B2B Sales Platform
Streamlining wholesale process for Levi Strauss & Co
As a Production Manager at SFDS, I optimized workflow for catalog imagery production, making it 4 times faster and lowering the production cost by 60%. This gave us the time and resources to focus on our main client, Levi's, and their B2B sales challenges. We identified problems and developed software solutions: IPG, VMR, and SOUP DAM, which we offered as a subscription service.
As a Founding Designer at SFDS, my role included identifying and analyzing customer problems, creating end-to-end user experiences, supporting the engineering and QA, developing research and KPI analysis strategies, creating client-facing analytic reports, and promoting product features through demo and training sessions.
Products Overview
IPG
Interactive Product guide
A B2B wholesale tool that digitizes and customizes product assortments, streamlining the sales process and enhancing customer collaboration.
Released 2019
VMR
Virtual Meeting Room
A multi-user whiteboard tool that replicates the in-person experience for B2B sales reps and buyers, enabling collaborative product presentations.
Released 2020
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SOUP DAM
Digital Asset Manager
A cloud-native DAM solution that centralizes assets and automates image manipulation using an AI image recognition agent and provides API delivery.
Released 2021
SFDS Partnership with Levi’s
1999-2002: Photography and design work for Levi's, creating product guides.
2003: Expanded to produce sales tools for Levi's, including pricelists and visual line plans.
2008: Developed an webcut automation system to support Levi's operations.
2013: Helped Levi's implement a new sales strategy by blending data and imagery for the wholesale platforms.
2018-Present: Created digital tools to enhance Levi's B2B sales.
Levi’s B2B Sales Opportunities
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How might we maximize sales?
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How might we speed up the sales process?
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How might we view data to make informed and actionable decisions?
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How might we leverage all stakeholder efforts and minimize duplicate work?
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How might we simplify asset creation efforts for all departments (design, merchandising, photo studio, sales)?
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How might we allow effortless communication between all stakeholders throughout the entire product life cycle (from design to retail)
IPG - Interactive Product guide
The Interactive Product Guide (IPG) is a tool for B2B sales reps to create custom merchandise assortments they will offer wholesale buyers. The tool enables internal and customer collaboration by providing preloaded assortments that users can customize to fit their sales strategy.
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Selected IPG screenshots, February 2019
Problems Adressed
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Delayed sales start due to inefficiencies in the B2B wholesale process.
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Printed catalogs expensiveness, inflexibility, and often inaccuracy, slowing the sales cycle.
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Lack of an efficient way to take notes during meetings.
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Inability to tailor merchandise assortments to individual customers, leading to impersonal sales experiences.
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Unmanageable processes for performing product inventory, recording customer preferences, and building draft orders.
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Need for faster access to images to accelerate the sales process and improve efficiency.
Solutions Provided
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IPG has successfully phased out printed catalogs, digitized up to 90% of the Levis B2B wholesale process
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Real-time product information updates and image sharing enhanced buyer engagement and improved sales efficiency by 300%
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IPG enabled the creation of tailored merchandise assortments for individual customers, allowing personalized experience
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Facilitated the creation of purchasing forecasts and increased the opportunity for developing more products.
User Profile
Our discovery approach includes surveys, interviews, field studies, competitive analysis, and real-time feedback to understand user specifics, needs, and workflows.
Fernando Jones
B2B Sales Rep at Levi Strauss & Co
40 years old
Orinda, CA
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Has an established way of working with buyers
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Slow with adopting new processes and software
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Overworked and burnt out during the sales season
Goals
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Sell as many items as possible that satisfy buyer needs
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Establish trust and connection with the buyer
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Prepare a curated list of items per specific buyer and share
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Walk buyer through the list, take notes and quantities requests
Pain Points
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Selling through paper catalogs requires time-consuming in-person meetings.
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It is difficult to communicate product changes not reflected in static printed catalogs.
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Presenting self made curated lists is challenging and not visually appealing with static catalogs.
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Iterating orders is challenging when using static materials in person and over the phone.
