The in-store challenge
Founded in 1946, Savile Row menswear store Hardy Amies has its heritage ingrained in the British fashion history. Its founder and namesake, Sir Edwin Hardy Amies actually started out as an official dressmaker for Queen Elizabeth II, before progressing to menswear, creating several outfits for her royal tour of Canada back when she was a princess.
Amies was always a forward thinker and made fashion history by holding the first men’s ready-to-wear catwalk show at the Savoy Hotel, London. Not only was it a first for men’s fashion, for the first time the show also played music during the catwalk it and the designer accompanied the models toward the end of the show. Now the clothing retailer specializes in menswear, and has supplied customers with top quality garments for over 60 years.
The best of both worlds
After investing heavily in its online presence in 2015, Hardy Amies wanted to bring an element of its online experience in store. It was keen to appeal to its new digital-savvy, trend led customer base while maintaining its heritage that has been so integral to the tailor’s success for many years. With only a small team, and limited brand budget, Hardy Amies turned to Elo to help it deliver an innovative, omni-channel approach in its store. Elo’s touchscreen solutions offered installation flexibility and came in various sizes to suit any placement. They were more visible from afar, and built with a rugged, sleek design and advanced touchscreen capabilities.
To emulate the pioneering approach of its founder, the Hardy Amies store needed to be positioned and seen as forward-thinking by customers and competitors alike. They needed to differentiate themselves with a more visually appealing proposition to help blend online and offline customer experiences. They decided to start with an update to their window display. But they wanted something very different to the traditional visual merchandising solutions, which were dated, repetitive and time-consuming to update. This journey brought them to Elo, and a 70-inch Elo touchscreen. For flexibility, they mounted this in an enclosure that could be moved and placed dependent on the content.
A seasonal surprise
Making the most of the upcoming holiday season and recent retail trends around Black Friday, Hardy Amies used the screen to launch an outerwear promotion, followed by a Christmas outerwear campaign. They created video content and imagery to advertise promotions to those walking past its Savile Row flagship store.
Despite not running the campaign online or anywhere else other than on the Elo screen, it led to a direct increase in outerwear sales of 30%. During the campaign, the screen was displayed in both landscape and portrait formats in the window and at the front of the store. They also used the screen in store, enabling customers to browse the Hardy Amies website and interact with the content displayed.
The Elo screen made it easy for Hardy Amies staff to seamlessly manage and update the content. Made of high quality materials and with a large, brilliant display, the Elo screen attracted attention throughout various locations in the store. It provided Hardy Amies with a modern, digital look while still maintaining its British heritage.
“We already had a great website and growing online presence, and wanted to bring a part of this in-store,” said Suzanne Foster, ecommerce and digital marketing manager at Hardy Amies. “The Elo touchscreen enabled us to easily display exciting, visual promotions. As a result of using the screen to promote our outerwear campaign, we’ve seen a direct increase in sales of our outerwear range,” she added.
The project was a huge success and Hardy Amies extended use of the screen post- holiday season from October 2016 to March 2017. Its success has led to Gieves and Hawkes, another member of the Trinity Brands group, potentially looking to introduce the screen inside its store.
