How Vineyard Vines Makes Every Customer Feel This Good
Posted by Alex Samuely on Mar 15, 2018
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Vineyard Vines’ longstanding motto, “Every day should feel this good,” holds dual meaning for the retailer. The brand encourages customers to buy into the resort wear feel of its apparel and accessories, whether or not a vacation appears to be on the horizon, and simultaneously encourages its sales associates to make the customer’s shopping experience feel as good as possible, especially where personalization and engagement are concerned.
Brand loyalty is a hard thing to come by these days, with retail competition rife and price comparison tools in abundance. Plastic loyalty cards are a relic of the past, and retailer-exclusive loyalty programs don’t hold the same cachet anymore—not when brand-agnostic platforms such as Shopkick exist. In fact, NewStore’s Mobile Retail Report gave brands’ personalization and engagement efforts a C- for 2017, on account of few retailers taking advantage of emerging personalization tactics, such as conversational commerce, access to omnichannel purchase history and in-store shopping appointments.
However, Vineyard Vines—the brand whose products are typically emblazoned with a colorful whale mascot—has managed to keep its increasingly millennial fan base top-of- mind, ranking #4 on NewStore’s list of best brand personalization and engagement. The retailer most notably embeds omnichannel purchase history into its sales tactics. For instance, associates can access an in-store shopper’s online wish list or shopping cart, thereby taking on the ability to point out the desired products in person and potentially suggest some complementary items. This can easily transform into an impromptu personal shopping appointment—and all the customer did was walk into the store.
Well-informed associates have greater potential to upsell products, as well as make the shopper feel as though his or her experience is completely customized. And if a brand doesn’t have the data or arsenal of point-of-sale devices with which to equip store associates? Conversational commerce could be the answer. Chatbot may have been the mobile buzzword of 2016, but only 24% of brands actually offer a chat feature through their mobile site (and only 4% through a native app, including messaging apps). This still remains a relatively untapped market—particularly for brands seeking to ring up their consumer engagement tactics.
Vineyard Vines is using the sentiment behind its experience-driven tagline to fuel its engagement strategy as well. Currently, the brand is sponsoring several fashion and lifestyle bloggers on a yachting trip to the Bahamas’ Abaco Islands, where each of the bloggers is uploading social media posts depicting fun, adventure, boats, sand, and beaches—all while wearing Vineyard Vines apparel and encouraging followers to enter a contest for a chance to win the same trip. In this case, Vineyard Vines’ ability to pinpoint its biggest non-tangible sell—the experience of every day feeling good—plays an integral role in deciding which markets to target for customer engagement. Social media acts as a channel on which users document their experiences, making it an ideal fit for this retailer’s engagement tactics.
Ultimately, brands that invest in knowing their customer—through past purchase history, ways of communicating, or shopping preferences—will see the benefits pay off tenfold. The pool of personalization capabilities has never been deeper, and there’s no better time to dive in than now.
