Levi’s provides stores with real-time mobile data

A leading denim brand is opening a store-level view into enterprise data with a new proprietary app.

Levi Strauss & Co. is launching a custom-built app called Retail Insights, designed to provide stores, districts, countries, and clusters with real-time access to intelligent data via mobile device, in North America.

Developed for the stores by the stores, the app was originally introduced in Europe after managers requested better visibility into how their stores were performing to make informed decisions and adjustments. Feedback from the pool of early store managers using the Retail Insights app in Europe was positive.

Retail Insights pulls sales, inventory, and product performance metrics into a mobile app which provides store managers with requested data. This functionality is designed to allow more time for managers to stay on the store floor and engage with customers, instead of having to gain backroom access to data files for checking performance metrics and inventory.

The application is hosted on the company’s new cloud-based Data Ocean, a Google Cloud-based data repository built by LS&Co. The app’s cloud-based infrastructure enables capabilities for managers such as:

● Sub-second latency which ensures instant response times when a user clicks in the app.
● Near real-time intra-day KPI data within the app specific to sales and store traffic.
● App reliability and performance during peak shopping season.

With up-to-the-minute data, Levi’s store managers can now make adjustments faster on everything from merchandising to staffing, and also compare their store performance to other locations to see where they can improve.

Levi’s will continue to add data and functionality to Retail Insights, and is now looking to optimize the user interface and metrics, as well as planning to roll out the app in Asia and Mexico. In addition, the company’s data science and artificial intelligence (AI) team is working to make the app smarter. This effort includes using machine learning to cluster stores for benchmarking sales, and conversion data with sister stores to continually improve performance.

While the app currently reports on real-time data, Levi’s is also working to bring more predictive capabilities to help stores better understand what they should be selling more of in the future. The brand’s long-term goal is to move from historic and real-time reporting to future-looking insights that drive actions and increase sales in its stores.

Levi’s has been working to increase the omnichannel connectivity of its stores since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2020, Levi’s partnered with Linc Global to integrate the Google Business Messages solution into its cross-channel chat experiences. Google Business Messages is a mobile conversational channel that combines app- and call-based entry points on Google Maps, Search, and brand websites.

Levi’s worked with Linc Global to set up Google Business Messages on Google Maps for five and then 50, stores, before expanding to more than 200 stores. The company discovered that Google Business Messages brought in customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores of over 85%, and drove 30 times more store-related questions than its proprietary onsite web chat. 

“Retail Insights really gives us the option to not only stay connected on numbers as a leadership team, but it also helps us explain it in a better way to the stylists,” U.S.-based Levi’s assistant manager Alex Edwards said in a corporate blog post. “It really helps us with goal setting, tracking, and truly seeing where we are throughout the week.”