Fuelling Omnichannel Growth at Quiz Clothing

A house is only as strong as its foundations – in retail, this means building a rock solid platform that can deliver a connected brand experience across all channels. Dynamic UK fast fashion retail group, Quiz Clothing’s ambitious growth plans were being slowed by difficulties in providing the seamless Omnichannel experience their customers have come to expect.
With a diverse network of online and offline touch points, including 250 stores and concessions, plus more than 50 franchises, the retailer needed a technology solution that could power the next phase in its expansion.

Ambition vs application – a mismatch

Quiz Clothing had been working with a local retail software partner for a number of years but they simply did not have the resources to cope with a business that was becoming more complex – as Haroun Saleemi, Head of E-commerce at Quiz Clothing explained.
“We had got to the stage where we were just firefighting all the time, creating new modules that were not fully tested or working properly; that’s very stressful for managers.”
They needed a platform that could provide transparent and flexible order management, to allocate effectively by channel and move stock based on demand, to speed up the fulfilment of web orders in particular. They also needed a solution that could deliver key decision-making data quickly, and scale with their business growth.

The search for a new solution

Investing in new technology was not a quick decision for Quiz Clothing; the retailer wanted to find a single solution that could simplify its operations – across stores, ecommerce, concessions and franchises – and deliver to customer needs across every channel.
Haroun explained the search process: “We wanted a long-term provider, as we’re not in the business of changing suppliers every few years. It was important we found a partner who had a real understanding of omnichannel retailing.”
Quiz Clothing wanted a software partner that could give them the omnichannel roadmap to expand its store network and speed up online fulfilment capabilities – a partner at the cutting edge of technology, who could support its growth.

A perfect partnership

Cegid was a natural choice, as its omnichannel merchandise management and POS solution, Yourcegid Retail, addressed all its major visibility and availability issues, reporting back in real-time. “As soon as any actions are taken in store, we know about it in head office – same for online,” Haroun remarked.
Yourcegid Retail has enabled Quiz Clothing to start adding value to its operations, by fine tuning its buying, merchandising and stock control, and make better decisions about when, where and how often to replenish goods.
“Speed to market is critical for our business, and knowing how quickly an item is selling during the day can help us to make a decision – whether to repeat a style, cancel or hold back inventory in certain channels. There’s no way we could’ve done that on the old system as we didn’t have the infrastructure, real-time reporting, or flexibility.”
Order management has been completely professionalised, with a single view across all channels and operating in real-time, while it can customise documentation to work more efficiently with franchise operations. Since implementing Yourcegid Retail, Quiz Clothing has:

• Increased fulfilment accuracy by 30%
• Raised online conversion rates by 15%
• Improved stock-taking results by more than 25%

“Because of the sales information we now receive, we can buy better and make decisions quicker,” Haroun added. “The relationship with Cegid has to be very tight for all this to work. There are lots of system providers out there that don’t understand how retailers operate, or how retail has changed in last few years. Cegid knows the realities and helps us look for solutions.”

Driving greater cross-channel value

Not only has Yourcegid Retail improved Quiz Clothing’s operational processes, it is enabling the retailer to analyse deeper, more informative customer insights.
“Business intelligence is fairly new at Quiz but it has a lot of flexibility. We now have remote access to real-time reports through any device, in any location and in any currency,” Haroun concluded.
The retailer is now in the process of going live with Cegid’s omnichannel module, building on the insights they have gained to better serve customers who shop through multiple channels, such as click-and-collect and reserve in-store.
Its current business goal is to reach 500 stores within the next 3 years, and Haroun believes that, by pushing the envelope on retail technology, Cegid will help Quiz Clothing reach that target in an innovative, profitable fashion.