Digital and Retail Transformation for an East African Retail & Fashion Business
Situation:
Our client sells East African-sourced goods and clothing to United States customers. While sales are conducted online through Instagram or the company website, their products can also be found within three stores in the Washington, D.C. area.
Ensuring accurate inventory management is crucial to the success of the business, as it is difficult to estimate how much inventory is needed every month and the company does not have enough capital to purchase extra inventory. The client must improve their inventory management and properly scale-grow its sales volume—through the acquisition of a larger customer base—in tandem.
Challenge:
Our main problem was balancing our client's budget with their advertisement goals. On one hand, our client wanted to pursue multiple forms of advertising, but we also had to make suggestions tailored to their budget. Additionally, it was challenging to develop an inventory management system when no existing system was in place—we had to develop a strategy from scratch.
Approach:
To address the identified problems, the team split into four groups to research and develop specific solutions. The first section we addressed was the company’s inventory management. The team recommended an inventory management app which could fully track inventory levels from order to customer delivery. Over time, this service organizes the inventory system by identifying average order sizes to help predict and stabilize future inventory orders.
The second segment of our projects was to recommend some new opportunities for digital marketing. The team educated the client on best practices for digital marketing by creating mock ads for Google and Instagram to help build out a marketing strategy. The team also recommended best practices on quantity and frequency of digital ads and posts. Finally, the team recommended various digital collaborations using user generated material and promotions to help excite digital customers about the business and its products.
The third prong we addressed was digital presence. While the client has a website, they have an extremely high bounce rate and have not made great strides in online sales growth. Our team offered suggestions to revamp the website by creating mock-ups of pages with improved layouts and user experience. These mock-up pages can be implemented into the existing website to help draw customers to the inspiring story of the company and drive sales.
Finally, the team created a strategy for brick and mortar expansion. The client’s products are currently sold in only three physical locations around the DMV area, but there are a variety of neighborhoods in D.C. that would make perfect markets for the products. We recommended a variety of products to focus on for in-person sales and identified four retail locations and neighborhoods that would be perfect partners for our client.
Impact:
Main recommendations:
Utilize inventory management software (Ordoro) to streamline inventory.
Use social media advertisements to increase customer awareness.
Revamp website to improve bounce rate and overall web effectiveness.
Upgrade retail strategy and suggest new locations.
Rem and Company Team:
Team Lead: Mariner Fagan
Strategist: Aurora Pepaj
Strategist: Mateo Di Blasi
Jr. Strategist: Benjamin Smith
Jr. Strategist: Enzo Menditto
At Rem and Company, we're on a mission to keep doors open and dreams alive. Rem and Company started as a social impact initiative offering free consulting services to small businesses impacted by COVID-19. Rem and Company has become an information hub and digital community platform for small businesses in need. At Rem and Company, small businesses stay up to date on trends in their industries, learn new approaches from peers, build a network, and develop the capacity to adapt as the world around them changes. Our consulting teams provide small businesses with the opportunity to identify and prioritize issues facing their business, propose innovative strategies and facilitate execution. If you are a small business owner and want to learn more about how we can help, request a free consultation.