Knowledge is power: In retail, the best shortcut to success is better understanding your customers and being able to predict their next actions. One of the keys to achieving such success is to be more data-centric. Mr. Nakazawa, Executive Officer at TuTuanna, shares his experience in using InSight to analyze the customer's viewpoint and improve their retail journey.
Right: Mamoru Nakazawa, Executive Officer and General Manager, Sales Division, TuTuanna
Left: Nobuhiro Gonnami, Senior Sales Consultant, Flow Solutions
TuTuanna offers a wide variety of innerwear, legwear, and loungewear to fashionable women. Since 1973 TuTuanna continues to deliver high quality, in-trend clothes at affordable prices. They currently operate about 560 stores in Japan and overseas with the concept of each store needing to spark joy within the customer, like opening a treasure chest, when opening the entrance door.
Relying on retail analytics and hard data rather than guesswork enables companies to make smarter decisions toward higher profits, better customer satisfaction, and having an attractive store overall. It is currently common for brands to analyze their online presence but all too often they overlook the potential of physical stores. Stores have the power of conveying a compelling and persuasive brand story. Tutuanna has always focused on giving the customer a magical experience through their wide variety of products but wished to further enhance their retail journey. The real question was how.
Mr. Nakazawa, along with others at TuTuanna, realized there was a real need for more data (both quantity and quality) to better accommodate their customers. Like many retailers, TuTuanna solely relied on POS sales data, which gave them a one dimensional understanding of their main target.
Identifying problems was more of a guessing game at board meetings and moreover a lengthy, uncertain process. Getting an accurate picture of how new campaigns and products impacted sales was also difficult as external factors kept influencing the data. TuTuanna needed a better way to visualize their data: Flow was the solution.
Though there were initial concerns on being able manage 560 stores and implementing a system that works in all types of floor plans, Flow immediately delivered a multi-store deployment system and was able to collect crucial data points quickly. Flow made sure to support and offer a solution to possible speed bumps best utilizing our extensive experience and understanding of the retail industry.
① An Increase in Productive Meetings
Members within each team felt a positive shift within the company. Mr. Nakazawa revealed that the head office started to have meetings based on data gathered by Flow, even during the initial stages. These fruitful meetings led to effective policy changes at a faster pace. With Flow, head office was able to better measure trends and demographics of each store and implement attainable goals.
②Understanding of Obstacles and Measures to Address Them
The first step of solving a problem is identifying it and its causes.
However, many companies lack the resources and the time to pinpoint the specific problem and therefore lose profit. Being able to look at different points of data allowed the organization to simultaneously simulate different solutions that were specifically tailored towards the characteristics of individual stores. For instance, monitoring traffic throughout the day gave store managers a better understanding of how many staff members were actually needed at specific times during different seasons.
Furthermore, Nakazawa-san told us how user friendly the interface was. This allows for even staff newly on-boarded at the stores to be able to share the same goals with HQ.
TuTuanna's strategy for the future is comprised of three main areas.
① Quantifying customer behavior
②Optimizing staff positioning and shifts
③ Improving execution of shop-by-shop campaigns and improving depth of analysis of data
We plan to set up frequent meetings and to work closely with TuTuanna to best reach their short and long term goals.
Mr. Nakazawa shared that Tutuanna has always been fascinated with visual merchandising and the importance of facades. They are currently collecting more data to compare traffic patterns based on seasonal facades. They are surely and steadily moving forward in creating a three dimensional customer profile using Flow.
