Jac Hensen
An omnichannel strategy with class
Jac Hensen is one of the largest retailers in the field of men's clothing, with twelve brick and mortar stores and a successful online store. As they wanted to take the next step in their online growth, they came to Youwe. The family business continued to grow, both online and offline. The secret? "We stay away from making decisions in the spur of the moment and go the extra mile for the customer," said Jos Pieters, CTO & e-commerce product owner.
Jac Hensen was founded in 1977 by Jacques Hensen. Although most entrepreneurs in his field chose to be a contemporary boutique at the time - preferably for women - Jac Hensen preferred to serve the classic gentleman. The clothing has become more modern over the years, though the fashion player has always remained loyal to its original audience. And vice versa: "Many women enjoy strolling through the (online) shopping streets and combining all kinds of items and brands together. The average man does not feel the same. And once he is a customer, he usually stays for a while", says Jos.
“Youwe is the first digital agency where the quality of the development is consistent.” - Jos Pieters
Our solution
Sync offline and online
With Magento 2 Commerce, Jac Hensen is able to bring their offline experience online. According to Jos, the interaction between the physical stores and the online store is an important reason for its success. "We aim to provide the service we have in stores online." Magento 2 Commerce was an easy choice, as Jac Hensen had been happily using Magento 1 previously. "I expect to see our upgrade to Magento 3 happen, rather than to switch to another platform," says Jos.
In addition to the chat function, the company does this using extensive product information, styling tips and the option to reserve garments, which can then be tried on and tailored in the chosen location. "People still like to come to the store for certain outfits, such as a suit."
The connecting factor
The online channel ensures that the smaller stores can also offer the entire product range. "The online store is the connecting factor between all stores." On paper, the online store represents about twelve percent of the total turnover, but in practice, the contribution of the online channel is much larger. Jos says that about thirty percent of the web orders come from within a brick and mortar store. However, the turnover is credited to the relevant location. "We want to prevent store employees from feeling threatened by online sales, as this is unfortunate for the synergy between the channels."
Synergy and integrations
This synergy had not always been there, and to combine all components Jac Hensen upgraded to a Magento 2 store, and an integration with Alumio. Bringing the synergy was the implementation of Alumio, which connects the online store to their custom ERP. All orders and stock, whether online or offline, are synced through Alumio, so the data is always up to date. "We want our employees to be able to serve clients" As data exchange can bear a heavy load on the connected systems, through Alumio we are able to keep our core systems as stable as possible.
The results
Customer happiness
With an average of 9.2, Jac Hensen scores exceptionally high in customer happiness. To maintain this score, consistent quality is a must. The motto "Always the right fit" is something the family business likes to extend to its partners, who all happen to be located in Groningen. "Groningen has grown into the Silicon Valley of the Netherlands." According to Jos, the expertise these parties offer is worth their weight in gold. "Specialists are scarce, especially in the IT field." When Magento announced that Magento 1 would no longer be supported after June 2020 because of the end-of-life, Jos immediately knew that he wanted to launch a Magento 2 shop. "We absolutely did not want to go to another partner. When Adobe bought Magento in 2018, we also found reassurance in our choice for this e-commerce platform."
Insights & growth
The Alumio integration gives us insights in our data exchange we never had before. Especially in a migration, but also in our daily operations, these insights give us big advantages. The Alumio dashboard tells us what we need to know, we can validate our data at any time, so we always know what is happening. For some players, the growth of the online channel is at the expense of the brick and mortar stores, but this is not the case with Jac Hensen. Four decades ago, the company started with one store in Amersfoort, now they are at twelve locations and a successful online shop, and Jac Hensen is still ambitious as back then.
