BESTSELLER’s Digital Showrooms transform their wholesale sales business

BESTSELLER is one of the world’s largest houses of brands, which includes Vero Moda, Jack & Jones, ONLY, Nameit, Selected, and many more internationally acclaimed fashion brands. With the pandemic, compromised supply chains, global conflicts, and a world economy in turmoil, there is no shortage of challenges for the wholesale business in the global fashion industry.

We sat down to talk to some of the specialists at BESTSELLER to understand how they have transformed and digitalized their collection presentations and pre-order sales meetings. To succeed, BESTSELLER applies a sustainable and digital mindset to address the challenges within their wholesale business to increase orders, cut costs and improve the buying experience.

Frederik Leerskov Bugslag, Digital Product Manager at BESTSELLER

Can you give us a few examples of how digital showrooms work in practice?

“An obvious upside is that we can present new styles quicker – and sell them at lightning speed. This is great for the customers too. Second, integrating the styles into our inspiring marketing content makes these easier to appreciate. Third, the model shots are part of our digital showrooms and allow customers to understand the look and mood of the styles instantly. Lastly, customers also enjoy exploring the collection on the large touch screen. The Touchtech software is a great tool to tell better stories and improve the journey for both the customer and the sales rep,” says Frederik Leerskov Bugslag.

How has digitalizing your physical showrooms changed your customer sales meetings?
“First of all, for the better,” says Frederik Leerskov Bugslag, Digital Product Manager at BESTSELLER. It helps our sales representatives tell more captivating stories. Also, merging the digital possibilities with the physical showroom minimizes the need for physical samples. Add that it’s easier for our sales teams to prepare personalized presentations, which make sure that we promote the most relevant styles of a collection to each buyer. I would say that our customers perceive our brands more innovative, and they enjoy the improved pre-order buying experience.

Vero Moda showroom in Gothenburg, Sweden

”Customers experiencing the digital showroom say:
This is exciting and a really great upgrade to the way we are working today.”
Stine Andersen, Sales rep at Vero Moda

Helene Vinther, Digital Sales Manager at Vero Moda

Don’t the customers expect to see all the samples? How does the digital showroom experience compare against the traditional well-tested ways of presenting collections?

“In my opinion, our customers get the best of both worlds. The move from showing a few colors of each style to a digital solution where all colors are a touch away is fantastic,” says Helene Vinther, Digital Sales Manager at Vero Moda. “We have transformed a time-consuming procedure into an intuitive process that takes seconds, which is extremely valuable. Our customers are stressed about time; by not wasting it, we make them more inclined to take part of our offer. And they can still touch and feel key items, of course. Another benefit is that showrooms used to be jam-packed with styles. Now, everything looks cleaner and nicer, which helps us improve the brand experience.”

Well, digitalizing the showroom seems to be a significant change. While indeed being innovative and exciting, but does the investment really pay off?

“Yes. Vero Moda is the forerunner in digitalizing the physical showrooms and has used Touchtech to digitalize our showrooms for more than a year. We already see narrower and deeper sales, where customers choose the same styles but in different colors. That’s excellent as we can reach the hit rates needed to produce the styles. Furthermore, it has greatly helped us minimize one of the true scourges of the wholesale market – cancellations,” says Helene Vinther.

“Customers who see colors in Touchtech say:
They are nice; we want them too.”
Jessica Graser, sales rep at Vero Moda

How did your digital transformation start?
“While we had already begun experimenting with digital showrooms, Covid was the real catalyst. And Touchtech offers an excellent shot at serving customers also remotely. Best of all, it mimics any regular online meeting where we share our screens. So, it’s new but looks very familiar,” says Helene Vinther.

What do customers say?

What thrills us is the mind-blowing customer feedback; how customers express that they can sense the quality of styles and fabrics in high resolution. And how Touchtech is much better than just showing physical samples. Touchtech makes customers feel like they touch and feel the samples, even when it’s all on-screen. Wonderful.” says Helene Vinther.

“A very modest estimate is that Touchtech has helped us increase
our wholesale orders by 5 - 8 percent.”
Peter Fröhlich, Vero Moda

Successful selling calls for building relations. Is there any risk of a digital solution like Touchtech coming up short here?

“No, quite the contrary. Touchtech helps us nourish excellent customer relations,” says Kasper Bermann Nielsen, Country Sales Manager of Denmark at Vero Moda. “We can tell our story and use Touchtech to enable a deeper dive into the collection, where customers watch each style in 360 and compare all color options. That adds value to customers. Looking at our sales numbers, we see higher hit rates on the different colors per style and a better turnover. Those are clear signs of how much customers appreciate this.”

Kasper Bermann Nielsen, Country Sales Manager of Denmark at Vero Moda

How has this shift affected your operations?

“We have reduced our samples by 30 percent. This frees a lot of physical space in the showroom, yet we can show many more colors than before. Also, we save time preparing our visits as we have fewer samples to unpack, steam, label, and so on. In short, we save working hours and spend our time doing what we do best, meeting and interacting with customers. Does it pay off? Yes, we see a boost in sales, fewer costly cancellations, and more profitable operations. And let’s not forget that the fewer samples help us reduce our carbon footprint too.” says Kasper Bermann Nielsen at Vero Moda.

“Key customers need to see all styles. A major benefit with Touchtech is how it creates a better overview by filtering and grouping styles based on exactly what the customer is looking for.”
Stine Andersen, Vero Moda

Tell us a bit about how you use Touchtech in meetings.

“Touchtech simplifies everything and saves time. I know that I can present the entire collection with a minimum of physical samples. Instead of ten suitcases with shoes and bags, I just need one when traveling. The basket can easily be modified, and the combination of styles and marketing content helps me tell convincing and sales-driven stories. I can easily customize each presentation. Some customers want to see the products straight away. Others like more storytelling. With Touchtech, I can quickly fix both,” says Linnea Vest, International Sales and Product Representative at Vero Moda.

Linnea Vest, Sales rep at Vero Moda

What about the sales reps? What’s their view on their new way of working?

“So far, the integration has been a smooth process. I have tried different platforms and always felt that there was a lot of room for improvement. Yet, the feedback regarding Touchtech is heartwarming. It’s developed to support our business, not the other way around – and that’s a massive difference compared to other digital solutions,” says Helene Vinther, Digital Sales Manager, and continues: “Yet, you need the right mindset. Some sales reps have done their thing for over a decade. We need to reboot them to open for a new way of selling. The good news? They love Touchtech and see it as very intuitive and helpful for pre-ordering. And they think it’s fun to play around and merchandize the presentations with the styles,” says Linnea Vest.

"I sell more. Especially more accessories as they are not in the physical showroom.
But I also sell more normal styles if the customer has a gap.”
Britta Scheibner, NameIt

Want to know what a digital showroom can do for your sales process?