When the brand gets everything right, except the briefing for the store team.
And loses much more in sales and customer acquisition than it should.
Joanna is Canadian, and about 10 years ago, she saw an opportunity in the lingerie market by creating absorbent panties that fit various body types and actively participated in the conversation around body positivity.
The brand started as a digital native, and despite securing major clients like Nordstrom and Equinox, Joanna decided to sell exclusively DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) so she could "offer a more personalized service to her customers."
Today, in 2024, she has beautiful stores with a visual identity that’s tightly aligned with the brand’s concept, located in major Canadian cities, and is beginning to expand into the United States.
When Joanna talks about the brand, whether on her website or in interviews, she often emphasizes the importance of listening to what people want and bringing revolutionary solutions to life. She always highlights the significance of customer connection and product and service personalization.
This type of brand story moves me: unique products in the market made with top-notch quality, a clear brand positioning that attracts a well-aligned and mostly loyal audience that roots for the brand, beautiful physical stores with a great fitting experience, sustainable growth with autonomy, free from reliance on large multi-brand purchases to close the books, and a bright future ahead if they manage to stay relevant in the market.
***
When I returned to Canada, heavily pregnant, a friend recommended that I visit one of Joanna’s stores to try on their nursing bras and pajamas.
Being a lover of a good shopping experience, I made sure to visit their store on the busiest street in Vancouver, located in one of the most expensive retail spaces in Canada.
The store is indeed beautiful and offers a great fitting experience. For those unfamiliar, in Canada they work with two measurements for bras: bust size and back circumference. Since I had no idea of my measurements, they measured me accurately in a charming fitting room and brought me the sizes I needed. I chose a black bra that didn’t cost less than $50 and asked them to hold it for me.
Three minutes later, the sales associate returned, still very friendly, to inform me that they didn’t have the black one in my size but suggested I check the website as delivery was quick.
That weekend, the store was running a 20% off promotion, so I asked if the website had the same offer, to which she replied, "I’m not sure, but you can use my code for free shipping."
I then decided to ask about the pajamas. The ones on display were all very colorful, so I asked if they had any in more subdued, solid colors. She said, "I think so, but they’re stored in the back; it’s easier to check the website to see if you like any."
As a consumer, I wasn’t too upset about leaving the store without spending any money. It wasn’t a product I was desperately wanting, so I let it go. But my retailer’s heart felt sad for Joanna, who, despite creating a digital-native brand that values personalized service, lost out on a lot of potential sales and customer acquisition costs.
Yes, customer acquisition. Let me explain:
All the money invested in renting a store is to ensure that the brand can place itself directly in the path of a qualified audience. She then invests more to set up an impeccable store that gets noticed by this audience. In other words, beyond being a point of sale, the store becomes a billboard for the brand—a piece of media.
But all the customers she pays to attract and manages to draw into the store receive this level of customer experience—friendly but with no commitment to conversion or using omnichannel tools—resulting in missed opportunities to sell to or capture the lead of every new person who comes in to learn about the brand.
Joanna’s story is real, and unfortunately, it’s the rule rather than the exception. Like her brand, many others suffer from the same systemic retail errors:
Lack of store team training on sales, customer experience, and omnichannel usage.
Brands that associate 'innovation' and 'customer experience' solely with retail architecture and technology, without paying attention to the quality of in-store interactions and how they drive performance.
Omnichannel strategies that exist only in theory and technology but fall apart when they reach the brand's most significant and meaningful interface with the customer: the physical store.
This is why I continue to encourage brands to consider human interactions as the starting point for customer experience and performance, ensuring that this is done well before rolling out technological projects, believing that they alone will increase sales and the brand’s NPS.