How Brandwise Play for iPad supported Summer Place Reps in achieving a new level of success

A Case Study:THE GROWTH OF A STREAMLINED SHOWROOM

www.summerplacereps.com

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Summer Place Reps (SPR), adopted Brandwise Play for iPad, for showroom scanning in January of 2014. Since then, SPR has nearly doubled their revenue by streamlining showroom operations. This is the story of their successful journey with Brandwise.

WHO IS SUMMER PLACE REPS?

Summer Place Reps is a small baby & children’s rep group of 5 sales reps. They represent over 40 high-end baby and children's lines. The owner,

Since adopting Play for iPad, in January of 2014, Summer Place Reps has nearly doubled thier sales.

1CASE STUDY

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GROWTH OF A STREAMLINED SHOWROOM

Brittany Harrell, has been in the industry for 13 years, has been a business owner for 12 years and has owned the Summer Place Showroom on the 13th Floor (south) at AmericasMart in Atlanta, Georgia for 10 years. SPR also has a sister showroom (Summer Place II) in Dallas, Texas.

In 2015, the Summer Place Showroom was awarded an Earnie for best showroom. Look for an Earnshaw's Magazine interview with Summer Place Showroom in January 2016!

BEFORE BRANDWISE

Before adopting Brandwise's Play for iPad application for showroom

Summer Place Showroom Owner, Brittany Harrell (right), and Earnshaw's Magazine Editor in Chief, Audrey Goodson Kingo (left) pose in celebration of SPR's Earnie for Best Showroom.

scanning, SPR was not new tousing software in the showroom. Owner Brittany Harrell's husband, who has always been dedicated to the success of the rep group, created a custom data entry system for his wife and her reps to use to keep themselves as organized and efficient as possible. As SPR's business grew, they began to outgrow that system.

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GROWTH OF A STREAMLINED SHOWROOM

After one of their biggest shows (at the time), the July 2012 Gift & Home Furnishings show, Brittany Harrell was at her wits end. She spent hours upon hours at her desk (with another data entry employee) keying orders into a database. As she took an ibuprofen for the back pain she was experiencing from sitting, she concluded that there had to be a better way. It was taking 1-2 weeks after busy shows for 1-2 employees to enter all of the orders into the database. "The work required after shows was exhausting," says Brittany Harrell, "and the time spent on the post-show effort would have been better spent following up on post-show orders to increase sales or, even better, spending time with my family". Additionally, orders were getting dispatched to suppliers much later than they should have (as were confirmations to customers). Their margin for error was significant with order entry, which turned out to be costly for the rep group. They had to figure out how to get their heads above water in order to continue to grow the business.

"The work required after shows [used to be] exhausting..."

-Brittany Harrell, Owner Summer Place Reps

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CHALLENGES

For years, the custom-built database was working great for their back office needs, but it didn’t get the orders in as they went along, during shows.

They needed something to streamline the processes of selling in the showroom to support their growth. The following are specific challenges they wanted to address:

• Long hours of entering orders into a database after shows• High cost of data entry help• Lost revenue that was missed out on with show special

upsells and post-show orders• High margin of error in order writing• Orders dispatched to suppliers very slowly• Didn’t want to have separate systems for order writing

and back office functions like reporting, commission tracking and payments

SEARCHING FOR A NEW SOLUTION

SPR set out to find a solution to their challenges. They kept their standards high and settled for nothing but a complete solution to support business growth.

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Like any search for a new solution begins, they took to the internet and began to query Google. They also took recommendations from suppliers and sales reps who were using various solutions themselves. With requirements and recommendations in hand, Brittany saw a few software demos and got price quotes. After a demo and a price quote from Brandwise, Brittany realized that the multi-line iPad app solution, integrated with the commission management system, Reward, was the complete solution she was looking for. Furthermore, Brandwise's reputation in the industry gave her confidence in partnering with them.

