Aspiring women’s retailer Vanity Shop of Grand Forks, Inc. (Vanity) opened its first store in 1969 after Emery and Ann Jahnke purchased the Vanity name more than a decade earlier. The privately held company was incorporated in 1966 and today has more than 180 stores across the United States, the majority of which are based in the Midwest. The company is now owned by the Bottrell families.
The retailer offers customers private label merchandise developed internally in each privately owned store. Their wide variety of merchandise provides 18-25 year old females with practically everything, but with an average store space of about 3000 square feet CEO Rick Weinstein said, “We have to be selective. We can’t be everything to everybody, and we don’t try to be. We try to be the best at what we do offer.”
Weinstein has been with Vanity for two and a half years but has provided Canadian and American retailers invaluable support for more than three decades. COO Scott Roller, on the other hand, is relatively new to the industry. An IT expert who has been with the company for more than three years, Roller has experience in a variety of industries including hospitality, travel, defense contracting and health care. “My focus is on delivering systems and solutions that add value to the business,” he said. He was originally Vanity’s IT Director before the opportunity arose to evaluate the business performance from another perspective.
A MARRIAGE, OF SORTS
Employees in each store are broken down into a series of departments – there are five companywide districts with their own manager, individual store managers, assistant managers, two team leads and the sales consultants. With a recent system implementation assisted by SalesfloorLIVE, LLC, everyone from the individual store employee to the chairman of the board can now track their key performance indicators (traffic, sales, conversion rate, service intensity, etc) by 15 minute increments in a system that “married easy to use technology with operational effectiveness,” said Roller. While this monitoring system is hardly revolutionary for the retail industry, it’s a “culture shift as it identifies where there are gaps and holes in the business and it allows us to take action on the information within the current day.”
More than just a management tool, added Weinstein, he calls the technological update – which can be operated remotely through an extranet site – a “transparent process.” The system enables Vanity’s three unique components: the high quality products offered at competitive prices with great service, and the ability to track performance on an individual store basis. “The type of growth we have experienced due to this system has been organic growth,” said Roller. “It’s allowing us to monitor the performance of every individual to make sure that we’re getting high levels of performance out of everyone.”
The system also introduced a new five step sales training program for store managers to implement directly on the sales floor. It also introduced an incentive program for employees that meet or exceed metric goals, and doubles as a scheduling tool that allows employees to schedule labor based on individual performance and hourly traffic opportunities.
CUSTOMER TRENDS
About two years ago, Vanity welcomed an e-commerce website. Vanity has since marketed to various social media sites because “you need to be where your customer is,” said Roller. “We have a presence in all of those locations, and we’ve got a pretty good story to tell about our product and our service.”
According to Weinstein, everyday of the week the company tracks trends; through the new technology the Company is able to monitor every item purchased, or overlooked, down to the color and size. “We do a lot of homework before any season begins on what projected trends are for the season. Once we’re in that season, we track it pretty closely to see how we’re doing,” said Weinstein. “Over the years, we’ve been progressively improving the quality of our product, the value we’re offering, and being more on trend than in the past, and that’s an ongoing process. You never get there, and you’re always trying to improve.”
Retailers are typically in the business of tracking trends, and Vanity found a means to integrate an eco-friendly component into that system. While the company offered a variety of environmentally friendly products last year to little avail, on the manufacturing side the company’s biggest seller – their well fit jeans – have been keen to incorporate these trends in the manufacturing stage. “Everyone is focusing on being more environmentally friendly, particularly in the jean industry, where the dyes that most of the jean suppliers use can pollute the water,” said Weinstein. “There are new system regulations that have been put in place [for eco-friendly manufacturing] which will necessitate capital investment. It’s the right thing to do, and we’re shying away from suppliers that aren’t using these procedures.”
COMMUNITY
Aside from their extensive size range and fitted jean, Vanity has taken upon itself over the years to get involved in the community. With stores as far west as Washington, east as Johnson City, TN and south as Beaumont, TX, each are localized through philanthropic events. The last two years the company incorporated a national event into their annual fundraisers. “It’s part of our company philosophy to give back to the community we live in,” said Weinstein. “We’re not doing it for the PR we get, but more for giving back.” The storewide event is just one that every individual store participates over the course of the year; district managers and store managers are encouraged to get involved in their own communities as well, “in whatever capacities they can,” said Roller.
THE FUTURE
After closing about 15 stores this year, the team plans to focus on existing markets and expand in areas where Vanity is already a household name, “in a controlled and selective way,” added Weinstein. The introduction of new states to the brand will most likely be adjacent to areas Vanity is already established, he continued. “Everything that we’re doing at Vanity with the systems and strategy that we have in place, it’s all about continuous improvement…and ultimately we’ll know whether we’re succeeding or not because the customer will reward us with their dollars. It’s only looking up from here,” said Roller.
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