Creating Online and In-Store Traffic Through Omnichannel Partnerships

Although many brands were forced to invest a bit more into their ecommerce operations in 2020 than they expected, many still have brick and mortar stores that need attention, too. Foot traffic is down at local malls and on Main Streets all over the world, but there is a way to bring people back to that in-store experience. 

Audrey Gauthier is the Vice-President of Marketing and Ecommerce for Little Burgundy, a multi-brand footwear retailer owned by Genesco. She believes that an omnichannel approach and some creative partnerships are the answer to this widespread problem.

On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Audrey, (who called in all the way from Montréal) explains that customers who are comfortable with both in-store and online shopping will ultimately be your highest-value customers. She dives into how Little Burgundy is driving conversions in both areas through partnerships with local creatives and businesses that bring more in-store traffic while also providing new and exciting online shopping experiences. Plus, Audrey reminds us why concentrating on the basics of logistics and shipping is what ultimately builds confidence with your customer base. 

Main Takeaways:

• Is the Partnership Worth It?: There are common problems facing stores, malls, and other retailers in every country. If you can find a strategic partnership that benefits all parties, you can not only revive your own business but help bring more prosperity to an entire community. (Pro Tip: Metrics matter. When measuring the success of these kinds of partnerships, pay attention to the average order value, traffic, and engagement numbers.)
• National Reach With Local Flavor: Whether you are a mom and pop shop or a worldwide brand, connections are a key driver for success. Bringing local artists and creators into the in-store or online experience can help build a stronger connection to the people in the communities you’re working in that can carry your company even farther.
• Would You Like To Leave A Comment?: When there are open and transparent lines of communication through all levels of an organization, improvements that have real impact can be made much easier. When an in-store sales associate can easily present feedback she received from a customer to the ecommerce or marketing team, that customer insight which may have gone unnoticed before can instead be turned into a new solution or campaign.

For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

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Transcript:

Stephanie:

Welcome back to another episode of Up Next in Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org.

Stephanie:

Today on the show, we have Audrey Gauthier The vice-president of marketing and ecommerce for the Little Burgundy division of Genesco. Audrey, welcome.

Audrey:

Hi. Thank you.

Stephanie:

Thanks for coming on the show.

Audrey:

Yeah, sure. My pleasure.

Stephanie:

It feels like you're so far away. Where are you calling in from today?

Audrey:

I'm in Montreal, actually. That's where my accent is coming from as well.

Stephanie:

I love it. Are you guys opening up your retail stores of Little Burgundy or are you still strictly working from home?

Audrey:

We opened up the office. In Montreal, actually, we're allowed to have 25% of the employees working from the office, so we manage our calendar for people that want to go back to working from the office, but also everyone can actually work from home if they prefer as well.

Stephanie:

Very cool. So before we dive into Little Burgundy, I wanted to go through your background a bit. I saw that you've worked in the world of ecommerce for about a decade, and I wanted to hear what drew you to ecommerce, and a little bit about your journey.

Audrey:

Yeah, sure. I mean, I first started my career after a master in administration. At the beginning after my studies, I really wanted to work for ad agency, but after interviews had gotten me really into retail world, so I started for La Vie En Rose, which is also a Canadian-based retailer out of Montreal. It's a lingerie retailer, could be similar at the smaller case to Victoria's Secret. And I quickly fell in love with all the opportunities at ecommerce and the endless possibilities and creativity that goes really beyond the activation that we're doing, but also in terms of troubleshooting. So, really it's what got me in ecommerce.

Audrey:

And then after I got an opportunity within the Aldo Group and then continue my career in footwear since about seven to eight years now.

Stephanie:

Very cool. So what have been some of your favorite campaigns that you've worked on over the years?

Audrey:

One of my favorite campaign was actually the first time we shot abroad. We went to Mexico City and worked with combination of talents that we brought with us from Montreal and some others that were local based. That was just an amazing experience to be able to shoot abroad for a campaign that was going to live both in store and also in the digital side, so really exciting. And I would add to that that's recently just navigating to COVID and our new reality, coming up with our fall-winter campaign and trying to really connect with the customer with this new reality and just reinvent ourself was really fun and different and challenging, but a good end for me.

Stephanie:

I'd love it if you could highlight what Little Burgundy is.

Audrey:

Yeah. Yeah, sure. Little Burgundy is a multi brand retailer. We started back in 2008. We were initially launched by the Aldo Group and acquired by the Genesco Group back in 2015, so about five years ago. And, I mean, we're really boutique sale retailer, so we only have 38 stores. We're pretty strong on ecommerce as well. But even though we're a nationwide retailer, we really tend to do things locally and try to connect with local communities. Our stores look a bit different from every region. We try to partner also with local influencers, local artists and ambassadors. So, I would describe us as, really, a multi brand retailer that carry brands like Dr. Marten's, Converse, Vans, brands that you can get in a lot of other retail stores, but we even though we're multi brand, we really have a strong artistic brand DNA.

Stephanie:

That's great. So, when it comes to forming partnerships with the local talent or the artists, how do you guys approach that? Because I think that is really important when you're walking into a really fun, nice shoe store, you've got good music going, you've got good art around, but how do you guys think about finding new artists or finding people that are a good fit?

Audrey:

There's a lot of searching, I would say, especially if they came into consideration that doing business in Canada and most specifically in the Quebec province, we always love to do everything in French and English. And that goes as well for even the music in our stores. There's certain laws in Quebec that you need certain amounts of songs that play in your playlist in the store that needs to be in French, so we need to manage our playlist in store so we enough French songs and local artists from Montreal. But that goes as well from people that are connecting with artists. Our musician, for example, from Toronto or Ottawa are really different than the people that are connecting with more local based Montreal and French artists.

Audrey:

So there's a lot of researching from my team, either through connections and contacts or Instagram, Facebook ... just always trying to be in the know of who's up and coming. And also, we're still a pretty small player, so budget wise, in terms of collaboration, we really love to just be highlighting new artists that are up and coming, and [inaudible] the ones that have been seen around by every other retailers or partners.

Stephanie:

That's really fun. That seems like such a great way to lift up the community and really help out a lot of people, like you said, the artists and people who are doing really cool work.

Audrey:

Yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie:

Cool. So tell me a little bit about how you're thinking about, so you have your retail stores opening back up soon, and you also have your ecommerce stores going. Tell me a little bit about how you're thinking about the omnichannel approach and how you want to sync them together so it all feels similar.

Audrey:

I see really that regardless of the channel, we really need to provide the very best experience we can to our customer. In the recent months, there've been a lot of customer that for the time they shopped with us online. They used to be in-store customer. And we saw from the data that the customer that do shop in both channels are the one that are bringing the most revenue to the company if they're active in store, but as well online.

Audrey:

So I think moving forward, we're not only going to try to drive our business either online or in store, but really convert them both. And some initiative in regards to that, for us in our end will be solution like we call [Book Us 00:09:28] for example.