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Success Story

Enabling The Souled Store to provide an omnichannel shopping experience to its customers

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The Souled Store is a casual apparel wear brand, based in India. It is a manufacturer and retailer of a wide range of quirky apparel, mobile accessories, backpacks, badges, etc. that are designed with pop-culture themes like superheroes, movies, cartoons, TV shows, and more.

It is India’s largest brand for official, licensed merchandise for sports teams, comedians, and musicians with licenses from Disney, WWE, IPL teams, ViaCom18, etc. The company has 5 million monthly visitors to its digital channels (web & mobile). 

  • $15M+ Funding Raised
  • 4M+ Customers
  • 4X Growth in 2 Years
  • 16+ Stores across India

Business Situation

The Souled Store’s engagement with Daffodil Software began 4 years ago considering our unparalleled expertise in developing robust e-commerce solutions, extensive experience in working with funded startups, and the best cost-value balance. The association is still going strong and the souled store has grown 6X since it started working with Daffodil Software.

In an effort to further its growth strategy, The Souled Store aims to broaden its presence by transitioning from solely online stores to establishing physical locations nationwide. The objective was to provide an omnichannel experience to their customers across digital and physical platforms. However, they were facing significant challenges in achieving an omnichannel experience due to unsynchronized inventory and dependency on a third-party POS system, and inconsistencies between the offline and online customer experiences. 

These issues were hindering the company’s ability to seamlessly integrate its online and offline channels, resulting in missed opportunities for customer engagement, decreased operational efficiency, and a fragmented brand image.

In a nutshell, the key challenges were:

  • Remove discrepancies through a synchronized Inventory: Souled Store was struggling to maintain a unified inventory management system which led to discrepancies in stock availability, where products appeared as available but were out of stock in physical stores.
  • Implement an advance Point-of-Sales system for cohesive omnichannel solution: The company was relying on a third-party Point-of-Sale (POS) system which had a limited scope of customization. Hence, an advance POS system was required that could support cross channel loyalty programs, consistent pricing and promotions, unified customer profiles, easy return and refunds.
  • Provide flexible Omnichannel Fulfillment: To rapidly adjust to the changed business dynamics, souled store needed to improve their fulfillment capabilities. These omnichannel fulfillment capabilities includes BOPIS (buy online, pick up in store), BORIS (buy online, return in store) eliminates the hassle of having to repackage items and make an additional stop at the post office. Easy and flexible shipped returns (buy and return at flexible locations)

The Solution

After analyzing the requirements and engaging in thorough discussions with the business team at Souled Store, Daffodil Software’s development team has devised a comprehensive solution that addresses the company’s requirements and helps in becoming a cohesive omnichannel brand. The proposed solution encompasses the following key components:

Advanced In-House POS System and M-POS system:

Daffodil Software designed and build a tailor-made, in-house POS system specifically for Souled Store. This solution replaced the third-party POS system, offering increased flexibility, control, and integration capabilities. The development team collaborated closely with Souled Store’s business and IT teams to understand their operational workflows and design an intuitive and user-friendly interface. The custom POS system streamlined sales processes, enable real-time data inventory synchronization, and provide comprehensive insights into sales trends and customer behavior. It also facilitated centralized management of product information, pricing, and promotions across all channels, enhancing operational efficiency, fewer dead stocks, and empowering data-driven decision-making.

Also, the Daffodil team has designed and developed the mPOS feature in the souled store mobile app which works similarly to the store POS system. This mPOS system empowered the store employees of the Souled store such that they can move freely in the store environment and help customers with checkout, inventory management, and access to product information without sticking to the counter.

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Flexible Omni-channel Fulfillment:

The Daffodil Software team worked with user experience teams to ensure a consistent and seamless customer experience across offline and online channels. The development team aligned the user interfaces and features of the online platform and physical stores, creating a unified brand image and delivering a cohesive omnichannel experience. This includes replicating personalized recommendations, BOPAS (buy online and pick up at store), BORIS (buy online, return in store) and buy offline and get online, return and replace at any platform, a smooth checkout process with loyalty programs and convenient browsing features in offline stores. By implementing this solution, Souled Store enhanced customer satisfaction, improve brand loyalty, and provide a consistent experience irrespective of the channel used by the customers.

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Hyperlocal e-commerce for same-day delivery:

The Daffodil team developed a capability of hyper-local e-commerce for Souled store where a customer wants an order on the same day. The order can be fulfilled from the nearest store. Also, if the store does not have time to deliver they can transfer the order to another nearest store. The Hyperlocal e-commerce solution made the delivery process faster and resulted in increased sales and a great omnichannel customer experience for the customers. The Hyperlocal solution also increased operational efficiency. The Hyperlocal e-commerce solution improved operational efficiency by 28% by fastening the order process and efficient resource management. Also, the delivery cost was reduced to deliver an order within the city and The Souled Store was able to charge their customers for the fast delivery.

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The Impact

By implementing this solution, Souled Store is equipped with a synchronized inventory management system, a customized in-house POS system, and a seamless offline-to-online customer experience and hyper local ecommerce. These improvements enabled the company to offer a truly omnichannel shopping experience, optimize operational efficiency, enhance customer satisfaction, reduce dead stocks and strengthen its position in the competitive e-commerce market.The souled store started their retail operations with 3 stores 1 year ago and now they have total 16 stores across India. Now with the increased retail business, they have targeted to expand and open 100 stores across the country.Daffodil Software's development team will provide ongoing support and maintenance for the implemented solutions. The team will be actively monitoring the systems, ensuring they remain efficient, secure, and up-to-date. Regular updates and enhancements will be rolled out based on user feedback and emerging industry trends. The development team will also offer comprehensive training and documentation to ensure Souled Store's staff can fully utilize the solutions and adapt to any future changes or expansions.

  • $15M+ Funding Raised
  • 4M+ Customers
  • 4X Growth in 2 Years
  • 16+ Stores across India

 

Mumbai-based youth casual wear brand, The Souled Store, has raised Rs 75 crore in Series B funding led by Elevation Capital. The company has a large and near-cult “fan” base with 836,000 followers on Instagram and about 2 lakh daily visitors on the website and app. The company will use the capital for expanding its product portfolio on both licensed merchandise and casual wear.

-The Business Standard

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