Cloud-Based mPOS Brings Omni-Channel Success To Gilt
By Erin Harris, Editor-In-Chief, Cell & Gene
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Famous for its flash sales — timed, scheduled sales, which may last from 24 to 72 hours — e-tailer Gilt has re-defined the customer experience by being one of the first retailers to bring discounted designer goods to the masses. In addition to Gilt’s e-commerce retail business, Gilt City offers its members coveted access to exclusive experiences in select U.S. cities, all at insider prices. Gilt City operates a wildly successful pop-up shop, the Gilt City Warehouse Sale, approximately 12 times per year at various cities around the country. Because Gilt keeps its e-commerce site fresh with new inventory, it relies on Gilt City to sell exit inventory (i.e., merchandise that’s been flagged and discounted several times online). Eric Fishman, program manager at Gilt Groupe, explains why the retailer’s move to a cloud-based mobile POS (mPOS) solution helped it move more merchandise at its pop-up shops, as well as how the company plans to take overall customer experience to the next level.
To stock the Gilt City Warehouse Sales, Gilt takes inventory from its internal enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Gilt is known for being a forward-thinking retailer, but Fishman explains that early on, when Gilt began testing physical pop-up shops, associates relied on antiquated credit card terminals to complete the transaction. “Our cashiers would use a calculator, add up the items and amounts, calculate tax, and swipe the customer’s credit card on the terminal,” explains Fishman. “It didn’t look great — neither from a look-and-feel standpoint nor a customer experience standpoint.”
Fishman explains that as Gilt City’s Warehouse Sales continued to increase, he wanted to implement a mobile POS solution that would meet the pop-up shops’ needs. “I was in search of an iPad-based solution — something that is compact and easy to set up and use for a day or two, tracks and reports everything properly, and has that elevated look and feel that we exude to our customers during their online experience,” says Fishman. “However, we do not consistently order or sell the same products. We needed a solution that could handle hundreds of thousands of SKUs. Not to mention that we hire some third-party events associates to staff the pop-up shop events. The solution we chose needed to be completely intuitive and user-friendly so that cashiers could feel comfortable and be trained quickly.”
To solve Gilt City’s POS requirement, Fishman selected Teamwork Retail’s cloud- based Retail POS System, which includes mobile devices in the store (i.e., iPads) and PCs or Macs for back office operations. Now pop-up shop associates are able to meet customers’ needs wherever they are on the sales floor. The iPad is a fully functional cloud-based POS system that acts as a retail workstation and performs all transaction functions, including signature capture for credit card transactions, inventory tracking/management, and more. “Gilt City sells tickets online for two-hour time slots for our customers to shop,” explains Fishman. “Within those two hours, we need to be able to check out 300 to 500 people in the last 20 to 25 minutes without having them wait in a 100-person line. With our new mPOS solution, we know that we can accommodate all those customers quickly and efficiently. Further, Teamwork Retail provides a great deal of insight into the data from these sales — how much inventory we’re carrying, information on our merchandise mix, as well as cost, revenue, and tax reporting — which our Finance and Merchandise Planning teams appreciate.”
Outside-The-Box Thinking yields Gilt By Appointment
Fishman is not shy about the fact that Teamwork Retail has helped Gilt become more flexible and innovative when it comes to improving the customer experience for its physical sales. In fact, this September, Gilt will launch Gilt By Appointment, an appointment-only shopping experience complete with a personal shopper and stylist. “We’ve created a beautiful, sleek showroom environment in our New York office,” says Fishman. “During our customers’ private appointments, they will be paired with a personal shopper who styles them with clothing, apparel, accessories, etc. We will use the Teamwork Retail mPOS solution to conduct transactions on site. With new technology comes new possibilities. Once we started to think differently about how we can improve the in-person customer experience, Gilt By Appointment was born — and we’re very excited to see where it goes.”