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While many retailers are updating their tech these days, few are 200<\/strong> years old like Clarks<\/strong>. But a brand can\u2019t make it in the 21st century with technology from the 19th, so in 2022, the British footwear brand undertook a massive digital transformation that encompassed everything from its ecommerce sites around the world to the point-of-sale (POS)<\/strong> systems in its 500+stores<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n
The modern take on Clarks\u2019 classic Wallabee design. (Image courtesy Clarks)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nFor a heritage brand like Clarks \u2014 which created the first foot-shaped shoe and has since graced the feet of everyone from Jamaican \u201crude boys\u201d and British Mods to the Wu-Tang Clan and cult antihero Walter White \u2014 legacy matters, so a technological misstep was out of the question.<\/p>\n
To implement its sweeping digital upgrade, Clarks brought in Meriel Neighbour as Head of Digital Product Delivery and Transformation. Neighbor has since moved on to a new project, but before she did, she took Retail TouchPoints<\/em> behind the scenes of the year-long undertaking at Clarks to share how her team pulled it off, on time, and the lessons they learned along the way.<\/p>\nA Complete Digital Overhaul from Store to Website<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
The 200-year-old Clarks brand has mastered the art of evolving with the times. (Image courtesy Clarks)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nWhen Neighbour joined Clarks in 2022, the company was running ecommerce on a monolithic system that would soon no longer be supported. Clarks decided to use the opportunity to shift to a MACH (microservices, API-first, cloud-native and headless) platform. The company then selected what Neighbour called \u201cthe suite of A\u2019s\u201d \u2014 add-on technologies to round out the ecommerce experience: Algolia for search and recommendations, Amplience for content and digital asset management, Akeneo for product information management (PIM) and Adyen for payment services. (Despite it ending up that way, the letter \u201cA\u201d was not a requirement.)<\/p>\n
That was supposed to be the whole of Neighbour\u2019s remit: roll out this new global ecommerce ecosystem across the 100+ markets where the company sells online. \u201cA lot of the theory behind what we were doing, quite apart from the fact that [the current tech was no longer supported], was that the U.S. had operated in its silo, the UK in its silo, even the UK outlet in its silo, Europe in its silo,\u201d recounted Neighbour in an interview with Retail TouchPoints<\/em>. \u201cWe wanted to consolidate that and bring it back to a global solution<\/strong>, and then bring everything in-house from some third parties that we\u2019ve traded through historically.\u201d<\/p>\nThat already quite large project was well underway when Neighbour encountered a curveball. A separate team at Clarks also was transitioning to a new POS and order management vendor, NewStore. \u201cYou can\u2019t have an ecommerce platform without the order management side, so all of that came into my space,\u201d said Neighbour. \u201cI had to realign teams in terms of delivery, reshape everything and then just crack on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crack on they did. Development on the POS and OMS pieces of the equation began in January 2023 and were live in the first U.S. store by August, with the rest of the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico following quickly. The first tranche of new ecommerce sites, which included Clarks\u2019 largest market of the UK and Ireland, was then rolled out in September 2023, arriving just in time for Black Friday along with the new POS system in stores.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe breathed a little bit over Christmas, had a bit of turkey, and then at the back end of January, we started on the full POS rollout, cash-and-carry-wise, across the UK, UK outlet, UK franchise and the whole of Europe,\u201d said Neighbour. That was completed by the end of April, along with 40<\/strong> more new ecommerce storefronts that went live over Easter weekend.<\/p>\nDifferentiating on Experience, Online and in Stores<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
Image courtesy Clarks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\nThe entire infrastructure is now just a little over one<\/strong> year old, and Neighbour said it has completely changed the Clarks customer experience. \u201cLots of retailers talk about omnichannel,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat people usually mean by that is, you can buy it online and if you\u2019re walking past a store, you can return it in store. But the store still has to send it back to the warehouse to be processed for you to get your refund, which might take three<\/strong> weeks.<\/p>\n\u201cIn a total omnichannel world, you can take it back to the store and get your refund there and then, because they can find you as a customer, they can find your order, they can check the product, and they can give you your refund,\u201d Neighbour noted. \u201cThat\u2019s part of that seamless journey that we can now offer our customers<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\nAnd that\u2019s not all. With this total ecosystem upgrade, Clarks also now:<\/p>\n
\nAccepts digital payment methods<\/strong> like Apple Pay and Google Pay, both online and in stores;<\/li>\nEnables social login<\/strong> on its ecommerce site;<\/li>\nHas a website that is aesthetically aligned with its stores<\/strong>;<\/li>\nEmpowers associates with mobile checkout capabilities<\/strong> so there\u2019s no longer a need to \u201cdrag customers over to the cash wrap to checkout\u201d;<\/li>\nAllows employees to stay with customers while sizes and colors are brought from the back room through the NewStore Runner app solution<\/strong>; and<\/li>\nAccepts and sells gift cards both online and in stores<\/strong>, which can then be used interchangeably in any digital or physical venue.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\u201cIt\u2019s about growing that personal experience and really homing in on the personal interaction with people; that\u2019s what will differentiate you<\/strong>,\u201d said Neighbour. \u201cI can go and get a pair of shoes in another store down the road, but the experience that I have in Clarks, in terms of the care they take with me, the questions they ask me about size and fit and color and what I\u2019m going to use it for, and having that time to spend with a customer \u2014 which this whole new experience in the store has enabled \u2014 is great.\u201d<\/p>\nAnd Neighbour said associates are loving the elevated experience as well. When she spoke to RTP<\/em>, the all-important back-to-school shopping season had just wrapped up. \u201cThe feedback we heard from the team members in the stores has been phenomenal,\u201d Neighbour said. \u201cThey said they wouldn\u2019t have been able to get through [the back-to-school rush] if they hadn\u2019t had the mobile devices. Being able to take the devices to the customers, wherever they are, was a big one.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
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