Founded in 2012, Mizzen+Main is a menswear innovator offering performance fabric clothes that deliver comfort and flexibility without sacrificing style. While they are widely known as a digitally native brand, Mizzen+Main has always understood the importance of physical retail; they developed wholesale partnerships with major retailers across the US early in their history and soon began expanding into brick-and-mortar stores of their own. The brand currently operates 11 stores across the US, with more on the way.
After successfully building their ecommerce business with Shopify, Mizzen+Main selected Shopify POS to power their retail presence, allowing for a unified approach to customer relationships, inventory management, and promotional activities, among other benefits that have helped them achieve strong omnichannel growth year-over-year.
With Shopify, Mizzen+Main saw the following year-over-year results in 2023:
- 27% growth in retail revenue
- 16% growth in retail orders
- 15% growth in online revenue
- 8% growth in online orders
The Challenge: Providing a unified shopping experience in-store and online
Mizzen+Main has faced numerous hurdles common among omnichannel brands since opening their first retail store. To begin with, they’ve found that about half the people entering their stores are new customers, highlighting the importance of equipping the team with the right tools to create experiences that promote brand loyalty. “Our goal in-store is to be brand ambassadors,” says Trey Pritchard, Store Manager at Mizzen+Main. “We teach new clients about what makes us unique and help returning clients find the perfect fit as they expand their wardrobe.”
In addition to the men stopping in for help refreshing their attire are another key customer demographic: the wives, partners, and other loved ones of Mizzen+Main’s customers shopping for gifts during the holidays or other special occasions. With limited knowledge of the specific preferences, sizes, and styles of the men they’re shopping for, these shoppers need to feel confident in the individualized recommendations provided by the team.
Mizzen+Main’s stores are also designed to have a smaller footprint than traditional retail stores. While this helps them create a more intimate and personalized atmosphere, it limits the amount of inventory they can keep on-hand. This means the team needs access to real-time data and tools to ensure each location has the optimal product mix and that shoppers can still purchase items that may only be available online or at another store location.
Finally, discounts and promotions are a key component of Mizzen+Main’s strategy. When applied consistently across both online and offline channels, the rewards of these promotions are clear: “Our highest lifetime value (LTV) customers are the ones shopping with us from an omnichannel perspective,” says Natalie Shaddick, VP of Ecommerce at Mizzen+Main. With this in mind, it’s no surprise that providing a unified shopping experience is a top priority. For all these reasons and more, adding Shopify POS to their commerce stack was a perfect fit.
The Solution: Shopify POS addresses inventory and engagement hurdles
Mizzen+Main chose Shopify POS to overcome the challenges they anticipated as they began opening their own stores, and their success with Shopify’s ecommerce platform gave them confidence in their decision. As Natalie explains, “We’ve basically been with Shopify since the beginning, and we’ve had a really good experience. In general, it’s just very user friendly.” Integrating their online and offline sales channels with Shopify soon proved to be transformative, allowing Mizzen+Main to delight customers while continuing to efficiently scale the brand.
Unified Profiles Ensure Tailored Customer Experiences and Promote Loyalty
With Shopify POS powering their retail stores, Mizzen+Main can maintain a single customer profile across both online and offline channels, which provides the foundation for a personalized and seamless customer experience at every interaction. “Shopify comes into play a lot in-store, especially for education around sizing,” says Trey. “We open a customers’ profile and can see their full purchase history, which helps us make the right recommendations.”
The importance of this capability is even more apparent during holidays and other busy times of year. “When wives, girlfriends, and moms are looking for gifts, they often don’t know the difference between things like a trim, classic, or no-tuck shirt. Pulling up the customer profile of the man they’re shopping for with Shopify POS quickly clears up a lot of confusion.”
Using third-party apps like Yotpo: Loyalty & Rewards further enhances this experience. By integrating Yotpo with Shopify, Mizzen+Main can easily track and apply loyalty points, providing customers with rewards and incentives that encourage repeat business. "Our retail employees can go into a customer's account created online and see how many loyalty points they have and then apply their credits to their account," says Natalie. “That would be very difficult to achieve if we didn’t have Shopify for both ecommerce and POS.”
Integrated Customer Data Leads to Stronger Engagement
The team also integrates their customer data in Endear, a retail CRM and clienteling platform, with Shopify to identify opportunities for improved customer engagement. They send personalized messages to customers based on their purchase history and behavior, driving both in-store and online sales. Natalie shares an example, saying, "We target messages to customers who have purchased in-store but haven’t bought online in over a year," emphasizing how Shopify and its integrations help Mizzen+Main bridge the gap between online and offline shopping experiences to keep customers engaged.
Inventory Management and Omnichannel Selling Drives Growth
Shopify provides Mizzen+Main a unified view of inventory, allowing staff to check stock levels in real-time across all locations. This ensures that even if a specific item is not available in-store, it can be quickly sourced from another location or the central warehouse and shipped directly to a customer using Shopify POS’ ship to customer feature. Trey Pritchard, Store Manager at Mizzen+Main, explains how the feature is essential for meeting sales targets, saying, “With our ability to only carry a select few sizes in the store, I would say about 20% of our weekly transactions happen through the ship to customer feature. Shopify POS makes it very simple.”Syncing Discounts Online and In-Store Keeps Customers Happy
By maintaining a unified system, Shopify POS also ensures promotions are applied consistently. “Our online promotions absolutely drive in-store sales and vice-versa,” says Natalie. “When we advertise our promotions, we always highlight them being available online and in-store, and we see a huge spike in retail traffic and sales at the same time as ecommerce, so we know the two channels are talking to each other.” Trey adds that the team uses Shopify POS’ tile feature, which allows in-store staff to apply discount codes easily, ensuring consistency and reducing the likelihood of errors. He says, "Our systems being so integrated makes it quite easy so that when the website is doing something we're also able to.”The Results: Shopify proves to be a perfect fit
Mizzen+Main chose Shopify POS largely for its ease of use and seamless integration with their existing commerce stack, and it hasn’t disappointed. “We haven’t had any issues integrating the point of sale with our existing commerce infrastructure,” says Natalie. She also highlights that with Shopify POS, the team has no concerns about meeting their ambitious growth objectives, saying, “Creating a new POS location is very easy. Adding in multiple locations over time is not a major effort at all. Our staff finds it very user-friendly.”
The brand’s sales data certainly validates her feedback. Mizzen+Main’s growth numbers continue trending higher each year, with the brand achieving double digit year-over-year revenue growth both online and in-store last year. When asked for her favorite aspects of using Shopify, Natalie sums it up well by saying, “There’s a huge benefit in being able to plug in all the different third-party apps and integrations and having everything housed under one roof with Shopify. The experience and benefits that customers have in their profile online is the exact same within the store.” As the brand’s revenue continues to grow, Mizzen+Main and Shopify seem to be a perfect fit.
Shopify allows you to create a very large omnichannel business at a relatively low cost, and it’s ease of use really minimizes the burden on your team.
