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Columbia Sportswear

Columbia Sportswear chooses Sampleroom and Mockshop for improved 'sell in'

Columbia Sportswear, a world leader in the active outdoor apparel and footwear industries, has purchased over 200 Sampleroom and Mockshop licenses from Visual Retailing LLC (authorised distributors for UK-based authors vrSoftware) to help improve its 'sell in' processes and ultimately drive sales.

By integrating Sampleroom for range visualisation and Mockshop for visual merchandising into its design, merchandising and sales processes, Columbia is now creating more compelling visual retail stories that clearly communicate new seasonal initiatives - all tailored by account and by "door" grade.

Mick McCormick, Head of Sales at Columbia Sportswear, explains more: "Using Sampleroom and Mockshop's virtual reality functions, our sales teams have been able to work closely with designers and visual merchandisers to create and visualise meaningful assortment recommendations for our retail partners. We now present the line as collections rather than items, with branded fixtures and graphics that properly communicate the strength of the brand, showing how collections should work in retail stores to maximise sales potential."

Columbia's retail partners appreciate this innovative approach to product buying, as Sampleroom's interactive range visualisation functions enable them to accurately visualise the breadth of Columbia's large apparel, footwear and accessory lines.

"Our key accounts have really bought into the focus that the software permits us to deliver when recommending new collections," McCormick says. "And our speciality accounts appreciate that we can now design collections of products that work across many different retail channels."

Internally, the software has also brought Columbia's sales and merchandising processes closer together by integrating the creativity of designers and merchandisers directly into the selling process. Using Sampleroom, sales teams can now identify a suitable product range for individual accounts and work with the visual merchandising team using Mockshop software to create a 3D store layout, accurately showing how the collection would look in store.

Out in the field, the sales person can then present this compelling retail story to the buyer and both can collaborate to make any necessary adjustments interactively.

According to McCormick, the new software has helped Columbia create a far more interactive sell-in process. Working together, the sales person and the buyer can use Sampleroom to easily refine the collection 'live' on screen. Once the final order is agreed, Columbia's visual merchandising team can again use Mockshop to finalise the 3D store layout, demonstrating how the collection will look on the shopfloor.

For Columbia, focusing on channel specific collections for its retail clients has increased the efficiency of their sell in process, while giving its retail partners improved visualization of the "buy".

"In the hands of Columbia's sales team, Sampleroom and Mockshop have become very effective tools," explains Rory Fane-Hervey, Vice President of Sales at Visual Retailing LLC. "Columbia was quick to identify the commercial benefits of combining Sampleroom range visualisation and Mockshop visual merchandising software. They were looking for technology which would enable them to improve their service to customers. Sampleroom and Mockshop met their requirements perfectly. As a result, Columbia is reaping the benefits of their foresight today."

vrSoftware Ltd
Colin Liversedge
Tel: +44 (1423) 321 882
colin.liversedge@vrsoftware.com

Visual Retailing LLC
Rory Fane-Hervey
Tel: +1 (508) 759 2857
rfhervey@visualretailing.com