Peter Christian is a traditional menswear cataloguer that prides itself on offering good value, high quality clothing to suit its colourful clientele – bishops, baronets, reverends and royals. They trade via mail order, phone and over the web. |
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Owners Nick and Miranda Alderton were involved in a well-known mail order business for twenty years before branching out on their own. In that previous life they experienced trying to build a business with badly designed software and were resolute that they would not make that mistake again.
After researching the market for two months looking at different software solutions, visiting reference sites and talking to people in the industry they chose Multichannel Order Manager (M.O.M.) distributed by MailSolve.
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Ease of Use
The one aspect of Peter Christian's business that sets it apart from its competitors and indeed from many other traditional mail order companies is its very slick customer service.
This is largely due to having access to relevant information such as stock availability, order status detail, customer returns and in addition they are able to profile their data and to see easily what their customers bought before and what offers, cross-sells, up-sells would be relevant to them.
Efficiency within the call centre has increased since M.O.M. was implemented and this is largely down to the solution's ability to take orders faster and more efficiently. Peter Christian's MD Nick mentioned that "Multichannel Order Manager worked straight out of the box, it is intuitive so it took very little time for the team to get used to and it was accessibly priced". As the business grew we were able to increase the demands on the software and to add available modules to cope with the new demands |
Accuracy of stock
Within the clothing industry it is common knowledge that most orders include 3 different sizes in order to achieve the desired result, so returns management play a large part in Peter Christian's daily processes. Visibility of where stock is and the accuracy of their stock figures is crucial to the success of their business. Ensuring that they buy correctly and don't run into overstocks nor incur stock shortages is a delicate balance; M.O.M. helps them to manage this effectively. Nick says that "MOM has allowed us to focus on what we should be i.e. sales; the accuracy of the stock figures has allowed us to buy efficiently with the minimum of waste."
Continued growth
In recent times while the economy was gripped by a worldwide recession Peter Christian was still thriving due to aggressive marketing. Multichannel Order Manager gives them easy access to information about what campaigns are more successful and profitable to their business. Nick continued "The reliability of M.O.M. has allowed Peter Christian to grow quickly averaging over 80% growth for four consecutive years and to provide the same high quality of service that our larger competitors were providing." |
Achievements
During this year Peter Christian has advertised in almost 50 consumer magazines ranging from The Spectator to The Field, and ran adverts in the Times and Telegraph every Saturday. It also increased its mailing frequency when many were cutting back and has doubled its web sales to 28% of turnover. Increased promotional activity has led to a 52% rise in customers and it has grown from a 24-page catalogue in 2003 to a 84-page catalogue in 2011. They have been recognised by the industry and recently picked up their 3rd ECMOD award for best catalogue. |
What's ahead?
Classic, well tailored clothing; personal service, sensible advice and courtesy are all included in the shopping experience that Peter Christian offer and they are now taking this to the ladies clothing market. Using the same M.O.M. solution they have used for the last 6 years in the gentleman clothing arena they are planning to duplicate the same level of success in this new market.
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