Latest / Talk Commerce / From Runway to Digital: How AI is Revolutionizing Luxury Shopping with Nicole Goldberg of SIMKHAI at eTail Palm Springs
Transcript
- Speaker 1 (00:00.564) my god. just with somebody at a deer like it was our head of sales our VP of sales so like I'm you loved going to the VP And I was like KC I'm so sorry, but my recording didn't save and he was like, okay, we can do it again Yeah, it's my mic that's super loud. All right, let's get started All right ready Here we go Welcome to this special eTail West edition of Talk Commerce today. I have Nicole Goldberg and Madeleine Anderson here Nicole is with Simkhai And she is the director of digital marketing Speaker 2 (00:47.59) E-commerce. Geez. All right. I got it. I got it right. Nicole, go ahead. Yeah, Madeleine already prepped you for me and all my mistakes, but go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and give us one of your passions in life. Gosh, passions in life. So hi, I'm Nicole Goldberg. I'm the Director of E-commerce at Simkhai So I'm overseeing our website as well as all of our marketing that's online, whole digital experience. there and this is definitely a new exciting area for Simkhai that we're growing and so I'm pretty new to the company. I've only been with them for about six months but I come from a very digital marketing background so really focusing on the growth of the company how we're seeing that and I'm super excited to be here. And Madeleine, just do a brief introduction for yourself and who are you with again? forgot. Just a refresher, my name is Madeleine Anderson and I'm the Partner Manager at Endear. I've been there for almost three years and I work with partners to help brands improve their everything. Speaker 2 (01:58.254) All right, perfect. So Nicole, we kind of did some prep work in the green room here. We talked a little bit about client telling and about the rise of the AI agent. And one of the interesting things for Simkhai was the fact that you've moved from this brick and mortar to online, and now you're moving to D2C. Tell us a little bit about that journey. Yes, Simkhai has been around for 15 years as a whole, obviously led by Jonathan Simkhai, he's our creative director and founder. But we started off as a wholesale business, which is how most people have discovered Simkhai. And in the last five years, we've really moved to be building out our own DTC footprint. So we have four retail stores now in Los Angeles, New York. Texas in the Hamptons, which I guess is New York as well too. So those are our four retail store locations and we're looking to expand that as well. And then we're looking at building the online experience too. Of course as we first launched it was very much like let's just get a presence up. But with the continually growing success that we're definitely seeing in our wholesale and the positive reaction we're having to our DTC, there's so much opportunity there and we're looking to build it. But of course it comes with a .com experience for a really luxury product of how do you build out that in-store experience online on a digital platform. And so that is why we're really looking to how do you build that high touch. experience in both the ways that someone can see a product and incorporate more video and better imagery and movement on the site to really highlight it and really try to show the craft but also how do you make it so that there's that personal touch of clientele which is such a huge part. Speaker 1 (03:56.438) of our store business and building that relationship with our customers there. Because our clothes really, it's actually super fun and I probably sound a little cliche for saying this, but it's truly our customer base goes from 20 years old to 65 years old. It's such a broad base because we have products that... really grow and fit with your different times in life. And so how do we build that relationship with our customers so they are coming back to us over time? And you know part of my challenge is how am I building that so they're coming to our site and giving them that little extra something special that they can get. And the online aspect for clientele does get tricky because when you're going into a store you're working with Miranda who always helps you find the pants that you want or the shoes that you need and when you're shopping online if Miranda texts you and says did you like your order you're gonna say who are you? So bridging that gap of how do you maintain like a one-on-one personal relationship with somebody you've never met it's tricky and not seeming creepy so that why do you know this about me so that's very much how did you get hurt yeah you want that luxury experience of get excited something new is coming but or we know that you like something similar to this but without feeling too pushy there it's definitely that line to figure out my number. Speaker 2 (05:20.718) And there was a bigger gap moving from the wholesale sort of B2B experience to the D2C experience. How has that gone? And have you seen success, you're seeing success in it, but have you seen a lot of success outside of just the retail locations? So we're seeing, I mean our wholesale business just continues to grow. mean we've had, the last two seasons have been these really tremendous runway shows that we've had in New York. Our spring collection, which is out right now, is doing amazing and we just had New York Fashion Week with our fall collection. So we're continuing to see the brand grow and our wholesale business is just getting larger