Delivering innovative digital experiences.
How Accent Group grew sales 10x in just 10 months.
10x
sales growth in 10 months
Products:
Deliver engaging mobile experiences.
Give customers the option to pay online and pick up in store.
Provide the best possible online fitting experience.
Results
10x sales growth in 10 months
30-50% digital sales from Click & Collect
2x conversion rate
“When we reimagine consumer experiences, we can bring them to life because we are not constrained. Magento Commerce lets us bring our vision to life.”
Mark Tepersen
Chief Digital Officer, Accent Group
The Australian footwear company needed to step up their digital game
Accent Group Limited is made up of some of footwear’s most historic and memorable brands, including Vans, Timberland, The Athlete’s Foot, Platypus, Hype DC and Sketchers. In Australia and New Zealand the company boasts over 430 shops across 10 different retail brands. Each brand has a unique customer experience fine-tuned over the years, from laid-back Vans to rebellious Dr Martens to the iconic Sperry Top-Sider. As Accent Group embarked on a digital transformation, it was critically important to execute their digital vision with the same conviction and authenticity as their in-store experiences.
Together with Magento Solution Partner eWave, the company realised that the industry was changing its focus from products and commodities to services and experiences. This influenced their decision to migrate their brands’ sites to Magento Commerce. The appeal of Magento Commerce was the platform’s open-source nature and the flexibility and control it gave them to give each brand a different, authentic feel. They knew Magento Commerce would empower them to create innovative digital experiences for their consumers and change their business in a big way.
Redefining the customer experience with technology
Accent Group started their digital transformation with Platypus, Australia’s number one sneaker retailer. In 2016 the business identified the need to re-platform to improve the consumer experience and boost their growth. The project was designed to upgrade Platypus from an old static platform to Magento Commerce. The main needs were speed, flexibility and a mobile-friendly customer experience — because a large proportion of their traffic was coming from mobile and tablet devices. To address the mobile requirements, eWave developed a powerful Instagram integration to bridge the boundaries between social and commerce, as well as a mobile app-like theme to drive engaging mobile experiences.
Building on their success, The Accent Group started to rethink the role of their retail shops. Instead of only seeing shops as individual plug sockets, they began to think of them as distribution centres too. This mind shift transformed how they deliver experiences to their customers: using Magento Commerce to implement Click & Collect, customers can now pick up their product from one of 70 shops across the country. Since its launch in April 2017, this feature has driven up to 20 per cent of total digital sales. This idea was expanded to include Click & Dispatch, which delivers online orders directly to customers, driving 30-50 per cent of digital sales since its launch. Finally, eWave developed several key integrations to power the brand’s omnichannel strategy, including Apparel 21 ERP and Temando Fulfillment.
The next step on The Accent Group’s digital transformation was The Athlete’s Foot, Australia’s largest retailer of athletic footwear. The brand operates over 130 shops across Australia, delivering a highly personalised in-store experience based on the key questions sales associates ask customers: How do they use their footwear? How frequently do they train? How far do they run? On what terrain do they run?
The challenge was how to take this physical, in-store customer experience of matching the right shoe to the right customer’s foot into an online environment. “We are not trying to replicate what we do in-store online — that would be a complete failure,” said Mark Tepersen, chief digital officer of The Accent Group. “But if you’re going to buy shoes online, we should be providing the best online fitting experience for that customer.” So they completely redefined the customer experience by combining the in-store MyFit system and its pressure mapping and motion analysis with the online MyFit app and pod clip-on device.
“We are not trying to replicate what we do in-store online…. But if you’re going to buy shoes online, we should be providing the best online fitting experience for that customer.”
Mark Tepersen
Chief Digital Officer, The Accent Group
An explosion in digital sales
After re-platforming Platypus, sales grew 10x in 10 months. The success of their digital transformation over the last 12 months has given the company the confidence they need to fully implement their vision of the future. They recently created a digital hub in Melbourne, Australia, to serve as the company’s centre of excellence. Digital is no longer a threat to The Accent Group’s retail business — instead, it has become their pillar of strength.