Chico's in new tech partnership to drive omnichannel growth, innovation
Chico’s FAS Inc. is overhauling enterprise processes such as order and inventory management to drive omnichannel transformation.
The specialty fashion retailer is partnering with headless commerce platform Fabric Inc. to deliver improved speed-to-market for new omnichannel initiatives. Chico’s seeks to accelerate growth of all of its retail brands.
This new technology foundation is based on Fabric’s modular architecture, which will ease its implementation across a variety of consumer-facing solutions and touchpoints. These microservices and tools will help drive Chico’s current and future omnichannel technology projects.
Some specific examples of Chico’s omnichannel offerings include its December 2021 same-day delivery partnership with Walmart’s white label Go Local delivery service. Same-day delivery via Walmart GoLocal is the latest omnichannel offering from Chico’s. In December 2020, the company partnered with delivery platform Roadie to provide same-day delivery in as little as four hours at 97% of its stores.
In addition, as the retailer began shuttering stores due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, it provided store managers with handheld devices containing proprietary styling software, called Style Connect that enabled them to communicate directly with the majority of its customers to drive the frontline business to digital fulfillment. Chico’s has continued to leverage Style Connect to increase sales as part of its omnichannel “post-COVID-19 operating model.”
Chico's will also leverage Fabric's platform for inventory management. As a result, the company intends to enable a “single source of truth” to accurately track inventory across all channels, as well as enhance accuracy and transparency across all three of its brands and improve omnichannel customer experiences.
“Fabric understood our strategy and brought to the table a technology solution and vision that fit perfectly,” said Jay Topper, chief digital officer of Chico's FAS. “We were drawn to their business-first thinking and modular architecture, which in today's commerce world is a must-have. We believe this relationship developed at the perfect time for both of our companies. From top to bottom, fabric's like-minded team could not be more culturally aligned to Chico's FAS. Superior order management capabilities are at the center of today's and tomorrow's commerce solutions. There just aren't many platforms out there that understand this and could check all our boxes, but Fabric did."
"We are thrilled that Chico's FAS has partnered with fabric to drive their innovative customer-centric approach," said Faisal Masud, CEO of Fabric. "We are continuously impressed by their strategy, ideas, and commitment to their customers. Our approach to headless, composable, and API-driven capabilities will give Chico's FAS the tools they need to stay ahead of the curve in today's rapidly changing omnichannel retail environment. We could not have picked a more perfect anchor client for what we also consider to be the heartbeat of the commerce ecosystem."
Based in Sanibel Island, Fla., Chico’s FAS operates three brands - Chico's, White House | Black Market, and Soma. As of Oct. 30, 2021, the company operated 1,279 stores in the U.S. and sold merchandise through 59 international franchise locations in Mexico and two domestic franchise airport locations. The company's merchandise is also available via several e-commerce sites and through third-party channels.