and larger. which is exciting. We're also expanding into accessories. Our footwear and handbags are really killing it. There's so much excitement there. But again, it's how do we continue to match that with this growing presence of the brand and how do we build that into our DTC experience so people know that they can get that really personalized touch from the brand itself. I was on your site and I love the video that is integrated, especially even on the home page. I love how you've used that. Do you see other technologies helping you now on the front end experience for consumers? And are you also using some of that for your wholesale business? Are you kind of bridging some of those two things? Oh my gosh, there's so much tech that we want to be using and building out right now. So I definitely think video is one where we have, again, we create such beautiful content and we're based so that all of our designs is done right in the atelier where we also get to work as a team. So we're really seeing the craftsmanship and how do we showcase that to the customer. And there's also the way that things are built and I'm by no means a designer. Speaker 1 (07:13.454) But when I hear the designers talk about how difficult, you know, to get a fade exactly right or to get the pleating so they're matching or the lining, lines from a plaid to exactly match up perfectly from a top to a bottom and a jacket that's matching and it all just looks seamlessly flown and really to help showcase that through video content and when someone's movement there. So really continuing to look to incorporate that throughout the whole site experience there. We're also definitely looking though to how do we build it out so that we're working smarter. we are still in a company that's been around for 15 years. We're still the online business is still in a little bit of a startup mode. We're a small team. So how can we be working smarter versus harder and looking at AI tools to be helping us with that from smarter search tools to smarter merchandising on site. personalization and adjusting the home page. just launched, don't quote me on this, but I'm going to say a year ago, but I could be wrong, we launched our men's collection for the first time. And that's a completely different experience and how do we make sure that our men's customer is being able to find and discover that men's product when we are so known for and dominated by women's apparel, dresses especially, those occasion moments. So looking for those ways that we can use AI and personalization to be making it so that the customer's finding what they're looking for. I'm sure it's even a different way of advertising to, I mean of course I have no idea, but I'm sure it's a different way of advertising to men versus women. You're not going to do the same targeted ads towards them and I can't even imagine the work that an ad must have taken. Speaker 1 (09:01.87) that's definitely a challenge and I think that this is where we're finding it. You know, we do get the benefit as this is new to the whole company and so as it's matriculating out to our wholesale brand, in general, men tend to discover clothing when they're at a department store. There's not as many men that are specifically looking, you know, online for a brand the same way that a woman shopper might be discovering or find something on Instagram and shopping that way. So, especially with our male customers, there is that advantage that we're seeing as our presence in. wholesale is growing, we're slowly building in that process there. But it's definitely still a learning phase, it's finding who that customer is, you're exactly right, the ads are different, the platforms that you work with are different. you see a high-mail customer more on YouTube versus social media and finding those right ways to communicate and speak to that customer without alienating your other customer and you still need to be fostering that relationship too. Also need to be keeping in mind that a lot of men are shopping with their partners. And so how do we be blending that shared experience there? It's a fun challenge. Those are the fun things. What about the ability to integrate AI? In the green room we talked a little bit about AI and what you're doing with AI. Is there anything in particular that you're having success with AI? So this is we're still in the kind of implementation phase, but this is where I'm very excited that we're leaning in towards it. So I can't quite talk about it, the success there, but in our, as we're working through and getting things set up, the first tool that I'm so out of this world excited with, we're going to be launching later this year, is a fit tool, which helps people using AI technology. People find the right fit, because that's the other piece that when you're trying something on in store, you get to see, you get to see your sizing there. And as we were making such Speaker 1 (10:49.976) highly specialized items, it's not the same as a t-shirt. This has to fit you exactly right or you're going to return it. And so we're working with an up and coming space called Laws of Motion. They're really making some great waves there to be launching later this year. But we're really excited to be partnering with them because they use AI technology to help customers find their exact right fit. it and incorporating that. So that's one that I'm incredibly excited about us launching as we get on through the year. And then we're also looking at ways that AI can be helping in, as I said, smarter merchandising, looking