Background
La Maison Simons was first established in 1840 by the Simons family in Quebec, and has since evolved into a national fashion retailer. Brothers Peter and Richard Simons (who took over in 1986) are the fifth generation of the Simons family to own and operate the business. In the 1980s, Simons began its expansion across Quebec. Since then, 16 locations have opened across Canada. Simons is using Moneris in-store and eCommerce payment solutions, and Consumer Spending Data.
Moneris had the information we needed to bridge our ecommerce and instore customers. Through data, we can learn who is purchasing on both channels, how they’re making purchases, and at what frequency. The data can also teach us about new and recurring customers, and what we can do to better serve them.
Yannick Vial, Senior Vice President
eCommerce, digital and marketing, Simons
Why Moneris?
Moneris’ long-standing partnership with Simons began when the fashion retailer chose Moneris as their in-store payment processor over 20 years ago. Then in 2010, they reached out to Moneris again to help with payments on their website, knowing Moneris had the ability to support Simons’ online business. So, when Moneris Data Services presented Simons with the opportunity and information to leverage the relationship further from a data perspective, they were keen to take the next step.
“We’ve been working with Moneris for many years and appreciate their high standard of protecting and delivering their data to us, in addition to how they respect the customers behind that data. It’s incredibly important to us and our process,” said Yannick Vial, Senior Vice President eCommerce, digital and marketing at Simons.
Yannick and his team wanted to leverage Moneris’ consumer spending data to help gain more insights that would inform their future business and marketing strategies. They wanted to understand what campaigns attracted new customers, if customers were shopping in-store or online, and for recurring customers what made them want to keep coming back. The data could help Yannick analyze these consumer behaviours and gain insights on existing, recurring, or brand-new customers to Simons. Additionally, Yannick and his team identified a gap in their knowledge of customers who were not participating in Simons’ loyalty program.
Insights from Moneris’ data could also be used to refine Simons current campaign tactics such geotargeting advertisements, plan for long-term marketing strategies, and enhance customer experience to help elevate Simons’ reputation as a fashion destination in Canada.
What did the data reveal?
In their analysis, Moneris utilized ‘new and repeat’ analytics with consumer spending data, which delivers monthly results at the store level on varying segments.
“In conjunction with data from Moneris, we were able to get a holistic understanding of everything happening around our loyalty program. From an acquisition perspective, we could determine if we had a new customer who had never shopped at Simons before, or if we had a repeat customer,” said Yannick.
The data did help to reinforce their business need to convert more customers to the loyalty program. It also reinforced Simons’ omni-channel strategy, and their decision to proactively integrate their online and instore business early on, better setting up their current eco-system and customer base. “From a marketing
perspective, Moneris’ data was incredibly helpful for future planning purposes, and making the bridge between our online and in-store customers,” said Yannick.
Looking forward
Right now, Yannick is happy with the work that Moneris is doing and believes this is just the beginning of their journey together with data services. “I would say working with Moneris and using their products in the future depends on what Moneris can do further. We are always looking to improve our knowledge of the customer, and we can do that through data. If Moneris has the data, then we’re all in.”
Yannick is also excited about the possibility of using Moneris’ data to further understand their customers and develop new ways of supporting Simons’ business and marketing strategies. For example, he cited that the data could comment on how relevant Simons is to its customers and how it could support advertising and geotargeting initiatives. “Data could add to, respond, or bridge what is known versus what is unknown. If we dive deeper into data, we could discover something we’re not already thinking about, and that discovery can bring huge value to Simons.”
