The Fragrance Shop
Since 2014, MRI Software has worked in partnership with The Fragrance Shop, the UK’s largest independent retailer.
The question
The team at The Fragrance Shop wanted to be able to analyse its in store sales and promotions with the same agility and granularity of its online presence.
Our approach
Much of the initial focus of MRI Software’s partnership with The Fragrance Shop was on what the stores and retail team could control (ATV and Conversion).
The project has now evolved and is about uplifting the Walk In Rate (WIR). This includes analysis of marketing trial / store refurbishment / new launch performance. For The Fragrance Shop, it is the WIR that has the biggest impact on sales with very small uplifts resulting in a huge change in sales.
Our findings
MRI Software’s solution led approach led to a partnership across its portfolio of over 170 stores. Delivering not just insights, but a cultural change within the business by boosting the commercial awareness within the retail team – driving sales through data in an agile, real-time environment.
Together, our analysis enables the team at The Fragrance Shop to monitor performance declines against sales and traffic (numbers walking past the stores); therefore moving the brand away from the anecdotal ‘go-to excuse’ and enabled objective evaluations.
This is particularly important as generally footfall in shopping centres and the high street is declining, so being able to know the extent of this decline in different locations and how it compares, is crucial for both day to day operations and lease renewals.
We also help to correlate the value and number of sales against people through the door. The Fragrance Store used MRI’s Capture Rate and Sales Performance solutions to objectively review store performance and make this a key part of the conversations within the retail team, encouraging store teams look at the data regularly.
“We have always talked about ‘Conversion’ even when we couldn’t really measure it. Now we can it is one of our most important measures. As you’ll know, in retail – once you introduce a new metric and talk about it all the time it should go up (which it has).
Nick Bryant
Head of Business Analysis, The Fragrance Shop.