Interface and functionality
VMR - Virtual Meeting room
VMR is a digital tool designed for collaborative presentations for B2B sales representatives and buyers, replicating the experience of in-person meetings in a virtual environment.
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Selected VMR screenshots, May 2020
Problems Adressed
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The pandemic disrupted traditional in-person B2B sales meetings, making it challenging for sales reps to maintain buyer relations.
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Complex multistep sales process needed to be adapted to a virtual setting.
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Struggles to convey the quality and details of products (for ex., fabric, fit) without physical samples.
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Difficulty to build strong connections with buyers without face-to-face interactions.
Solutions Provided
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VMR offers an immersive, interactive, multi-user interface that supports voice and chat features, enabling engaged collaboration.
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The tool allows simultaneous work on multiple lists by starting presentations from full assortment or lists created in IPG.
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Features include freehand drag-and-drop, preset layouts, whiteboard tools for interactive product presentations, and different access levels (Admin et al.).
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Provides buyers with the ability to independently view collections, make selections, and manage inventory
User Profiles
Fernando Jones
B2B Sales Rep at Levi Strauss & Co
40 years old
Orinda, CA
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Has an established way of working
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Slow with adopting new processes and software
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Overworked and burnt out during the sales season
Pain Points
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Struggles to convey the quality and details of products, like fabric, without physical samples.
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Difficult to build strong connections with buyers without face-to-face interactions.
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Virtual settings make it harder to add chanes into the buyer assortments .
Goals
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Sell as many items as possible that satisfy buyer needs
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Clearly explain product details and features remotely
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Establish and maintain trust with buyers in a virtual setting
Jessica Carter
Sr. Buyer at Macy’s
35 years old
New York, NY
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Has 8+ years of experience in fashion retail buying
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Balances creativity with a data-driven approach to ensure that her selections resonate with customers and meet sales targets
Pain Points
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Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of products and the need to make quick, accurate, decisions.
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Lacks the tactile feedback needed to make fully informed decisions.
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Virtual meetings are less effective for discussing and comparing products, leading to uncertainty in buying choices.
Goals
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Select products for the upcoming season's trends and shopper needs
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Keep stores well-stocked with popular items
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Build good relationships with suppliers
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Avoid overstock or stockouts
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Negotiate better deals and secure exclusive products
Interface and functionality
SOUP DAM - Asset manager and Webcut tool
A centralized data and media platform that manages the image lifecycle. It automates various asset manipulation processes using image recognition agent and automatically delivers them to various customer systems.
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Problems Adressed
Inefficient Webcut Process: The process for obtaining webcuts involved multiple departments, redundant manual work, and various tools, leading to time loss and errors.
Decentralized Efforts: Difficulty in connecting all departmental efforts, leading to miscommunications and duplicated work.
Sales Process Delays: Delays in getting the most up-to-date images negatively affected the sales process, especially crucial for online sales.
Data and Image Management: Managing and accessing product images and data across different departments and regions is challenging.
Adapting to Pandemic Constraints: Maintaining internal sales interactions during the pandemic requires a shift from in-person to virtual environments without access to the samples.
Solutions Provided
ILM (Image life manager): A platform to track and manage the entire lifecycle of product images, ensuring that the most current images are available to all stakeholders.
Deliver (Automated webcuts tool): Automates image editing and sizing and streamlines image distribution via API integration.
Shortlist: Supports the image production process, reduces asset transfer time, and improves item check-in/check-out efficiency.
Assort: Enables merchandising to use past-season imagery to influence current designs and enhance collaboration with their design partners.
Seamless integration with Levi's existing SAP platform ensures timely and efficient data updates
User Profile
Interface and Functionality
Achivements and KPIs
Implementing IPG, VMR, and SoupDAM has significantly streamlined Levi’s B2B sales processes, leading to their adoption across sub-brands like Signature Gold, Signature Red, and Denizen.
These tools have reduced image production and delivery times, improved team collaboration, and automated processes to minimize errors and ensure timely, accurate asset delivery. This has resulted in notable sales growth, with high user adoption driving Levi’s continued success and efficiency.
Customer-facing usage and analytics reports.