to highlight the stories around them, Deveaux said. Chanel fitting rooms have RFID sensors that read tags on the items customers are trying on, allowing a connected mirror to show information such as videos and photos of items as they appeared on the runway. Meanwhile, LVMH Japan, in partnership with investment company SoftBank, announced in February that it is accelerating efforts to allow customers at its stores to enter “virtual reality spaces” where they can communicate with artisans in real time and see manufacturing processes. Clienteling apps can play a role here as well, providing store associates with information about a collection which they can share with clients. In 2021, the Hero app also introduced a feature for associates to create short-form videos they can use to highlight specific products. E-commerce and social media are increasingly where shoppers now encounter products, a fact that has altered the relationship between brands and retailers. Of course, these are some of the more advanced examples of how luxury labels are using technology for the customer experience. Milton Pedraza, chief executive of research and consulting firm Luxury Institute, pointed out that few brands have yet to use clienteling apps as effectively as they could. One challenge is training staff on how to properly communicate with customers through these channels, he added. Many luxury brands are only in the early stages of collecting and deriving insights from data on customers to help them personalise their service across channels. Eventually, the aim would be to offer every shopper, or as many as possible at least, individualised service and communications, from recommending products based on their taste when they enter a store, to serving them the most relevant products when they open the brand’s app to sending emails letting them know when items they might like have arrived at a store nearby. These efforts show how brands are integrating technology and digital channels into the way they serve shoppers even in physical spaces. LVMH Japan noted in its announcement that it is adapting “to an evolving environment which includes the expansion of online sales, remote clienteling and support for a diversity of interests among new and younger customer segments.” Burberry’s “social retail” store in Shenzhen, which it created with Chinese tech giant Tencent, lets shoppers unlock content and experiences through a mini-programme in WeChat, the Tencent super app used widely in the country for messaging, payments and more. Digital Past and Present
Luxury’s growing acknowledgement of the importance of digital channels is in sharp contrast to how much of the industry reacted in the early days of the internet and online shopping. “You had to paint a picture of what the customer experience would be like,” Natalie Massenet, who founded pioneering luxury e-commerce retailer Net-a-Porter in 2000, said of the challenge she faced convincing brands to sell online. It was hard for brands to believe customers would want to buy a product without having touched it. “I always used to explain to brands that that they were underestimating the fact that people were coming to make a purchase in their store already having decided to make a purchase, because they would’ve seen the products they wanted in fashion magazines,” she added. E-commerce and social media are increasingly where shoppers now encounter products, a fact that has altered the relationship between brands and retailers. Massenet noted that “wholesale distribution today is very much seen as a marketing function, because brands have the opportunity to go direct to consumers.” Many luxury brands that do sell online are shifting to an e-concession model, where they manage the presentation and stock available through a retail partner, or they are cutting back on wholesale. Kering recently said it would cease online wholesale entirely. While there are several reasons for these moves, such as better margins and control of inventory, a key motivation for brands is having a greater hold over the customer journey, before and after purchase. Fashion businesses look set to continue to develop ways to blend digital and physical. In April, Farfetch and Neiman Marcus Group struck a deal that will see Bergdorf Goodman’s website and mobile app moved to Farfetch’s backend technology platform. The companies said in a statement that Bergdorf Goodman’s digital customer experience will be offered to shoppers globally and integrated seamlessly with its New York City flagship. Luxury brands also see a clear role for technology for connecting with customers beyond physical stores. The forays into virtual worlds and NFTs by several luxury players also illustrate the value they place on extending their brands online. Brands have also begun exploring how they can use technology to make customised items through small-batch production, ultimately helping their products become as personal as their service. FURTHER READING

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