at better search models where there's similar words that can be looking into their ways that it can be finding that balance there with customer service so that if someone's looking for a fast answer, we can serve it up to them right away. They don't have that wait time, but also the balance of that there's a real person there as well too that can be helping for more specialized questions or more styling questions. And that's a tricky one to find that balance because a lot of solutions have just here's an AI model out there can answer customer service, but we are a luxury partner. So we want to find that what are the right tools so that people can get the information fast, but that they're not frustrated just trying to ask for a person there. We want that person to be there ready to go. So finding those balances. And also touching back on your, you mentioned your age range of your customers. A six year old woman isn't going to want an AI bot telling her. Reaching out to her, she's going to want to talk to real person. She wants to talk to Miranda, who she always works with in store. Exactly. Speaker 1 (12:26.734) Nope, you're exactly right there too versus someone that's more comfortable, a younger customer in their 20s is going to say I want this mini dress for this event. Show me what I want, like what I can do, here's my size, go for it. And that's faster and convenient for them. They don't need to wait for somebody or to get that back and forth. That's a frustrating experience for them. Do you see that as a challenge but also as an advantage for you to be able to sell to the older consumer and maybe use more of the tailored experience that they would expect from a luxury brand where maybe the lower end brand, I don't want to call it lower end, but maybe that other brand would just be relying 100 % on AI. They would never have actually human talking. I think that's really what, I don't know if it's expected or not, but it's definitely the level of high touch that our clothing deserves to have really is to be able to tell the story behind it, the thought process, the design. And so we love that interaction. mean, I work on the website, but I've definitely, we've all rotated through the stores at different periods of time and people come in because we do have so much event dressing and people talk about their events or why they're excited for it or this is a wedding I'm going to and this is what I need to look like or these are something my daughter's graduation is coming up and she needs that. And that really personal experience as you're getting to know someone is so lovely as you get part of it. We are in such a chaotic age and as a broad sense on any plate that you stand there that shopping is fun and shopping is a way that you get to be excited and you get to look beautiful and really we want to help be part of that experience for people and build those relationships so that you do have that really we're growing with you and you have that opportunity to be wearing Simkhai through your whole journey. Speaker 2 (14:32.75) So we have a few minutes here left. I do want to talk a little bit about client telling and I know in the green room we kind of introduced the idea of client telling and how Simkhai is moving some of the retail into that idea of having the sales associate help to bring online. Can you speak a little bit to that or maybe Madeleine you could also help out there? So we work with Simkhai already, but we don't currently work with your online store as a storefront, I don't believe. I think your store, retail store locations are using us pretty efficiently. But how do we, can we bring that on to the online only shoppers? or that's exactly right. So we are using Endear for all of our retail store client telling where we're able to send out and communicate directly through the platform and then this is how do we bridge that and bring that experience onto the website is something that we're really looking to explore and Again, it's really about the relationship that you have with the people that are at the company, with the clothing itself. And how do we start building that relationship to an online customer? Because as we are building out our stores, we still only have four store locations. And as we expand in a couple of years, it'll be one by one there. And our customers from all over the country and international is a huge growing part of our business as well too. So how can we still bring that level of connection? Again, it all comes back to the, it's shared experience that you're having. You really know the clothes, you get that story behind there. And so how do we bring that level of support and getting excited about it, something with people for the online experience there. So that's definitely as we're looking to build out, I think this is the next phase for us to be going. Speaker 2 (16:18.926) That's great, Nicole. As we close out, I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they'd like. What would you like to plug today? Yeah, well as I said earlier, our spring collection just launched at Simkhai. That's S-I-M-K-H-A-I dot com. And our spring collection is so beautiful and gorgeous from the Gingham collection that's out right now and our Pliissé collection that's launching soon. It's so beautiful. We're so excited about it. The shoes that we're seeing, I'm so obsessed with our silvy heel myself. and everyone should come and take a look at it. beautiful. That's perfect. Thank you so much for being here. And Madeleine, thank you for joining us today.