Posted Date: 12/23/2011
Barneys New York Goes Cutting-Edge for the Holidays
Barneys New York has taken the “go big or go home approach” to multi-channel promotions and taken it to a new level with a cutting-edge holiday-themed celebration. The pivotal element of the multi-channel promotion is Gaga’s Workshop, which includes decorated store windows, a dedicated Gaga website, and a thematically transformed retail space in Barney’s flagship store in New York City.
(Editor's Note: Due to an overload of traffic the Barney's website has been down throughout the week of December 19, according to a spokesperson at Barney's. This indicates great planning on the marketing end and less than steallar planning on the IT end.)
Many of promotional elements and limited-edition exclusive products for sale were created in collaboration with Lady Gaga under the creative direction of Nicola Formichetti with artists Eli Sudbrack and Christophe Hamaide Pierson.
To maximize sales in its flagship store during the promotion Barney’s deployed miStore mobile point-of-sale (POS), a solution from
Micros-Retail.
Gaga’s workshop is a take on Santa’s iconic workshop and occupies the entire 5,500-square foot, fifth floor of the Madison Avenue Men’s store. In the workshop are eight stations reflecting the product categories available for sale.
In addition to the workshop, Barneys has also redesigned and reopened the Madison Avenue 8th Floor Co-Op area. In the redesigned space, the men’s and women’s departments will be adjoined, creating a connected 22,000-square foot Co-Op space that includes a café, genes@co-op, which has a digitally engineered table top to support a touch-screen surface for customers.
“The mobile POS will help Barneys New York to manage the high volume of expected shoppers and allow quick checkout, not only for typical holiday shopping traffic, but for the increased traffic for the reopening of our transformed Co-Op space,” said Sean O’Reilly, vice president information technology at Barneys New York, Inc.
Barneys New York is using the holiday promotion to launch Micros-Retail miStore mobile POS, with plans to expand to stores across the country. The mobile system allows freedom for employees to navigate throughout the store to better service shoppers. Associates are able to conduct sales and locate inventory via portable Apple products, predominately the iPod Touch.
“We are very excited to have a long-term customer such as Barneys New York launching our MICROS-Retail miStore solution, especially during the holiday season,” said Jeremy Grunzweig, executive vice president of store systems for Micros-Retail. “Our customers have noticed a marked decrease in wait times in their stores upon switching to miStore. With increased traffic, the holiday rush is the perfect time for Barneys New York to make this move as it will drive greater efficiency and shorter wait times.”