AllSaints' James Reid on Endless Engagement Opportunities with Mobile Apps

Speaker A: Welcome to Tech Transformation, where we dive into the latest tech trends, reshaping consumer goods and retail. I'm Maya Jenkins. I'm an editor at RAS News and cgt, and I'm thrilled to be joined for this episode by James Reid, who is Chief Innovation Officer at All Saints. James and I explore All Saints tech journey from a re platforming and shepherding innovation across the enterprise to the success of their consumer app, which now boasts over 150,000 downloads in the UK and the US. How did they manage that and in such a relatively short amount of time? James lets us in on how and the processes behind it, as well as looking ahead to other features and capabilities that All Saints is hoping to add to the app in the future. We also discussed the buzz around Unified Commerce versus Omnichannel. Now, a lot of what James and I talk about in this conversation chimes nicely with our Analytics Unite event, which is happening in Chicago on May 1st 3rd. It's coming up soon. The theme this year is building the future of Unified Intelligence. And while this event is awesome every year, I'm, um, incredibly excited about this year. In particular, we're going to have speakers from Tractor Supply, from Amazon, Sephora, uh, Molson Cause, and many, many more. And it really is shaping up to be incredible. Registration is open now, so visit analyticsunite.com to sign up. For now, though, let's dive into our conversation with James. So welcome to Tech Transformation with CGT and RIS News, where we dig into the innovative tech strategies and trends shaping retail and consumer goods. I'm Maya Jenkins. I'm an editor at CGT and ris and in this episode, I'm really excited to be talking with James Reid, who is Chief Innovation Officer at All Saints. We're extremely excited to have James here with us today. He's going to be sharing some of his expertise and experiences in navigating the ever changing world of fashion and technology. So, James, welcome. It's great to have you here with us today.

Speaker B: Great to be here. Thank you very much.

Speaker A: Before we get started, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at All Saints?

Speaker B: Yeah, so, um, I joined All Saints about four and a half years ago. Now, as you mentioned, I have the title of Chief Innovation Officer. My remit's quite wide, actually. I come from a technology background, um, but I've now added in the digital side of things in terms of both trading and all of our e commerce aspects. And I look after our customer service and customer experience functions. And I also look after our Ah, store design, um, part of things as well and the store build process, um, on the basis that the use of technology or the best use of technology we hope, uh, in retail stores is a really important piece when you're designing a, uh, store operation as well as the aesthetic that goes with it. Um, if I go backwards a little bit, I've, as I say, I've been with All Saints four and a half years. Prior to that I was with an American footwear group called Decca's Brands based over in California for four and a half years. Uh, prior to that with Richemont, which is the big Swiss luxury group, uh, specifically within a brand called Alfred Dunhill based out of London. And before that I was on the other side of the fence doing the whole software side of things. So everything from consulting to project management to education to sales, um, across those roles. So, um, kind of done both sides over the last 20 odd years. Um, yeah.

Speaker A: Well, thank you, thank you for sharing what you do now. And as an icebreaker we like to take things back a bit and ask our guests, what was your first job? So James, what was your first ever, ever job?

Speaker B: Um, if I go back an awful long way, I think the first vacation job, first holiday job that I had was of all things was loading um, metal piping onto lorries for a summer m, which was slightly left field but was great in the sunshine in the summer. Um, I think the first proper job I had was actually in accounts receivable. I was doing accounts receivable management for a soft drinks firm, um, uh, which gave me the first insight into technology side of things because the firm I worked for put uh, an ERP system in, an enterprise resource planning system in. And um, I was seconded onto the project team. So that sort of started the whole thing for me.

Speaker A: Brilliant, brilliant. Thank you, thank you for sharing. So now as you said, you are a chief Innovation Officer at All Saints, a big, large global brand. Um, so how do you balance the need for innovation and the practicalities of implementing new technologies or just technology in general?

Speaker B: It's um, yeah, it's a constant thing to stay on top of to be honest, because I'm really lucky. The team that I work with around the organization are a font of knowledge when it comes to ideas and theories and experiments that we want to try. Um, so my role is less of coming up with the ideas and more sort of corralling them into the right sequencing the right flow, etc. Um, but the challenge is making sure that what you're doing is focused in the right way. We're an organization that's very clearly focused on the customer. You'll hear our CEO talk about a phraseology of the customer is the boss for us. Um, so what is it we're introducing? What's the impact that's going to have on the customer? How do we make sure that that's as seamless as we can. But obviously internally you've got to make sure that it's efficient and profitable as well. It's got to work. It's got to not add a whole load of workload internally. Um, and it's got to give us an opportunity to be more effective at what we're trying to do. So you're constantly taking, uh, umpteen different inputs to a decision process on how we move things forwards. Um, I think the other piece to bear in mind is it's important to stay on top of those as you go through. So, um, you've got easy to doing what we expected it to do. Are we getting our money's worth out of it? And more importantly, is the customer getting the value that we expected? Um, and it's the old adage of not being afraid of, if this isn't working, let's park it and move on to something else. And don't be afraid to experiment. Try. Some will work, some will not. Recognize, uh, the ones that don't and focus on the ones that do.

Speaker A: Great. Yeah, I think, ah, it's key what you mentioned there of the customer being the boss, because, um, if you're not doing that, then what's the point?

Speaker B: Right, yeah, absolutely. As you say, that really needs to be the be all and end all. Certainly from our perspective. I mean, we're really lucky as a brand. All Saints is very inclusive in terms of the customer base that we work with. I mean it does stretch to all ages. We are pretty much 50, 50, uh, split between women's wear and menswear as well, which is quite rare from a fashion perspective. Which gives us a whole different challenge on the basis of, um, it's great in terms of you've got this huge customer base to talk to. It's also a challenge because you've got this huge customer base to talk to. You haven't got a niche, you're focusing on them. Do you see what I mean? Making, um, sure that you've got that focus of what the customer is looking to achieve and how they want to work is really important.

Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. So one way, one technology that has been, um, very valuable for you in terms of Driving that great customer experience has been the development of the All Saints app. I'd love to hear a little bit more James, about the development of that app, um, which was rolled out, correct me if I'm wrong, last year. There's been some real success in the uptake among your customers, many, many thousands of downloads. So what's been the secret sauce I guess behind its popularity of this app?

Speaker B: Uh, I'll go backwards slightly. I just put it into context a little bit as to where the app uh, came from and where the focus came from. So as I mentioned, I've been with All Saints for just a show over four years and at that stage we were operating an E comm platform that was in house written and was a real restriction on what we wanted to do. Um, so during 2021 if I've got my years correct, um, we did a whole replatform from an E Comm perspective from a bespoke platform onto Salesforce Commerce Cloud so that we got uh, a good stance of and the right access to an ecosystem, um, in terms of technologies to sort of support the customer. Um, we used to have uh, or did have at that stage a fairly basic consumer app that wasn't pushed that hard. Um, it was an experiment rather than a focus I think at that stage. And it had some limitations both in terms of functionality but also in terms of platform because it was only available on iOS. Um, so we made the decision that we wanted to focus on a consumer app properly. Um, we wanted to put some differentiation into that consumer app versus a uh, browser based experience. Um, uh, and therefore as you mentioned we picked up the new store one which had the benefit from us initially of being very tightly integrated to Salesforce. So it removed a bunch of the overhead associated with that, um, launched that and it's gone very well. The key thing from us from an app perspective is that there is naturally a little bit of a barrier to a consumer about using an app because they've got to make a decision they want to download it. Um, so a, you've got to put some value into it so it's worthwhile then downloading it. And I think one of the big benefits that we get from a brand perspective is that anybody who's going to put the effort into download an app as that initial first decision point, tends to be a good advocate or a good um, ah, have a good level engagement with your brand if they're going to make that step. So it almost ah, gave us or has given us a good insight into who uh, A subset of our very well engaged customers are with us as a brand. So um, it's sort of, it's almost become self identifying in that way that um, if you've made that step now commercially it has a big benefit. I mean the conversion rate that we see through an app is significantly higher. Um, which is obviously great from our perspective. Again, bear in mind that small caveat of it tends to be a very engaged customer who does that. You'd expect it to be a bit higher, but we've seen that go far beyond that. Um, and uh, we like to try and bring the customer into us as a brand. I mean All Saints is a brand and I can say this, having been there for four years now, is that it really gets under your skin. Um, and we have a huge consumer base who come back again and again, uh, to us as we develop the sort of the product that we do. Um, so that continued engagement and that continued um, tie in with the brand we find is very important to that customer group. Um, so we try and increase that engagement and what we want to do is, and where we're trying to drive towards is provide almost access for the customer inside us of an organization. So Pete the CEO talks about a lovely analogy of the old style wooden um, doll's house, the ones that you could take the front off. So imagine you can sort of take the front off the business and see inside what we're doing. We have, I mean we have an in house atelier who's making garments in our head office in London. So being able to provide what we want to move towards is providing access to that sort of visibility. Um, I have an idea which I haven't got to yet, but I'd love to have imagine a virtual um, back row of uh, access at one of the two Runway shows that we run every year so that engaged customer gets an opportunity to join on that sort of thing. So we've got lots of ideas we are working towards in terms of how we use the app to generate that. I hesitate to use the word loyalty because it comes with an inference that goes with it. And I don't mean it sort of you're buying things to get prizes.