THE IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE

SPR began implementing Play for iPad and Reward in December of 2014. When asked about her experience with the Brandwise Implementation team, Brittany said, “It was definitely more work up front than I had anticipated. My thought was ‘oh, I will turn our database and all of these data export files over to Brandwise and it will all be working great’, but it was a lot on me to get the needed data in the proper format. It was a lot of time upfront, but well worth it on the back end.”

SPR represents many apparel lines with product options that include different sizes, colors, and other customizations.

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Product options can prove to be a bit tricky to implement, but when Brandwise puts in a little elbow grease, these products can be implemented to function beautifully with Play. “Our implementation specialist, JJ, worked with us to come up with a solution to show the variable prices for product options,” said Harrell. For their lines without options, Brittany was able to get those products set up in the system on her own, quickly and easily. “I used to have a lot of upfront work with the old database, but I am not having to spend as much effort getting the data setup for the Brandwise system. Once the initial implementation was complete, the time savings before market has been significant .” says Harrell.

The Learning Curve

As with any new sales software, a learning curve can be expected as reps begin to adopt the tool. Brittany said, “We found that throwing away the paper order forms and just figuring it out as we went along was the best way to train reps and make the transition.

"It was a lot of time upfront, but well worth it on the back end."

-Brittany Harrell, Owner Summer Place Reps

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It went really well overall in terms of the reps learning how to do things and find things.”

HOW BRANDWISE HELPED OVERCOME CHALLENGES

From analysis on sales data from January 2013 to December 2015, SPR has enjoyed:

• 37% growth in overall sales (see figure 1.1)• 30% increase in average total order amounts (see figure 1.2)• 68% increase in total line items sold (see figure 1.3)• 57% increase in average items per order (see figure 1.4)• 5% increase in total orders written (see table 1.5)

37% increase

FIGURE 1.1

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30% increase

FIGURE 1.2

68% increase

FIGURE 1.3

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GROWTH OF A STREAMLINED SHOWROOM

5% increase

FIGURE 1.4

FIGURE 1.5

57% increase

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Time Savings

In the past, SPR did business with carbon copy order forms and it was painful. To add insult to injury, they had to manage reading each other’s handwriting on those orders. Now, with just a tap here or a barcode scan there, they are off to the races writing business for their gift lines in a flash. “When we scan to build orders, customers tend to order more because you are standing there beeping through a line before they realize how much they've ordered," says Harrell. "If there are time constraints for customers with back-to-back appointments, we have to be able to get orders written quickly so they can get to their next appointment. If we are not able to stick to the time allotted, the customer will cut the order short, and we will ultimately lose money”, Harrell continues.

Additionally, before Brandwise, SPR was spending an unreasonable amount of time entering orders into a database after shows. Now, orders are sent directly to suppliers as the show is in progress, order copies are sent to customers upon confirmation, and the reps are done for the day when the day is done.

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GROWTH OF A STREAMLINED SHOWROOM

Because orders are getting placed with suppliers so much quicker, products arrive at the retailer sooner, creating faster sell through and more frequent reorders. If a retailer wants the exact same order again, there is a “duplicate order” button in the Play for PC app that will allow order duplication in seconds.

Time for Writing More Business

Part of SPR’s exceptional growth can be attributed to the time saving opportunities that they were able to take advantage of. Since adopting Brandwise, they have been able to increase revenue with additional post-show sales. SPR used to get stacks of business cards from customers who left the showroom during market because they didn’t have time to wait around for reps to finish handwritten orders. After markets, it would take a long time to get through keying orders into the old database. By the time that job was done, potential customers lost interest and never wrote an order.

Now, because there is no longer a need to tackle a stack of orders post-show, they have time to follow up on those customers and generate more orders after market. Furthermore, those stacks of business cards are much smaller because it takes far less time to scan an order, leaving time to see more walk-in customers.

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Utilizing More Show Specials

“Before we would get the grand total after the show and have to call the customer or email them to upsell them to meet show special requirements and often they would just miss out on that special”, says Harrell. With automated order management in Play for iPad, SPR can get order totals and prompts from the system about specials during the order process before the customer leaves the showroom. This helps reps to dynamically upsell when there are show specials their customer can take advantage of.

