Shoe Carnival’s Shoe Perks loyalty program ended 2014 with more than six million members, which is a focal point for the company.
“We continue to focus our store management and ecommerce teams on the importance of bringing new customers into our Shoe Perks loyalty program,” Shoe Carnival President, CEO, and CMO Cliff Sifford said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call on Wednesday, according to Seeking Alpha. “We started the year with approximately three million Perks members accounting for just over 22% of our sales. We ended the year with more than six million members who accounted for over 43% of our business. The growth of this program is an essential element to our overall marketing strategy.”
Shoe Carnival’s comparable store sales for the fourth quarter increased an impressive 9.5%.
“We believe that our key initiatives of national advertising, better brands in our women’s department, and our aggressive multichannel initiatives continue to bring new customers to our stores, ecommerce site, and mobile touch points,” Sifford added.
What’s more, Shoe Carnival has built a compelling online presence “by opening up our store level inventory to our ecommerce store,” Sifford explained. “Today, we have 250 stores capable of fulfilling ecommerce orders every day. This initiative not only expanded the selection and styles, but it also increased the depth of sizes available online, which in-turn improved conversion.”
Sifford said Shoe Carnival’s ship-from-store service is the first step to creating an analyst outlook experience for customers.
“Our most important initiative for 2015 is to give our store personnel the ability through our POS system to find the item or size the customer’s looking for and have that item shipped to the customer’s home,” he said. “We remain committed to establishing Shoe Carnival as a world-class multichannel retailer. The growth of our ecommerce business remains strong and will continue to make enhancements to both capitalize on our increasing traffic and optimize conversion rates.”
Sifford said significant improvements will be made to the company’s mobile site and mobile app, which have become a “meaningful part of our overall online sales. Our customers expect the seamless shopping environment with both a broad selection and our depth of sizes regardless of how they choose to shop. Our multichannel strategy is making that possible. Our ecommerce store is the fastest growing store in our fleet.”