Overview
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Industry: Women’s Apparel Retail
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Location: Tilton, New Hampshire
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, J.Jill faced the same nightmare as so many other retailers: empty stores and struggling sales. The 62-year-old women’s clothing brand was fighting for its life.
But J.Jill didn’t only survive. By 2021, they’d grown sales 23.4% and completely turned around their brick-and-mortar struggles to profitable direct sales (93% online, 7% phone catalogs) with Smart Merchandiser.
Here’s the TL;DR:
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Challenge: Pivot from struggling retail stores to profitable online business while managing complex apparel inventory
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Solution: Used Smart Merchandiser’s AI-powered platform to optimize product presentation, tighten inventory control, and create compelling online experiences
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Results: 23.4% sales growth in 2021, successful transition to 93% digital business model, improved gross margins through disciplined inventory management
Challenge
J.Jill wasn’t prepared for what 2020 brought. (Was anyone?) The company had built its business on physical retail locations targeting affluent, older women. When stores shut down, their entire revenue model collapsed.
But the problems ran deeper than closed stores. Under the previous business model, J.Jill had focused primarily on top-line growth, which led to chronic over-inventorying. They’d buy too much product, then spend heavily on advertising and promotions to move excess stock. This left little room for actual profit.
When CEO Claire Spofford stepped in during 2021, she recognized that survival meant more than waiting for stores to reopen. The company needed a complete business model overhaul focused on gross margin and strict inventory discipline rather than only revenue growth.
The challenge was: How do you shift a traditional retail clothing business to primarily digital sales while maintaining the visual appeal and customer experience that drives apparel purchases?
Solution
Spofford’s turnaround strategy put Smart Merchandiser’s visual merchandising platform front and center. The choice made sense for several reasons.
First, clothing is inherently visual. Customers need to see how products look together, understand color options, and quickly find their sizes. Smart Merchandiser’s drag-and-drop interface let J.Jill’s team arrange products visually while embedding real-time performance data directly into product thumbnails.
The analytics overlay became particularly valuable. Instead of switching between multiple systems to understand product performance, merchandisers could hover over any product image to see views, conversion rates, abandonment data, and inventory levels. This real-time visibility was crucial for making quick decisions about product placement and inventory management.
J.Jill also leveraged Smart Merchandiser’s color management capabilities, which proved essential for apparel. The platform’s leading color functionality allowed them to feature the same items in different colors across multiple categories without complex coding. When they wanted to highlight a particular seasonal trend, they could instantly adjust which color variation appeared first across their entire catalog.
The ratings and reviews overlay helped build customer confidence in online purchases. J.Jill could capture customer feedback in real-time and display it prominently on product thumbnails. Equally important, they could prevent products with poor ratings from appearing above the fold on category pages, protecting the overall shopping experience.
Perhaps most critically, Smart Merchandiser’s inventory management features gave J.Jill unprecedented visibility into stock levels by size and color combinations. In apparel, these granular inventory details make the difference between a sale and a frustrated customer. The platform’s automated sorting capabilities ensured top-selling items stayed featured while moving slower inventory to less prominent positions.
Results
J.Jill’s 23.4% sales growth in 2021 represented a fundamental shift to a more profitable business model, not simply a pandemic recovery bounce.
The company strategically let retail leases expire, ending 2022 with fewer physical stores while maintaining strong growth projections. Instead of viewing this as downsizing, J.Jill repositioned itself as a direct sales business that happens to have some retail locations, rather than a retail business trying to bolt on eCommerce.
The focus on gross margin over top-line revenue, enabled by Smart Merchandiser’s inventory management capabilities, created sustainable profitability. Rather than over-buying and then discounting heavily to clear stock, J.Jill could make data-driven purchasing decisions based on real-time performance insights.
Smart Merchandiser’s AI-powered automation handled routine merchandising tasks, freeing J.Jill’s team to focus on brand strategy and customer experience. The platform’s ability to update inventory and product positioning across multiple channels simultaneously eliminated the manual work that previously consumed merchandising resources.
The visual merchandising improvements helped J.Jill replicate their in-store experience online. Customers could easily find desired sizes and colors, see how products looked together, and make confident purchases without trying items on first.
Today, J.Jill operates as a primarily digital business that’s beating expectations and achieving consistent, profitable growth. The company that was scrambling to avoid bankruptcy in 2020 now serves as a model for how traditional retailers can successfully transform their business models when they combine strategic vision with the right technology platform.
Ready to optimize product presentation, power inventory management with AI, and drive sustainable revenue growth? Get started with Smart Merchandiser and see results in as little as 30 days.
