Apparel
Simplifying the Management of Promotions in a Multi-Brand Retailer
Ascena simplifies the management of complex promotions across all sales channels and unique brands using one solution - XCCommerce’s Promotion Solution Suite. With the implementation of XCCommerce’s industry leading promotion solution, Ascena’s Business and Marketing teams are able to focus on designing promotion strategies and drive retail sales.
Background + Business Challenge
Ascena Retail Group Inc. is the largest specialty retailer for women and girls in the United States. Comprised of seven brands, it includes Ann Taylor, LOFT, Lou & Grey, Lane Bryant, Cacique, Catherines, and Justice.
Ascena had multiple ERP, POS, eCommerce and OMS systems between different brands and sales channels. When new promotion functionality was required, Ascena needed time and money to implement the multiple changes required between each solution.
Ascena needed a promotion and coupon solution that allowed for promotions to be unique to each brand regardless of sales channels in place. Manual intervention was required by Ascena for any custom promotions that weren’t supported in the existing systems, causing consistency issues as well as other issues with handling simplified coupons.
Our Solution
The XCCommerce (XC) Promotion Solution Suite was chosen as a means to provide Ascena with all its required functionality and to future proof against potential new promotion types. The externalizing of the promotion execution process also allowed for consistent behaviour across all sales channels, including possible future channels. In addition, XC’s fully automated promotion calculation resulted in a reduction of labour required across all channels, including Ascena stores and call centres.
Using the web-based Promotions Management Module from XC, Ascena’s unique and complex promotions were entered into user friendly wizards by brand, enabling each brand to have separate access to its own specific promotions and coupons. This allows each brand to quickly build promotions from its own library of promotions.
With XCCommerce’s coupon solution, Ascena is able to track and control the use of coupons and prevent loss due to fraud and misuse.
Summary of Value Delivered
- Promotion Effectiveness XC provides a broad array of promotions, with rich functionality, support for complex stacking, and sophisticated conflict resolution rules. XC’s Promotion Solution Suite supports Ascena’s promotion philosophy by brand, where each individual brand has a unique promotion objective and philosophy.
- Sales Associate EffectivenessFully automated execution of promotions has resulted in significant improvement in throughput at checkout for Ascena. The improvement in throughput extends to Ascena’s Call Centre agents who no longer require manual intervention for promotion execution.
- Customer LoyaltyUsing the XC Promotion Solution Suite, Ascena is able to support promotions handling across all brands and channels, including POS and E-Commerce, plus other future applications. The result for all Ascena customers, whether in-store or online, is a consistent and positive shopping experience. Leveraging the rich promotions functionality from XC’s promotion solution, Ascena creates future offers targeted by customer segment or individual customer interests. XC’s Promotion Solution Suite enables Ascena to support loyalty coupons for multiple brands as well as its private label credit card.
- Marketing Campaign EffectivenessThe XC Promotion Solution Suite supports Ascena’s multiple brands and unique omni-channel business requirements for POS & eCommerce.
- Market Trend ResponseAscena can respond rapidly to the changing market trends and priorities by quickly creating new and complex promotional offers using the rich functionality from the XC product suite.
- Increase Basket SizeTo increase the basket size of customers, Ascena leverages the rich functionality from XC’s Promotion Solution Suite to create quantity based, bundle, combo, and tiered offers. In addition, Ascena leverages XC’s upsell functionality for consumer interaction during shopping visits to advise of promotions and drive additional sales.
- Automation SystemWith the implementation of XC’s Promotion Solution Suite, Ascena is able to simplify the setup and management of all promotions across all banners and channels, resulting in reduced effort for its Business and Marketing teams. XC’s Coupon Management solution provides Ascena with automated control of coupon issuance and redemption applicability rules. The centralized solution enables Ascena to track and control the use of coupons and prevent loss due to fraud and misuse. XC’s fully automated solution allows Ascena to execute complex promotions while reducing the labor required at checkout, allowing Ascena’s Store Operations team more time to concentrate on consumer interaction and sales.
- Reduce Total Cost of OwnershipXC’s Promotion Solution Suite is the industry leading solution for Ascena’s requirements, a promotion solution offering complex promotion handling and multi-channel capabilities without custom development. In addition, the XC promotion solution could be quickly integrated into Ascena’s existing landscape, optimizing the existing ERP, POS, eCommerce, and OMS solutions. The ability to rapidly integrate and implement the XC solution within the existing Ascena environment has reduced the ongoing costs to support and maintain the sales application solution across all channels.
Results + Value Delivered
XCCommerce’s Promotion Solution Suite (PSS) delivered Ascena the same promotion capabilities without needing to perform custom code in eCommerce, OMS and POS systems. With the elimination of costly and time-consuming customizations, Ascena was able to drive sales and revenues with the immediate delivery of new and complex promotions. XC’s promotion solution allowed the business teams to invent and implement new and creative promotions with the simplicity of a web-based wizard.
Ascena experienced faster checkouts and consistent results once promotion calculations were automated with the specific rules that were required by promotion and brand. Each brand maintained its unique promotion complexity without having to give up functionality due to another brand’s decision. In addition, XC’s fully automated promotion calculation resulted in a reduction of labour required across all channels, including Ascena stores and call centres.
With the addition of new brands, Ascena has the ability to seamlessly implement XCCommerce’s Promotion Solution Suite and immediately experience the same benefits being delivered to Ascena’s other brands.
With the rapid growth of digital solutions in the retail industry, the well-established partnership with XCCommerce will allow Ascena to transition quickly and be a leader amongst its competition.
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