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MakerSights to Demo New Line Efficiency Analytics and Speak with Dearfoams at PI Apparel About How Consumer Obsession Drives Sustainable Growth

Team MakerSights

June 7, 2022

SAN FRANCISCO -- (June 7, 2022) -- MakerSights, the only collaborative assortment management workspace, is exhibiting and speaking at PI Apparel in New York, June 28 - 29, 2022. The company empowers consumer-obsessed brands, like Chaco®, Dearfoams®, and Johnston & Murphy®, with the consumer data needed to deliver more products that people love while radically reducing waste. RG Barry Chief Merchandising Officer Angela Kenney will join MakerSights Co-founder and CEO Dan Leahy on stage in Room 1 to discuss how Dearfoams, a subsidiary of RG Barry, has embraced consumer obsession throughout the company and why the footwear brand believes it is the shortest path to driving SKU productivity, increasing margins, and reaching new consumers. 

WHAT: Consumer Obsession: The Shortest Path to Sustainable Growth

Consumer obsession isn’t a new concept, but it has long been regarded as the responsibility of marketing and customer service teams. However, innovative brands understand that consumer obsession starts with designing products that consumers love and it plays a role in every decision that is made from concept to merchandising and go-to-market. In this fireside chat with RG Barry Chief Merchandising Officer Angela Kenney and MakerSights Co-founder and CEO Dan Leahy, the two leaders will explore the importance of giving the consumer a seat at the table in milestone meetings and how Dearfoams, a subsidiary of RG Barry, has embedded consumer obsession into its company culture. They'll also discuss why brands need to embrace data-informed decision-making as the retail industry looks to rebuild profitability after years of overproduction, increasing markdowns, and shrinking margins.

WHO: Dan Leahy, Co-Founder & CEO, MakerSights

Dan Leahy is the co-founder and CEO of San Francisco-based MakerSights, the only collaborative assortment management workspace for consumer obsessed brands. MakerSights’ mission is to radically reduce waste in the retail industry by helping brands leverage consumer data to make products that people love and reduce overproduction. Before founding MakerSights, Dan founded Savored, an inventory management software for the hospitality industry, which was acquired by Groupon (NASDAQ: GRPN) in 2013. He earned an MBA from Stanford University and a BA in economics from Georgetown University.

Angela Kenney, Chief Merchandising Officer, RG Barry

Angela Kenney is the chief merchandising officer at RG Barry where she leads the merchandising and design teams for the Dearfoams brand. With nearly two decades of experience in footwear, Angela has led global design, product development, merchandising, sales, and licensing teams across a wide range of product categories and distribution channels. 

WHEN: Tuesday, June 28, 11:50 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

WHERE: Breakout Room 1 at PI Apparel, which will be held at the Metropolitan Pavilion in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.

The company’s booth will showcase the latest analytics capabilities available in the MakerSights Workspace, including Line Efficiency, which helps brands drive SKU productivity and do more with less. Line Efficiency provides product and merchant teams with the incremental Reach, or value add, of each product within an assortment. The interactive graph makes it easy to assess the implications of adding or dropping a product from the assortment, as well as identify cannibalizing SKUs and cutting the long tail. 

New MakerSights Customers

Chaco, the outdoor brand best known for the iconic and repairable Z/sandal, has implemented MakerSights to provide consumer sentiment data when evaluating newness and finalizing the line. The brand will focus on its women’s sandals line initially, looking to drive topline sales growth and margins by consistently delivering new styles and colorways that align with contemporary consumer preferences. Consumer data provided by MakerSights will be shared with cross-functional teams and used to inform decisions around design details, colorways, and which products to adopt or drop from assortments to drive SKU productivity, as well as digital merchandising on the brand’s eCommerce channels, which bold styles to feature in marketing campaigns to attract consumers, and more.

Dearfoams, the leader in cozy and comfortable slippers, first used MakerSights to test innovation concepts and evaluate newness across its men's and women’s lines. Innovation testing led to a 50 percent reduction in unnecessary prototype sampling and pre-season testing gave the product team the consumer data needed to present newness with confidence. Strategic panel audience selection and targeted segmentation questions allowed the team to isolate specific department store customers and tailor their learnings, and subsequent assortment decisions to these accounts, enabling them to proactively maximize product commerciality before meeting with key accounts.

“We wanted to go into our sales meetings with confidence, having all of our i’s dotted and our t’s crossed,” said Dearfoams Chief Merchandising Officer Angela Kenney. “We did a lot of pre-sales testing using MakerSights to measure sentiment and demand for consumers who shop at specific retail stores. This enabled us to sell into these partners with little to no push back.” 

Johnston & Murphy, the #1 men’s dress shoe brand in the United States, recently implemented MakerSights to help the brand better engage with loyalty program members and gather their feedback on new concepts. The brand will also leverage MakerSights to conduct competitive analysis as it expands into new categories, like golf and casual athletic footwear, and to inform line adoption and investment decisions, as well as gather consumer data that will help the Johnston & Murphy sales team when working with wholesale partners.

“Today’s consumer is in a constant state of evolution. We need the real-time and forward-looking consumer sentiment and demand data that MakerSights can provide to keep pace and stay competitive,” said Johnston & Murphy Sr. Vice President of Marketing & Ecommerce Jason Dasal. “Johnston & Murphy has a lot of incredible repeat customers and we want to be able to reward them for their loyalty with more than just early access to new products or sales. MakerSights gives us a way to connect with them directly and make them a part of the product creation process so they know we value their input and feel invested in new styles, which is critical right now as we expand into new categories, so it’s a win for us and a win for our loyal customers.”

About MakerSights

The retail industry is one of the biggest polluters on the planet. At MakerSights, we know there is a better way. Consumer obsession powers growth and sustainability, so we’ve reimagined assortment management with the consumer at the heart of every decision. MakerSights is the only collaborative assortment management workspace that embeds actionable consumer data into product development, merchandising, and go-to-market workflows. Our customers are smart-to-market, consumer-obsessed brands, including Madewell, New Balance, and Champion, that are radically reducing economic and environmental waste by streamlining the concept-to-consumer process. For more information visit www.MakerSights.com.

Team MakerSights

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