Selling without the sample
“The Digital Showroom enhances the shopping experience, both for our customers and our sales representatives,” Madalina explains. “It makes it a lot easier for them to sell and help guide our customers to make the best shopping decisions. As a sales representative, it gives you a great way to show your customer their selection because you can group the styles in any way you want: by delivery, category, color markup, anything that your customer prefers. And we have heard multiple times that we have been able to sell a style based on the model images that we have in the Digital Showroom.”
It means VILA relies less on physical samples. “It might be that we don’t even have a physical sample, but the customer would buy it because it’s easier for the customer to get inspired. For us as a female brand, the way a style fits on the model is important.”
The marketing content, in every meeting
“We have an amazing marketing team who loves the Digital Showroom just as much as we do,” says Madalina. “We start with a color overview and focus on our brand styles, then we divide everything into delivery months because that’s also the journey that the sales representative would take together with the customer in the showroom. So we build that digital experience to blend in with the physical experience during the customer appointment.”
The sales representatives use it to tell their own stories. “It allows them to tap into all the marketing materials that we have. We get more out of our marketing images and videos than we were able to do before. It makes them feel empowered to create their own storytelling while still anchoring it in our brand DNA.”
Lighter on the road
The Digital Showroom runs in any browser, so selling on the road takes less packing. “You don’t have to carry as many styles with you when you’re selling on the road. This saves time because you don’t have to pack as many samples, put them in your car, drive with them, unpack them at the customer, and show everything you have. You can bring a selection of samples and have everything else on the Digital Showroom.”
Shorter sales meetings
The internal sales meetings changed too. “We were positively surprised that for the first time, we used less time during the meeting to go through the full collection. It didn’t feel overwhelming by the end of the day; people still had energy,” says Madalina. “When they leave the internal hand-off meeting, they know exactly what they have to do to sell the collection to their customers. They have a good overview of the collection, and their presentations are ready.”