Saving Money on Data Entry

As an added bonus, since adopting Brandwise, SPR has offset well over 50% of their software fees during show months by reducing the need for data entry.

Decreased Margin of Error Saves Money

Before using Play for iPad, SPR’s margin of error was quite high. The majority of those

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errors were caught and corrected during the data entry process, but that added time and additional employee expense. Now, there are virtually no errors on orders because reps go with the data that is provided. With the improvement in information available to sales reps, Brittany’s management of the showroom is interrupted by fewer questions from reps than before, as many rep questions are answered by Play for iPad. “I definitely saw a decrease in errors because the reps are guided through the order creation process by the app. As they create an order, the app will not offer product options that don’t exist. That eliminates many mistakes and it makes it easier for the reps to sell,” explains Harrell.

Streamlining the Supply Chain

Suppliers love to get timely feedback from rep groups. They want to know how showrooms perform overall, how their line performs, and what customers are buying from their line. Using Brandwise has allowed SPR to focus more energy on servicing their suppliers and giving them more accurate information, much faster.

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Additionally, SPR suppliers that use Brandwise Stream get orders submitted to them instantly and securely during shows, making it easier and more secure for suppliers and reps. Suppliers that use Stream no longer have to sift through their email inboxes to find orders and verify that they are without errors. When Stream sends the orders to suppliers, they come to one central location and are checked automatically for accuracy. They also receive credit card information in a secure manner reducing the risk of customer identity theft. Brittany Harrell says that her reps “tend to prefer to write business for these lines because of how easy it is to submit those orders. It saves us all time, money and ibuprofen!”

Bonus Benefits

In addition to overcoming the challenges associated with streamlining the sales process in the showroom, Brittany Harrell is a wife and a mother of two, who is fully enjoying her newfound free time with her family. “Lack of sleep, lack of family time and an overall lack of balance defined me before Brandwise. But, now I have a work-life balance that allows me to get a lot more sleep and family time than I used to!”

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SUMMER PLACE'S FAVORITE FEATURES

There are so many useful features to choose from, but when asked about their favorite features in Play for iPad these were:

• Writing orders in the showroom with a Bluetooth scanner• Real-time show reporting (daily snapshots)• Product Images to show retailers as the order is being

created• The reps have more information on suppliers and retailers

that they need to take the orders.• It’s Paperless!

Since SPR adopted Brandwise Play, they have been able to use real-time show reporting to get an on-demand snapshot of their performance. With show reporting, they can look at specific lines and give feedback to reps during shows instead of afterward. With this data, they have been able to set realistic daily show goals and they have implemented a bonus program for hitting those goals.

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FUTURE OBJECTIVES

SPR has had an impressive growth trajectory for the past few years and they have consistently hit their objectives which have been: (1) successfully and profitably expand the showroom (which nearly doubled in 2013), (2) implement Brandwise to increase efficiency and gain a competitive advantage (adopted in 2014), and (3) win the Earnie Award for Best Children’s Showroom (achieved in 2015). These three big goals have been attained and they are more successful than ever before. In the future, SPR will continue to offer the best brands in the industry and is considering an expansion into other markets - and Brandwise will be there to support that growth every day.

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Brandwise is an Application Service Provider (ASP) that delivers Sales Software to suppliers and their sales agencies. We combine visual order capture capabilities with business intelligence to enhance communications between suppliers, their sales channels, and their customers. The Brandwise Studio integrates powerful tools that help sales reps sell more efficiently. Brandwise also helps back office personnel streamline their sales processes. Sales organizations of all sizes use our solutions to collect and analyze sales data from one integrated solution on almost any device they choose. Whether reps are on the road or in the showroom, our sales software will be there for them so they can focus on what’s important, selling product to their customers. Over 6,000 sales reps from organizations across industry verticals and of all sizes use Brandwise technology solutions every day so they can focus on serving their customers and growing their business.

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ReachSell online as effectively as

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order captureReward

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for hassle-free back office operations

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