Les Néréides Builds Loyalty and Guarantees the Authenticity of its Products With Frequentiel

Key facts

• 500 new jewelry creations every six months
• 200 store openings over the next five years
• Need to sustain 20% gross margin

Challenges

• Reassure customers and improve brand authenticity attributes.
• Improve stock accuracy and remove friction from logistics processes.
• Support current and enable future omnichannel use cases.

Frequentiel Solution

• OCTO+ item-level RFID software platform.
• Employee apps to streamline routine tasks and support omnichannel use cases.
• Expert retail, software integration and RFID professional services.
• Device and fixed hardware management services.

Benefits

• Clients guaranteed that jewelry is authentic.
• Standardized service level internationally.
• Improved uptake of its loyalty program.
• Solid foundation for future omnichannel use cases.
• Full item-level tracking and visibility of inventory across full supply chain and worldwide distribution network.

An Ambitious Vision for Accessible Luxury Jewelry

Les Néréides is a family-owned business that designs and sells accessible luxury costume jewelry. The brand has forged a reputation for its playful designs and for its use of handmade techniques more typically associated with high-end jewelry manufacturing.

The company is experiencing strong growth while sustaining a positive margin of 20% — a prowess highlighted in the 2018 annual ranking of fast-growing companies by Les Echos, France’s leading financial daily newspaper.

Meeting the Challenges of Omnichannel Retailing

One of Les Néréides’ major growth challenges is to successfully combine the business approaches of being a designer, a retailer, and now an international brand, all while remaining faithful to its artistic heritage and family values.

In effect, the company manages multiple, overlapping distribution channels. These include fully-owned stores, an ecommerce website, franchises, department store concessions, exclusive distribution agreements, players such as Vente-Privee, etc.

The company plans to triple its global physical presence with 200 openings over the next five years and is implementing the right technology now to make this growth possible.

Presenting a Single Face to the Customer Globally

“Beyond operational efficiency, there was a key issue — presenting a single face to the customer no matter where they are in the world,” says Thomas Bettan, Senior Consultant in charge of digital transformation at Les Néréides. “We want to enable a unified omnichannel customer experience for our customers both now and in the future.”

Like many other luxury brands, Les Néréides wants to protect itself against gray market and counterfeit goods that can damage its brand image. With a varied product offering — 500 new creations every six months—it had become imperative to manage its product catalog and to manage end-to-end stock movements.

It is also a question of improving the customer relationship. The company wants to offer consistent service before and after the sale to an increasingly international and sophisticated customer base.

Item-Level Tracking: The Key to Guarantee the Authenticity of Les Nereides Products

All articles are tagged and carry a unique item-level code — an EPC code — which follows the article from production, through receipt, warehousing, in-store inventory, all the way to purchase. Les Néréides is now able to track all events linked to the EPC.

“Thanks to this single view of the product journey, we can enable customers, anywhere in the world, to check that the item they are buying online is genuine,” says Bettan. “It is an effective reassurance strategy to encourage sales. It is also a powerful way to recruit customers for our loyalty program.”

Item-level tracking is also a condition to work with certain multi-brand distributors.

The Foundation for Future Growth

Les Néréides deployed OCTO+ while simultaneously implementing an ERP solution and a new website. Les Néréides considered that RFID technology had become sufficiently affordable for building into its omnichannel strategy from the outset.

Frequentiel proved to be the right match because of its combined RFID and retail expertise, and because they were able to integrate with Les Néréides’ IT systems and existing processes. In addition, the company was able to exchange with other retail customers of Frequentiel who had also faced similar challenges.

In the medium term, the company wants to harness RFID to better control in-store assortment — to understand which displays are working best and to spread best practices worldwide.

“Building our brand authenticity is a powerful way to enhance our image and earn customer loyalty,” says Bettan.

H