Woolman developed business intelligence tool Ellis to help merchants make better sense of their data, dig deeper into their customers behaviours, and make more informed decisions based on insights. We sat down with Nanso to talk about their journey with Woolman and what the results have been so far since using Ellis.
Nanso’s transformation towards a data-driven business
Nanso's roots go far back to 1921, when the brand was established in Pirkanmaa, Finland - where life has traditionally been peaceful and respectful of nature. These humble roots and respect of nature is still reflected in the brand to this day.
Starting out from undergarment production to now a wide range of sustainable clothing and household products. Nanso has had an incredible journey and transformation moving from a production house to a brand house with the focus in retail.
They have since opened several brick and mortar stores and an online store which was reformed in 2019 on Shopify. The modernisation of the brand and moving towards an omnichannel presence has led Nanso to work with Woolman and business intelligence platform Ellis - to find new ways to understand and connect with customers.
“Nanso has been around for a long time, and that legacy must be respected. Big changes started about 7 years ago as we moved from a production-type situation to a brand house ‘Nanso group’, under which we have two other brands Catmandoo and Vogue. During this change our focus has been retail and our own channels, modernising the brand and developing our online store.” - Jenni Homer, Retail Director
Our website development is very versatile and in-depth. We have taken many big strides, and that is why having our data in place is also very important .” -Sofia Björk, Marketing Manager
Why Nanso started working with Woolman and business tool Ellis
For many brands on Shopify, scattered data can be a challenge as many have data in a variety of channels such as Google, Shopify analytics, Meta, and apps. This can make it hard and time-consuming to manage and have a clear picture on customer behaviour. This was the situation Nanso was finding themselves in as well.
Having several physical stores and the different online data sources, it was becoming harder for Nanso to keep track, analyze, and compare different data points. For a customer-centric brand such as Nanso, understanding where customers are coming from and who their customers are is crucial.
They needed tracking and deeper understanding of things like seasonal campaigns and best sold products for better inventory management. This is why sharpening their data strategy was crucial for continued success.
“Woolman has been our Shopify partner since the beginning. We have various apps in the Shopify environment, such as Nosto and Klaviyo. We had a problem with how we can connect loyal customer data with sales data and have more precise segmentation. Shopify itself does not have this. We wanted everything in one place.” - Jenni Homer, Retail Director
Previously inaccessible customer data was now possible with Ellis
Nanso started to use Ellis in a pilot and co-creation phase back when Ellis was not yet a ‘’ready’’ product. With the help of Nanso’s feedback, Woolman was able to make different improvements to suit their needs. With Ellis, Nanso had all their data from a variety of sources combined to a viewable dashboard so that they could become more data-driven in their decision-making.
Connecting Shopify POS to data management platform Ellis
Specifically as Nanso was using Shopify POS in their physical stores, all the data from different stores could be integrated to Ellis to help increase omnichannel sales performance, manage inventory and track sales more efficiently. With Shopify POS data being combined to Ellis, its easier to compare sales and customer behaviour between different locations. With the combined data, Ellis can help to identify for example the sell-through-rate of products or calculate the collaboration profit from influencer campaigns.
“The Ellis team has been very good at listening to feedback and developing the necessary changes. We have had limited resources to do a deep analysis of our super customers, and things like return rates.
Now, together with the Ellis team, we will conduct a more extensive segmentation study and dig deeper into the customer data. It's good to move things forward. It will be interesting to find out how the profiles differ in brick-and-mortar stores versus online stores.” -Sofia Björk, Marketing Manager
“We have now been able to get our hands on data that we would have not been able to access without Ellis. Almost 80% of our sales are brought by our regular customers. So understanding our loyal customers is extremely important.
For example, Ellis is the only place where we can monitor how many per month new regular customers are recruited per store, and what are the top products of our regular customers. Our loyalty program does not provide such data.“ - Jenni Homer, Retail Director
Long-term cooperation with Woolman for continued success
Nanso is in a continued partnership with Woolman, who is working on implementing new features to Ellis to further increase productivity in daily work. For example, making customisable dashboards for different users. Ellis has the possibilities to be used as a company wide tool - from marketing to eCommerce teams.
“At Woolman, everyone is professional and tries to understand our needs. There are still many developments we want for the daily use of Ellis, and its a been a joy to see Woolman being genuinely interested in our needs and carry forward our wishes.” - Jenni Homer, Retail Director
Nanso continues to invest in strategic initiatives
Nanso has certainly come a long way from their roots and managed to make many significant changes by investing in the right initiatives, which has resulted in exponential growth. Staying up-to-date with the fast-changing market, finding new channels to grow, working with the right partners, and understanding the power of data-driven decision making has truly been a game changer for them.
Throughout the consistent change and growth, Nanso has still been able to keep the legacy of the brand alive, but has found new ways to relate to the trends of the modern world.
“We have huge growth plans and expectations for retail growth, which is why we invest in understanding customer data. We have been on a great growth path -since 2018, we have more than doubled our retail trade.
Opening more physical stores and an online store has helped our growth, as well as making the brand correspond better to the modern age, and expanding the product range. We want to try to stay relevant even for new young customers, even though we have our super loyal customers.” - Jenni Homer, Retail Director
"Sustainability and responsibility has always been at the core of Nanso, and we are continuously investing in more second-hand services. We also just launched a collection of repaired products.
We want to find ways to communicate what sustainability means to us in the modern world and find the customer segments that are interested in sustainability, which is possible in Ellis" -Sofia Björk, Marketing Manager
Would Nanso recommend Ellis?
“Many brand representatives often ask us which programs we use, I always mention Ellis. I especially recommend it to those who are on Shopify and want to better understand data and have their data easily combined from different sources.” - Jenni Homer, Retail Director
