Argosy Provides Major Retailer with a Holistic In-store Signage Management System

With over 600 stores in 42 states, this leading retail company distributes styled tailored and casual clothing, sportswear, footwear, and accessories through catalogs and an e-commerce website. Recognized by Forbes as number 14 on its 2009 Top 200 List, the industry giant provides fashion enthusiasts from all over the world with world-class apparel.

Before Argosy
The top-tier retail company originally utilized an ordinary web-based system to manage in-store signage in more than 600 stores nationwide. And, due to technology limitations, the company was forced to manually manage complex fulfillment and distribution workflows.

The marketing department managed over 20 product managers and a highly complex chain of approvals. At the core of the problem was the inability to create and update artwork on demand. Graphic designers had to manually re-design artwork frequently and go through drawn out approval workflows, lengthy production turnarounds, and challenging distribution processes.

The retailer decided to look for a marketing solution that could integrate all of its in-store advertising management components. While exploring different technologies, marketing managers were presented with Argosy’s retail solution.

Now with Argosy
Argosy’s one of a kind retail solution now allows the world-class retailer to manage all aspects of in-store advertising from a centralized location. Operations personnel can now manage planning, production, customization, approvals, and fulfillment, all from one remote marketing tool.

Argosy worked in collaboration with the operations team to design unique workflows to improve usability and functionality while providing one-on-one attention to detail and the company’s special needs. Using Argosy’s original technology, the retail giant and Argosy customized key elements to provide the company with a tailored solution for its marketing needs. The result was a fully automated system which allows the company to manage every aspect of in-store signage from a single marketing platform.

At the core of Argosy’s retail solution is the power to comply with all of the stores’ promotional needs. Argosy allows marketing managers to build large projects composed of multiple versions from a single or a set of different templates. That is, from a set of artwork, graphic designers can manufacture a wide variety of signs assembled to fit different store types with the ability to apply diverse discount rates, price points, or any other variable information it wants on each sign. This means unique signage is easy to design and print in a variety of locations while branding maintained.

To make sure signage is always carrying the right information and meets branding standards, Argosy provides the client with a dynamic approval workflow. Administrators can assign a single approving manager to each product or build stricter hierarchies of approval where and when needed -the entire program is customizable. When ready to go, Argosy nicely summarizes each project runs and counts on the entire project, providing feedback on the entire distribution and verifying costs.

Streamlining this feedback process saves time so that the company’s marketing executives can focus on new and better marketing initiatives on a regular basis rather than being bogged down with production processes.