The Challenge

An apparel and accessories brand with deep roots in the catalog business turned to EDITED’s Merchandising Experience Platform, consisting of EDITED Market™, EDITED Digital™, and EDITED Research™ as a comprehensive solution to maintain their focus on their customer, Lucy as they transform into a digital-centric company. Lucy, the Boston Proper customer, wants to shop the entire outfit they see on the Boston Proper website or in the catalog. The Boston Proper team recognized that they needed to enhance their customer’s experience and help her buy all the coordinating pieces, including accessories and shoes.  Additionally, the team wanted to be sure that they were refining their assortment to anticipate their customers’ needs, optimize pricing and promotions, and meet demand.

The Solution

“We use EDITED for industry trends, to help us really understand what’s going on in the marketplace, and to understand what is behind our own internal data so we can take immediate action on our business. Data, customer insights, and industry trends feed the product and creative teams, and guide us as we evolve and create each new collection for our customers,” says Sheryl Clark, President and CEO, Boston Proper. EDITED Digital emails every user a customizable daily executive reporting dashboard showing their defined key performance indicators (KPIs) every morning. These dashboards enable the team to understand Lucy’s engagement with the business and show opportunities for optimization. The teams use this intelligence to support Boston Proper in creating new products and collections that position Boston Proper as a go-to outfit and wardrobe resource.

The Results

Using the EDITED Market technology, the merchandising team uses market data to see where Boston Proper sits in relation to competitors to spot product and pricing opportunities for their customers. 

Then, using the EDITED Digital order affinities functionality, the team can isolate the units per transaction (UPT) drivers to validate that accessories, for example, are an important UPT driver. This helps the company analyze their assortment and do a better job of offering the whole outfit to their customer. 

Additionally, EDITED’s team of research analysts provides comprehensive retail analysis and strategy reports backed by market data. These research reports support Boston Proper’s promotion strategy and provide market intelligence. “EDITED Research is a huge added benefit. The retail reports are distributed all around the business. For example, the Black Friday reporting was hugely valuable! The reports help the team get a better feel for inventory, and we also use them to figure out promotion activity,“ says Adrian Miramontes, CFO and COO.

The Boston Proper pricing team uses EDITED Market average unit retail (AUR) analysis to check item pricing in relation to their competitive set. The team is able to identify those items that were underpriced and adjust accordingly, for example, increasing one season’s AUR by 10%. Then, using the EDITED Digital dimensions tool, the pricing team can monitor those decisions closely by watching unit velocity versus sales dollars to validate or change prices. Since Boston Proper does not have physical stores, they can immediately implement any price shifts.
The EDITED enterprise intelligence technology supports the planning team at Boston Proper in analyzing their marketing spend spending and strategically identifying where markdown monies should be spent.