App Group transforms store experience with mobile POS

The parent company of two Canadian luxury brands is enabling its stores for an omnichannel shopping experience.

App Group, the Montreal, Quebec-based parent company of the Mackage and SOIA & KYO upscale outerwear, handbag and accessories brands, is rolling out the NewStore mobile POS platform and order management solution (OMS) in all Mackage and SOIA & KYO stores. By replacing its legacy POS with a complete mobile POS, the company is overhauling the in-store experience for associates and shoppers.

Additionally, App Group brands now use the NewStore OMS, which enables stores to offer core omnichannel capabilities such as endless aisle, store fulfillment, and inventory management. Equipped with an iPhone, Mackage and SOIA & KYO associates can now serve and check out customers anywhere on the store floor while having access to real-time, enterprise-wide inventory.

Because NewStore is built on a microservices, API-first architecture, it seamlessly integrates with Shopify, which is App Group's e-commerce platform; and Infor M3, the company’s enterprise resource planning tool. This allows App Group to leverage NewStore as the “source of truth” for all customer, inventory, and order data. By giving employees access to this information in real-time, Mackage and SOIA & KYO can now:

• Gain access to real-time customer information, such as transactions across all channels, average transaction amount, and customer purchase activity.
• Manage store inventory with guided workflows for fulfillment, receiving, transfers, and cycle counts.
• Sell inventory from any store location or distribution center to minimize out-of-stock products.
• Increase customer convenience by combining store and endless aisle orders into a single transaction.
• Route orders efficiently to reduce fulfillment time and cost while increasing customer satisfaction, and
• Provide consistent brand experiences across all touchpoints.

Across the two banners, the NewStore platform is now live in 16 stores and three countries, including Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with plans to scale in the months ahead.

"Omnichannel is a game changer for our App Group brands. We are already seeing the benefits of the NewStore platform through new features, like buy-online-ship-from-store, which are driving incremental sales and increasing revenue," said Patrick C. Elfassy, executive chairman, App Group. "Our associates have also found NewStore to be extremely intuitive and they can get up and running in a few hours. In fact, spinning up a whole new store is so easy that we will be opening new locations in Europe earlier than expected."

"App Group is the latest example of Canadian-born brands that are raising the bar for retail innovation," said Stephan Schambach, Founder and CEO, NewStore. "The only thing certain about the future of retail is its unpredictability. By rolling out NewStore, App Group has set up Mackage and SOIA & KYO for whatever challenges the industry will face in the next 12 months and beyond."

Another luxury retailer, Vince, also recently deployed cloud-based, mobile-first NewStore omnichannel solutions including clienteling, mobile POS, inventory management, and store fulfillment in its stores. Vince is also offering a branded NewStore consumer app, which is fully integrated into the NewStore platform.

[Read more: Luxury retailer shifts store operations to mobile platform]

App Group is the Montreal-based parent company of the Mackage and SOIA & KYO brands, which sell products retail and wholesale in over 20 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia.