We asked Mr Ishida, E-Commerce Department.

The Birth of an Outdoor Brand in 1938

Columbia Sportswear Japan encompasses three brands: the outdoor label "Columbia", "MOUNTAIN HARD WEAR" which is geared towards mountain sports, and "SOREL", a Canadian footwear brand. Columbia's history traces back to its foundation in 1938 in Oregon, USA, and this year, it's celebrating its 85th anniversary. In Japan, the company runs over 100 directly managed stores nationwide, including brand-exclusive shops, outlets, and shop-in-shop locations in department stores.

I joined the company in 2016 as a web manager. My educational background is in design, and I previously worked as a graphic designer, web director, and handled general e-commerce operations, including marketing. This is my first time venturing into the apparel industry. I'm leveraging some of my past experiences while also learning new aspects of this new industry.

Bridging E-commerce and Physical Stores, Turning Inefficiencies into Brand Strength

Today, we have integrated membership programs for physical shops and e-commerce. Customers can earn and spend points in both, but until a few years ago, these programs were operated separately, and so were the social networking platforms providing information.

When I came on board at the company, I started thinking about ways we could collaborate more effectively and decided to begin this process at the content creation level. I toured shops across the country, interviewing and photographing stores and staff. Then I began to create and update web content showcasing the stores and staff's outfits.

While this may have seemed inefficient as it didn't directly lead to e-commerce sales, I think it gave me deeper insights into the apparel industry and its frontline. It also might have enhanced the shop staff's understanding of e-commerce, setting the foundation for later collaborations.

Visiting the stores also brought personal benefits, providing me with insights into the company's challenges and strengths. While the challenges were apparent, I realized our strength lies in our stores and staff. Not many outdoor brands can boast such extensive stores and dedicated staff. We see this as a significant asset and have since pondered on how we could better leverage this asset through collaboration with e-commerce.

Unisize: Transforming Negatives into Positives

In 2017, we started Instagram accounts for each store. The purpose of the Instagram account was not only to post information in the way I did but also to display various outfits worn by staff members of different body types, providing customers with an idea of what the outfits might look like on them. Despite starting the Instagram account with our flagship Harajuku store, it proved quite challenging to operate alongside existing tasks. It didn't yield the expected results initially. Later, as we opened accounts for other stores, we have highlighted the best aspects of each shop, and this has created a healthy competition between them, thereby accelerating our Instagram operations. In reality, the store staff proved more proficient with Instagram than the "old man" at headquarters, and I believe delegating the accounts' management to them was a step in the right direction.

We believe that if we were to pursue direct sales through Instagram, it would distract from our main business and potentially become unsustainable. Therefore, we saw this as a nurturing phase where regularly updating content would help attract customers to the shop in the future. Meanwhile, we supported secondary use of the content on our website and other social media platforms, which could offer short-term operational benefits. As a result, today, every one of our stores has an Instagram account.

However, despite the increased number of outfit images on Instagram, inquiries about sizes and returns due to incorrect sizes remained a significant issue. We needed a solution.

That's when we turned to Unisize. We had implemented it once before but found it less effective than expected and discontinued the contract. On reintroducing it, we saw clear results: the volume of size-related inquiries reduced significantly.

I've noticed an improved CVR (Conversion Rate) among Unisize users compared to the previous implementation. I can see these results on the UnisizeDX management screen, which has also seen increased usage. We believe that any form of customer inquiry reflects a negative aspect of the shopping experience. Unisize helps eliminate these negatives, such as uncertainty about size and the effort required to submit inquiries. We see Unisize as a tool that transforms negatives into positives for both our customers and our company.

Optimizing the product purchasing experience for our customers

Our current focus is on turning our customers into brand advocates. We aim to increase our customers' brand affinity and are exploring ways to enhance their shopping experience. One such initiative is our membership program, which we integrated across our physical stores and e-commerce platforms in 2021 and plan to upgrade this April. Previously, the in-store and e-commerce programs had different ranks and point redemption rates, but from now on, they will be unified. We've also redesigned the point redemption conditions to offer more benefits for frequent customers.

We recognize that addressing fitting issues is an ongoing task crucial to the advancement of apparel e-commerce. It seems that the trendier the attire, the more pronounced these issues tend to be. While Unisize is a tool that helps mitigate these challenges, we believe our unique advantage as a brick-and-mortar business lies in the ability for customers to visit our stores to try on identical items. We aspire to enhance this appeal, helping our customers to fully appreciate its value.

Additionally, we strive to communicate the appeal of our products effectively. While our end-of-season sale attracts a large volume of sales, we want to shift the focus from discounts to the intrinsic appeal of our brands and products. We believe customers who purchase items for their appeal, rather than their discounted price, develop a stronger emotional attachment to the product. This attachment enhances the customer's experience with the product, and as a website manager, I continuously refine our website and content to facilitate this connection.

However, we acknowledge that e-commerce can never truly replicate the experience of shopping in person. We encourage our customers to visit our stores, immerse themselves in the ambiance, interact with our staff, physically interact with the products, and make purchases only after they are fully satisfied.Our e-commerce and website strategies begin with the understanding that they cannot completely replicate the real-life experience. Our aim with our e-commerce platform and websites is to offer conveniences unattainable in a physical store, while striving to emulate as closely as possible the tangible shopping experience online.