Speaker A: I.

Speaker B: But um, we want to reward that engagement and we want to reward our customers for the faith that they show in us as a brand.

Speaker A: Fabulous. Yeah, I like that you talk about how that customer or that consumer that is downloading the app is probably more likely to be highly engaged with the brand on um, a kind of different level anyway because our audience is Extremely interested in apps and using them to drive value. You do mention loyalty, but there's also that potential for personalization as well. So how do you stay in tune with um, customer feedback? How do you, you talked before about, you know, um, innovating, parking, things that don't work, continuous improvement. Do you um, look to improve the app or change things based on what the users are saying or how they're interacting with it? And you did mention some ideas there. But looking ahead, what are ah, some of the features or updates that uh, you could expect from the app and how many downloads does the app have? Um, if you don't mind sharing?

Speaker B: No, no, no. I mean we are, we're way over 150,000 now. Um, and the apps, it's specific at the moment to two geographies. It's available in the UK and us on both of the main operating systems. Um, one of the things we're actually working on at the moment is the geographic expansion of that, um, because, because the customer requirement in different geographies is slightly different, their expectations slightly different, we want to do that geographic expansion in the right way so that we're meeting a customer's requirements in each of those geographies rather than is an English version of something just rolled out that looks the same wherever you go. Um, there needs to be some differentiation to it, um, in terms of how do you look at things from a personalization point of view and how do you sort of keep the app current with a customer's requirement? It's a constant process to be fair. I mean a lot of it for us at the moment has been product driven. It's around better information, better product visibility, better even down to better merchandising routes and use of AI and algorithms and so on and so forth, as you would expect behind things. Um, so that's a big thing. I mean an interesting step for us is we haven't as yet used any form of commercial differentiation through the app. Um, it's one of the things that we're considering getting into now is um, ah, an example of as we go into the usual mid season sales cycle that you would expect us to do as a fashion brand is start providing early, uh, access to customers, but it would be through the app. So you start guiding customers into that method as almost a default. Um, so we're starting to look at that sort of thing. It's very early days in terms of the exploratory exploit exploration, if I can get the word out. Um, and it's a balance between Guiding a customer in that direction and not wanting to accidentally alienate anybody who maybe doesn't, would prefer not to go down that route, etc. Um, so, yeah, I mean, that's a couple of examples I would draw on in terms of things we're looking at. Um, there will be more based around it. I mean, uh, personal opinion. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a massive fan of the word loyalty with the sort of connotations that sometimes come with it, but it is very much what we see as our platform for engagement with that engaged customer.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Yeah, it seems like it's evolving quickly and uh, has a lot of potential for, uh, gathering insights and learning on, on that customer that you mentioned, um, changing tech a little bit here. You've spoken in the past about this idea of unified commerce versus Omnichannel, and can you share a little bit more about what All Saints vision is for unified, ah, commerce approach? And I guess how does it differ from a traditional omnichannel model?

Speaker B: Um, I think where I look at the difference with uh, a unified approach as opposed to the omnichannel that we've all been talking about for 25 years, um, is that the omnichannel as a principle certainly in my head is very much a. You've got multiple different things and you're trying to glue them together. Um, and there's a degree of overlap and there's a degree of interrelation, but it's a bit hampered because you're trying from a technology point of view to make multiple things working broadly the same way. Where we want to get to, from a unified point of view is I want it to be very transparent to the customer. Or that's not the right word. Um, uh, no, I didn't mean transparent, actually. I want it to be invisible to a consumer. They can't tell that there's a difference between the three the things. Um, we'll be rolling out this summer a replacement to our retail solution in Store, um, which is convenient, is also coming from New Store. But, um, the principle is that whether you choose to deal with us online on a browser, uh, through a consumer app or in store, that same information is available to those three channels. Regardless, if you buy something online, you want to return it in store, that's fine. It interrelates between the two things. If you want to look on an app, ah, to see what's in stock in a particular one of those stores, then you can see that very easily as well. And then we'll move towards being able to Reserve and purchase that. Um, we have a goal where I want a customer to be able to pull a wish list together so we launch new product very regularly. Um, and it's very natural, particularly in this day and age, a customer uses a wish list, or even putting things and holding them in basket as a means of sort of sitting on the couch on a Sunday evening and working through what it is that they want to buy that time round. Um, I want the customer to be able to walk into a store with a wish list, hold their phone up. We can scan, I don't know, a QR code or something off that app, and immediately say, oh, yes, they're all in stock. And then I want them to go to the next step and the store stylist being able to push one button and that fires an instruction down to the stock room to pull those sizes out and pull them up into showroom number, whatever it is, so that the customer can really say, look, I'm thinking of these. Yes, I've got them all. And they're on their way up. They'll be with you in a couple of minutes. And can I talk to you about maybe the following things that will go really well with that outfit and pull that together? I mean, we are really, really lucky. Our store teams are absolutely incredible at that service level and genuine styling that we provide from a customer point of view. So it's partly that access from a customer, it makes it very easy from a customer point of view. It also frees, uh, up the stylists in store. They're not sort of running around trying to find product. It's presented to them. So life becomes very easy and they can spend more time with the customer, uh, providing the guidance and the sort of encouragement that we're looking to do. So, um, that sort of thing down to, uh, scanning a QR code sat in the changing rooms. I need one of these in an extra large. Can you please go and get it for me? Uh, and having that hit the stock room quicker than somebody can radio down with it. Um, so there's lots of ideas coming together, and it's very much all of those things interrelating and being a single view from the customer, I think, to the point you raised earlier in the discussion, how do you make these things efficient and how do you maintain profitability underneath them as well? One of the key decisions that we made as a business is drive as close as we can get to a single pool of inventory as well. So all of those three, if I look at, uh, a web front End, an app front end and a store front end over a commercial platform. There's a single view of stock sat underneath that where any one of those three front ends can see. What have we got in a distribution center? What have we got in a distribution center? Potentially in another country, what's in each stores. And all of them have the ability to get at that stock to provide it to a customer. Uh, I'm really looking forward later in the year to a customer being able to walk into one of our stores, um, want to buy five units, maybe four of the five are in stock, the fifth is not. But with one transaction and one payment, that fifth will just get delivered to them the following day. Um, so there is genuinely the. As long as we've got it available in the business, and it's uh, within reason and within lead times and all the usual caveats you put around it, but we can provide that service to get that product to the customer, which is great for the customer and candidly great for us because it maintains the stock through the sell through that we want to do.

Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it makes me think about going back to the idea of Omnichannel and also the way people shop today and marrying in store experience. All Saints, as you mentioned, has a kind of famous iconic store experience. The way the stores look, um, you've got the seamstresses in store but making sure the digital experience, um, not mimics that, but is as good and that it's blended. They're not two separate channels. You know, people were ordering things online, picking them up in store looking and as you say, sitting on their couch, adding things to their shopping basket is how people make wish lists these days. I know I certainly do that. But um, yeah, it's just, it does speak to that. Um, you know, there's no such thing as like an online shopper and an in store shopper. It's increasingly blended now and so you need that seamlessness to move between the two.

Speaker B: I quite agree. And it's, it's. We have a very strong opinion that the, the bricks and mortar side of things is not going to go away. You can't, you really can't replace holding a piece of fabric in your hands and getting that and getting that sort of feel from something. Um, and it's one of the massive benefits we get from our physical retail estate. So the, um, we always, certainly as a brand we will be blending the two or the three together. They have different use cases, they have different expectations from customer. But you overlap it where you can. And the key thing from my perspective is you're removing any barrier that prevents a customer from getting at what they'd like to get at. The very worst case is you honestly never want to be in a scenario, well, none of us do, where you say, sorry, I can't do that for you. If it's available, we can provide it.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Yeah. That leads nicely into my next question, actually, about, um, you know, you're a big global brand, you're talking about expansion, um, overseas. And as this expansion continues, how do you ensure that the brand's experience, the customer experience, remains consistent across different regions, different markets?

