1. Case Study
GOING SOCIAL AND EXPANDING VIA MULTICHANNEL
PacSun shines
brighter with
Demandware
IN ACTION:
PacSun & Demandware
1 website shipping to 43 countries
100,000-plus SKUs
Katie – a 19-year-old girl who is very active
on social media channels – is a big Facebook
fan and uses it to follow the hottest fashion brands.
This young woman is the perfect consumer for PacSun, who specializes in fashion for
young people in the 17 to 24 age group. The fashion retailer realizes that promoting
its portfolio via social media is the most efficient way to reach this target audience
and achieve its goal of being the favorite place for young people to shop.
When Katie sees a summer dress on PacSun’s Facebook site that she likes, she can
not only check out other shoppers’ reviews and ratings but also click-through to the
website to start shopping. And she doesn’t even have to set up a separate log-in,
she can just use her Facebook credentials. PacSun’s socially integrated shopping
experience is underpinned by Demandware’s cloud-based ecommerce platform.
Coleen McNally, Vice President of IT at PacSun, comments: “Using Demandware
to enable social integration has helped us improve brand awareness and affinity,
resulting in more store footfalls and higher website traffic.”
PacSun’s website is not integrated just with Facebook, but also Twitter, Pinterest,
Instagram and Tumblr via which it connects with thousands of brand enthusiasts
and collects millions of ‘likes’. “With Demandware, we can track reviews and ratings
across all the major social media platforms, and change our website content based
on what’s trending,” adds McNally.
INNOVATING FOR THE FUTURE
Before moving to Demandware Commerce in September 2012, PacSun didn’t
have such strong social capabilities. Its legacy ecommerce solution was heavily
customized, hard to manage, and slow, which meant it couldn’t upgrade to take
advantage of new features.
“We need to keep our business dynamic as our target audience is very
trend-sensitive and demanding,” says McNally. “With Demandware, innovation is

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fast-paced and continuous, which means we can keep up with the latest social trends
and keep our ecommerce offerings fresh for our customers.”
PacSun’s English language website offers international shipping and payments in
multiple currencies to cater to its largest markets, which include the US, Canada,
Australia and the UK.
In addition to social media integration, the website has a mobile-optimized version
that is used to deliver product information, shopping from ‘lookbooks’, viewing new
arrivals, and other features, from anywhere the company’s customers want to shop.
Demandware’s commerce platform also enables PacSun to personalize its
promotions based on the gender of the known visitor, so that women get promotions
with floral images, while guys will see, for example, ‘Nike footwear’.
DRESSED FOR SUCCESS ON THE ENDLESS AISLE ‘CATWALK’
To ensure PacSun can meet its customers’ expectations for an omni-channel
shopping experience, the company is continuing to invest in its US-based store
network.
As well as equipping the majority of its 618 outlets with iPads, PacSun was one of
the pioneers in launching a dedicated iPad site for sales associates, featuring videos
and lookbooks to help them sell more effectively while also ensuring they don’t lose
potential sales.
The sales associate engages Katie with the brand via the iPad, inspires her
imagination by showing her new looks and giving her more ideas on how to combine
product sets, and to order products that were not available in store for her today.
“With Demandware, we can continuously reinvent the shopping experience across
every channel,” comments McNally. “It has made our business and our ecommerce
operation much more nimble.”
PacSun hopes to further optimize its omni-channel capabilities and eliminate
operational silos by orchestrating people, enhancing/evolving processes and
developing key performance indicators (KPIs) that are centered on the brand and
the customer.
Enhancing smartphone integration and customer relationship management is also on
the innovation agenda for 2014. “Demandware is more than a technology platform
- Demandware is a solution partner; its Retail Practice group stands right beside us,
gives us new ideas and encourages us to improve constantly ” comments McNally.
“It provides us with insight into the latest industry trends, which helps us differentiate
ourselves from the competition and stay on top of consumer demands.”
Case Study
GOING SOCIAL AND EXPANDING VIA MULTICHANNEL
“With
Demandware, we
can continuously
reinvent the
shopping
experience across
every channel,”
Coleen McNally,
Vice President of IT
PacSun