Angela Ahrendts, the new Apple executive, is known for merging the “digital experience with the 
in-store experience.” As Fast Company noted in a recent interview, “she saw a wealth of information in that flurry of flashes–what did customers respond to? What did they like or dislike? What did they share on social media? She thought there must be a way to collect and share such data with the whole Burberry team, as well as combine all six of Burberry’s consumer-intel databases into one salesperson-friendly interface.”
This is a challenge facing many fashion retailers today. With the market shift toward empowered consumers, retailers are differentiated by personalized service. To deliver personalized service, the retailer needs to evolve to become a customer-centric enterprise.
Money talks
Since consumers speak with their wallets, the fashion retailer can start to become customer centric by listening to their consumers. One area where consumers speak loudly, before they even open their wallets, is social media. Social media sentiment analysis of design trends at the Oscars, as an example, can give fashion retailers a competitive edge. Data derived from consumer reactions can help design houses predict exactly which fashions will fly off the shelves and which will flop. This, in turn, informs manufacturing, marketing, wholesale sales, and retail inventory – all working together to drive optimal sales and loyalty.
The art of listening
With the award show season in full swing, we wondered who really drives fashion trends – the consumers or the designers? How can we help design houses “listen” to the consumers? Today, technologies exist that allow organizations to quickly gather data from many sources including social media and customer historical purchases.
To illustrate our point, we are running a sentiment analysis leading up to and after the Oscars. The data will help answer questions such as:
What outfits or styles are appearing most on Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest boards, Twitter, and Instagram?
How do past sales of like styles and color trends inform which outfits or styles will be popular again?
How big data analytics can reveal fashion winners and losers?
In this blog series, we’ll share the results of our analysis, the “how to” steps, and examples of customer engagement excellence.
Want to join us on this journey? Here are two upcoming opportunities:
To learn more about how leading Fashion Retail brands are using innovation to grow their business, please request an exclusive invitation to the “The Art of Listening, Insights to Create Exceptional Customer Experiences” where speakers from LVMH, the Gilt Groupe, Kenneth Cole, and more will be sharing their insights. Contact me at stacy.ries@sap.com for more information.
Join the social conversation and place your picks on who will be the best dressed celebrities at the Oscars. Tweet who you think will be the best dressed using #Oscars and #SAPfashion. At the end of the Oscars, we’ll compare your predictions to the general population!
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