Speaker B: Um, I think it's partly around retaining the identity of the brand and obviously that we have a, A DNA that is absolutely critical that we maintain in all cases. But I do think there's an element of the presentation of, that can vary slightly to fit the geography, the region, the culture that you're moving into. I think we need to be cognizant of, uh, the world is different as you go around it. So you need to, at least to some degree, take account of that. Um, I mean, you can look at it from a number of different angles. If I look at it purely from a, uh, I won't start on the taxation calculation because that gets very boring very quickly and very complicated. But that's a big thing to bear in mind. Um, but, uh, everything from different payment expectations, different customer journey expectations, different, uh, shopping approaches where certain geographies have a higher return rate because their way of shopping is different. So how do you take account of that and facilitate that process? Being able to take stock out to the customer and where you are receiving it back, make that visible for resale again as quickly as you can, or for sale again. Um, there is a big correlation we find between, um, success on sales rates with translation, particularly in checkout. So, uh, it's always a challenge in terms of language, translation as to how far you go with that. Um, the utopian goal clearly is the whole thing is in, is in local language for each case, but there's often a balance with that, particularly as you're getting into product naming and product descriptions. Um, so it's, which bit does the customer require to see? Um, so getting that piece right, getting the payment options right, getting the flow of product on the journey right, because different people, different geographies will browse in a different way. Um, so, yeah, I mean, there's an awful lot of factors that go into this. There's an awful lot of things to do and heavens, I Mean we don't get it right all of the time at all. But it's to that point of make sure that when you put anything in, you're putting the right measurement around it so you know whether it's working or where it's not. And if you do get it wrong, recognize it quickly, work, try and work out what it was and sort it out. Um, so yeah, I mean if we got everything right first time, the world would be very boring very quickly. So it's um, um, it's constantly keeping up to date with that sort of thing.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Maybe consistency in the question I asked is not the right word, but yeah, maintaining that DNA, uh, while tailoring it to the specifics of the demands of particular markets or regions.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean personally I don't think consistency is the wrong word at all. I think that's for a brand like us that have a global identity is a very important thing to maintain. It's how you maintain that and provide a little bit of local uh, flavor to go with things as well. To make sure that we're being cognizant of the local customer.

Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, James, thank you so much for sharing so many, um, of the things that are coming up and the new developments, very um, forward facing conversation we've had. But I do want to ask as well, is there anything else coming down the pipeline that you're excited about or that you think uh, our audience should know about?

Speaker B: Lots. Some of which will become public in time. But um, I think uh, for me one of the things I'm really proud of that we've done, we've really developed hard over the last couple of years is that a lot of people talk about being where their customer is and making sure that you've got the right visibility and things. And we work with a whole bunch of partners around the world who've got a different access to maybe a different customer base, maybe they have a different focus, customer base, whatever that may be. Um, so building on that single pulley of entry point I've made, we've made big inroads towards exposing the product and the visibility of product we've got through third parties and through our retail partners. Um, particularly actually in North America as an example. Um, and I think that balancing of wholesale concession, digital concession and dropship models in all of those cases has worked for us really, really well. Um, and I'm excited to see that to continue to develop over the next um, X years as things get more involved in that way. Um, there are lots and lots of Other things, but I'm having to sit on m. Certain things, as you can probably tell. Um, so, yeah, it's going to be an exciting couple of years. And the, one of the things that attracts me personally to all states is that we're a fast moving organization, we want to do the right thing, we want to do it quickly, etc. So as an individual who has a very short attention span, it's good to keep busy.

Speaker A: Exciting times. Exciting times. I think, uh, consumers also have short attention spans. So it pays, uh, to be fast moving. Um, yes, it does, absolutely. So my last question here for you, James, is kind of a. We call it our fun question. Uh, what is one industry term you would remove from the industry vocabulary or word or term that you think is overused or unhelpful or you just have a dislike towards?

Speaker B: Ooh, that's a challenge. Um, I'm tempted to pick the word omnichannel only because I was selling software 18 years ago. We were talking about it then. Um, so I'm tempted to suggest that one. Um, oh, I don't know.

Speaker A: Well, what's a word that you really like in the industry and think people should use more of? You want to put a, um, spin.

Speaker B: Utterly selfishly. For me, I love the word innovation. I love the idea of experimentation. That's, I mean, it fits rather fortuitously with my role in life. But the, um, I think that's really important and I think there is an opportunity for more organizations to adopt that sort of approach and be a bit more left field in what you're doing and a bit more experimental in things. And I don't think we should be frightened of that. Um, I think it's where opportunity lies. So, yeah, I would certainly, as a favorite, I'd pick innovation.

Speaker A: Great, great, fantastic, excellent word to leave us on innovation. Uh, so thank you so much, James, for talking with us today and sharing, um, some of the success stories that All Saints is experiencing and also lots, uh, of exciting things on the horizon. We shall wait to see, um, how those play out. We're excited. We'll have to do a follow up podcast in a year or two to see how those have played out. But yeah, thank you so much for joining us. It was really great to chat with you today.

Speaker B: Not at all. Thank you for having me.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to Tech Transformation with CGT and RIS News. Be sure to subscribe to learn more innovative strategies and trends in the retail and consumer goods industries. And don't Forget to visit ConsumerGoods.com and RisNews.com to sign up for our newsletters.