Make it easy to manage performance in your lingerie store and hit your sales targets faster
The lingerie market is valued at USD 76,170.1 million in the current year and it’s showing no signs of slowing down.
The change in outlook on lingerie has changed drastically over the years, from being a necessity to a fashion staple and this shift has exploded the market. Not to mention the huge influence that celebrity endorsers are having on the industry. Large lingerie brands such as Jockey International, Inc., Triumph International, Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation, Victoria's Secret & Co. and Hanesbrands Inc. are dominating the market and it’s easy to see why smaller lingerie brands are struggling to stand out and effectively manage performance in their lingerie stores.
So how can you make your lingerie brand stand out and increase sales in your lingerie store?
One of the unique things about selling lingerie is that most of it requires consultative selling. This is great for store owners because it means you’ve got a head start over brands which are limited to eCommerce.
To stand out and increase sales in your lingerie store, it’s crucial that you deliver exceptional customer service and provide that extra level of assistance that people can’t get online.
That’s easier said than done when you can’t be on the shop floor to manage performance every day so, how can you manage performance in your lingerie store?
Let’s take a look at an example from one of the biggest lingerie brands in the world
Victoria’s Secret (VS) is one of the most well-known retailers of women's lingerie in the world. In fact, they’ve had global net sales amounting to approximately 6.79 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, with 26 stores in the UK alone.
This brand knows the lingerie industry like the back of its hand, so it makes sense that they are at the forefront of consultative selling.
With so many stores, you’d think they’d struggle to deliver exceptional customer service continually and manage performance in all of their lingerie stores effectively, but you couldn’t be more wrong. To stay ahead of the competition in an increasingly competitive market and increase sales, VS uses a tool called Review. Review is a digital app which makes it easy to manage performance in any store, no matter where you are.
They used the app first to identify areas which were costing them sales in their stores. For example, they noticed that not all customers were being offered a bra fitting.
They then used this data to determine what they needed to do to alter that behaviour. In this case, they delivered more training around bra fittings and placed a large emphasis on why they are essential to store success.
After their training initiative, they used the app again to measure its effectiveness and saw an increase of 11.63% in bra fittings which resulted in 9.3% more sales!
You can read their full case study here.
How does Review work for all lingerie brands?
Every successful lingerie brand knows that you have to have a tried and tested ideal customer journey which your employees should follow. It may look something like this;
Greet the customer
Ask what they are looking for
Offer their size
Ask if they would like an expert fitting
Bring alternatives to the fitting room
Ask if they would like gift wrap
Offer your signature fragrance products to compliment their purchase
Retailers use Review to upload their ideal customer journey in the form of questions and store managers use the app to review employee behaviour.
Managers simply open the app and work their way through the questions, tapping, swiping and typing to complete the report. As they work their way through the report, they can set tasks for the employee to complete to ensure nothing slips through the net. For example, they may notice that they didn’t offer an expert fitting, you can set a task to offer 10 fittings in that week to ensure they remember.
When done, the app automatically collates the data to create a colour-coded action report highlighting areas of strength and weakness. This makes it super simple to see what they need to do to improve.
Once the manager has submitted the report, anyone in head office can access it. This is useful because it means you’ve got your finger on the pulse of all your lingerie stores no matter where you are. This makes it effortless to manage performance in your lingerie store and hit sales targets faster.
What’s even better is that the more reports are collected, the more data you have to analyse.
For example, if you had stores across the whole of the UK, the app would collate data from the different locations, benchmarking them against each other so you could see which regions were performing the best.
No matter how detailed your ideal customer journey is, you can add every step to the platform to ensure it is followed.
Why is it important to focus heavily on customer experience in lingerie stores
Because buying lingerie is such an intimate experience, it’s crucial that you make customers feel comfortable and relaxed. If they’re made to feel awkward or unwanted, then they’re more likely to leave than if they were just in a grocery store, for example.
If you’re leaving service down to your employees with no real gauge on behaviours that are occurring on your shop floor, this can cost you a huge amount of sales.
For example, let’s say most of your lingerie employees aren’t greeting your customers at the door. As a result, potential customers are leaving before the store assistant has had a chance to offer a bra fitting because they aren’t being made to feel welcomed.
You can measure your sales numbers at this stage as a benchmark and then publish training around the importance of making customers feel welcome.
After employees have done the training for a month or two, you can use the platform to see if they are putting their learning into action. Let’s say 30% more employees are welcoming employees at the door, and your sales numbers have increased by 10% from this point; there’s a strong chance that it’s down to customer welcoming.
From there, you can publish company-wide training around the necessity of making customers feel welcome in your lingerie stores. You’re no longer publishing training and hoping for the best; you’re using stats which prove what works and what doesn’t
How will this help me hit my sales targets faster?
When you don’t measure what’s happening on the shop floor of your lingerie store, it’s easy for poor behaviour, lack of knowledge and missed opportunities to slip through the net. This makes hitting sales targets a difficult and lengthy process.
When you use an app like Review, it makes it drastically quicker to work out what’s affecting your sales numbers.
The more reports you do, the more data you have to analyse and the more patterns you can unearth. This means you can refine your customer journey further, which results in more sales.
Just look at Victoria’s Secret case study.
Questions to ask yourself as a manager in the lingerie industry
Do you feel in full control of employee performance?
Do you feel like your training is having a positive impact on your business?
Do you feel lost about what you need to do to improve lingerie sales?
Are you struggling to manage the performance of your large team?
Do you get the feeling that certain tasks aren’t being performed but you don’t have any proof to make the necessary changes?
Are you finding it infuriating that your sales are going down but your footfall is staying the same on average?
Do you want to achieve the kind of success that Victoria’s Secret are managing to achieve?
Are you guessing about the steps for your ideal customer journey?
Do you really know what your customers want in terms of service?
If any of those questions sound familiar to you and you don’t want 2023 to be a repeat, perhaps it’s time you tried Review too.
Do you want to hit your sales targets faster in 2023 and boost your lingerie brand?
Why not try Review, free for 60 days? You can do a pilot so you, and other members of your team can see how it works and try it for yourselves:
Here’s how the pilot works:
1. A personalised, quick demo to check we're both a good fit for each other
2. If that goes well, a 60-day pilot in the field with your pilot sales team
3. If you’re happy with the pilot, you can launch it across your entire sales team
Join the likes of Victoria’s Secret who all use our sales performance coaching platform to improve customer service and increase sales.
Get started now and see how Review can work for you too.
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