Since its humble beginnings in the heart of Montreal’s garment district, three words have defined the RUDSAK brand: passion, excellence, and innovation. Founder Evik Asatoorian’s passion for art and beauty inspired him to launch the luxury performance apparel brand in 1994, eventually expanding to 25 storefronts in Canada and a flagship store in New York City.
RUDSAK’s dedication to excellence and innovation are at the heart of its customer experience. From the products to each customer interaction, every detail matters. While RUDSAK continually invests in its online storefront—noting higher profits in regions with a strong online and brick-and-mortar presence—the brand’s omnichannel strategy was missing a key element: personalization on a one-to-one level.
That was largely due to RUDSAK’s previous POS system, Microsoft Dynamics 365, which left its sales team ill-equipped to deliver the luxe experiences their customers expect. “As a luxury brand, we’re not in the business of selling outerwear; we’re in the business of acquiring customers,” says RUDSAK’s Chief Financial Officer, Rani Hawli. “It’s essential that we provide each customer with a seamless and personal journey at every touchpoint, regardless of location.”
By transitioning from Microsoft Dynamics 365 to Shopify POS, RUDSAK has gained significant customer insights and elevated its omnichannel experience:
- A unified customer database
- More seamless shopping options
- 50% faster in-store transaction time
Challenge
As a brand whose primary focus is on exceptional in-store experiences, RUDSAK needed a POS system that allowed it to have unified customer data and strong omnichannel capabilities. Microsoft Dynamics 365, RUDSAK’s previous POS system, kept separate datasets for in-store and online insights—which left the RUDSAK team to manually stitch them together with plug-ins, APIs, and specialized scripts. Not only did these workarounds sap the team’s valuable time, but they often broke with minor mistakes, such as when customers would add an extra space to their names during in-store transactions.
On top of clunky workflows, siloed datasets prevented the team from offering the personalized shopping experiences customers expect at RUDSAK stores. If a salesperson wanted to recommend a new jacket to a returning customer, for instance, they weren’t able to quickly find accurate data about the customer’s online preferences or past purchases. Plus, the old POS’s transaction times and compatible hardware weren’t as speedy and sleek as RUDSAK wanted for its modern and luxe stores.
Solution
Switching to Shopify POS unlocked RUDSAK’s ability to unite its online and offline data and put it to work in stores—a critical feature for customer acquisition. Leveraging customer profiles on Shopify POS, RUDSAK can consistently deliver top-tier service to each repeat customer. “We’re now able to identify critical data points for customers who walk into our stores while respecting their privacy, and ask questions like, ‘How did you like the black jacket you bought last season?’ rather than ‘How are you?’” explains Rani. “These details are what make a big difference in providing a personable experience.”
RUSDAK chalked up the smooth transition to its planning and development teams that meticulously mapped out key business processes and developed training material for store associates and store managers. That’s not to mention the intuitive design of Shopify POS which helped reduce the change-management and training required for the associates.
On average, store associates were ready to use Shopify POS within two hours of training, and they also had a wealth of Shopify resources to use whenever needed. “Generally, about 20% of employees tend to be dissatisfied when we roll out new technology, but we didn’t find that kind of resistance when adopting Shopify POS,” explains Rani. Plus, no more antiquated registers to slow things down. With sleek tablets powered by Shopify POS in hand, the sales team could provide on-the-spot guidance for shoppers, recommending products that fit their style and quickly answering questions with confidence.
Results
Unifying and centralizing customer data with Shopify POS ensured RUDSAK wasn’t simply gathering data for the sake of it—it’s making a direct impact on the brand’s ability to deliver one-to-one shopping experiences. “We're clearly benefiting from a unified customer database, and we’re capturing almost double the customer data as well,” Rani says.
RUDSAK now offers frictionless in-store pickup for online orders and “ship to home” options for in-store purchases, a huge benefit for tourists who don’t want to limit their cart to whatever they can carry the rest of the day. Shopify POS also helped slash in-store transaction time in half, averaging less than a minute per purchase. The brand’s seamless customer experience even expands past the transaction itself, as customers can easily return items or use their warranty thanks to the POS’s stored purchase history.
Pivoting to a flexible and comprehensive POS system is helping RUDSAK lay a foundation for even more growth beyond Canada’s borders. “It was too cumbersome to match siloed customer data every day,” Rani says. “We can put that behind us and focus on the business at hand, prioritize the customer journey, and deliver an exceptional product.”
