Inside Burton’s Digital Transformation and Redefined Retail Experience

Change Is Good

Implementing new technology anywhere in operations can be daunting to employees, but undergoing a complete digital transformation presents a much larger challenge.

“The biggest thing from my point of view,” notes Lord, “was we took on a lot as a company all at the same time.”

Burton planned its digital transformation in three buckets: data modernization; a streamline of all Burton's consumer-facing applications; and a new ERP. “We essentially signed up for all that work to begin in that January timeframe,” says Lord. “It's a lot of change.”

The store teams dealt with some of the biggest change, moving from primarily fixed desktop point of sale to having a more mobile iPhone in front of them, McAllister tells RIS (iPhones are owned by Burton and provided to store employees). 

“One of the kudos to NewStore is that we were able to roll out [the solutions] without ever really traveling to a store,” he says. “So that kind of really advocates for the simplicity behind NewStore and the ability for our store guides to really kind of adapt. It becomes very familiar for our guides when they're moving about on an iPhone; it was easy for them to pick up with very limited training.”

Of course, one of the challenges at the store level was transitioning to all new hardware. The iPhones, printers, and how it all connects via WiFi were a bit to overcome in the beginning.

It’s a totally new process, as store employees were used to just having a desktop computer that's plugged in, McAllister explains. Now there’s a mobile payment device, NewStore app on the iPhone, and printers that are connected by Bluetooth.

“Connectivity was definitely a learning curve,” notes McAllister.

Advantages of Universal Inventory Data

One of Burton’s goals across its digital transformation was to improve its data quality, including inventory information. With NewStore, Burton benefits from having an omnichannel solution with native store inventory management — a typically disparate system.

Before, Burton had servers that connected to its ERP and its POS was siloed in terms of inventory. In its original POS, one could only see store inventory or another store’s inventory. Now, Burton has a more holistic view of all stores’ inventory, as well as distribution center (DC) inventory.

“So now when things are coming down the line in terms of new technology, like endless aisle from our DC, we now have the ability to see that stock where before we didn't,” explains McAllister. Burton is enjoying better inventory utilization across different locations. The retailer now can use NewStore’s routing program to reroute inventory to a store. “So that's been big for us, to be able to fulfill a customer's order where normally we would've had to say, ‘sorry, we're out of stock on this item.’”

Another advantage — this platform component was purpose-built to be mobile-first, meaning employee workflows across inventory functions feel familiar to other iOS apps, making them easy to use. For store guides, having all point of sale, as well as e-commerce orders, in one system makes it easy to find a customer’s order no matter how they’ve shopped, notes McAllister. Now store guides can find orders and take action within NOM (NewStore Omnichannel Manager), leading to a streamlined customer experience.

Clienteling Redefines the Retail Experience

Burton remains steadfast in its fierce promotion of all things snowboarding and personalizing the customer experience was a logical next step to maintain its global snowboarding expert status.

Knowing exactly what inventory is available and who has purchased what is empowering Burton’s store guides to provide personalized service. In its first three months using NewStore clienteling, guides sent roughly 1,700 SMS messages to customers and 60% of these interactions resulted in a sale.

“We are using the clienteling functionality to communicate with some of our best customers and be more proactive with the needs of the customer,” says McAllister.

For example, when a hot new product comes in, Burton can identify a customer has come into the location before and was looking for something similar, and the store didn't have it at the time. They can then communicate with that shopper. Clienteling also really came in handy for Burton during the pandemic when it was faced with stores opening and closing.

“The clienteling app became kind of the lifeline for some stores where they weren't able to open, but we were actually able to still transact,” notes McAllister. A store manager continued to work from the store during those events, reaching out to customers or taking calls, and then using remote payment methods to take orders and have them shipped to customers or doing “impromptu curbside pickup.”

Over the Mountaintop

While Burton's digital transformation has been an uphill climb, now that the retailer has reached the other side store guides have trust in the data at their fingertips and can provide the best retail experience possible. At the end of the day, whether a customer is on the mountain or off, that data trust is paramount to guiding the customer experience. 

Looking ahead, Burton expects to move to its new ERP this spring, and begin performing endless aisle from the distribution center, opening up a lot more of its inventory for stores to purchase from. Further along, the retailer plans to implement buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS).