Eizenstein

London, UK

Avant-garde fashion boutique, Eizenstein, needed a cutting-edge system to streamline their business in-store and online. For a brand with an eye on the future, Lightspeed was the obvious choice - read on to find out why.

Meet Eizenstein
Located in the trendy East End of London, Eizenstein is a dark, edgy collection of high-end streetwear. The store is stark and minimalist; industrial concrete walls and raw metal furnishings house a collection of twenty independent designer brands. Each with it’s own identity but harmoniously curated.

“The vibe in the store is based on our core values; being young and unique. The way we put designers together is based on the way we see people dressing in the future. It’s very one of a kind” says Buyer and Store Director, Aga.

Founded on the premise that art and fashion are two sides of the same coin, every garment has been selected for it’s impact, it’s outspoken style and offbeat design. It’s a merge of high fashion grandeur and fresher, urban aesthetics.

From a one-off pair of couture shoes that take three months to create to more commercially available labels like Boris or Kenzo, the Eizenstein team are passionate about the every brand they carry. Their customers come to find something alternative as Aga explains “It’s about seeing the cool clothes and getting to know new designers. The story behind each brand is really important, for instance if the clothing is sustainable or from an emerging new designer that is getting their name out there.”

“The Lightspeed team are always helpful and the training sessions that they have provided have been invaluable”

- Millie Cockton, Manager at Eizenstein

Omnichannel: Physical and digital retail in a single solution
Eizenstein are well aware of the power of their boutique store in the age of eCommerce. As Aga explains “There’s never a time where physical stores will stop existing - it’s so important. I think it works as an introduction to your online store.” With clothes being such personal, tangible purchases “having a space like this is an opportunity to offer an extra customer experience so then they go online after, shop and come back. We want people to feel like it’s one thing. It's not digital and physical - it's one”.

“The omnichannel factor was the most important for us when we were considering a new system.” says manager Millie. “We were looking specifically for a system that would link our inventory for our physical store as well as our ecommerce to maximise efficiency and minimise mistakes.” This need for an omnichannel solution led Eizenstein to chose a combination of Lightspeed Retail and Lightspeed eCommerce to run their business.

How Lightspeed is improving efficiency
While Aga and her team take care of curating the store and generally looking cool, they rely on Lightspeed for processing day to day sales, tracking stock and keeping the customer data safe and centralised.
From a management perspective, Aga uses Lightspeed’s powerful reporting to get a lot of her time back. “It really helps me to create all the reports at the end of season and shortens the time taken compiling the numbers before going to the next buy and picking the next designer. It actually does half of the job for me!” Lightspeed also allows here to access data remotely via the cloud, which is perfect as she is frequently away from the store.

The team at Eizenstein also make use of Lightspeed’s handy tagging feature to monitor the performance of the brands they stock and look at sales breakdowns related to specific seasons. “Previously these would have had to have been facilitated manually which was far more time consuming!” says Millie. “This feature allows us to extract information very quickly and create comparative reports!”

Improving the customer experience
Aga firmly believes that customer experience is the most important things for independent boutiques. “You’re not just trying to sell; you’re showcasing the brands and what they’re about.” Lightspeed Retail lets them add pictures to their inventory, allowing them to create miniature lookbooks of each designer to show their customers.
It was important that Eizenstein’s EPOS system fitted into the rest of their store’s sophisticated aesthetics too. As Millie explains “having the Lightspeed Retail app on our iPad reduces the size of the hardware dramatically and looks very smart which is great in a smaller space!” It also allows them to efficiently serve the needs of their customers by providing real-time information on their inventory at the push of a button.
“The customer service is so much better” says Aga, “it gives us the opportunity to quickly check what’s in stock.” Instead of going to the stock room, they can go to one of the iPads and check the available sizes. Ultimately this allows them to spend more time being present with their customers and introducing them to brands they might not have heard of yet.

What does the future have in store for Eizenstein?
Alongside getting their Lightspeed Ecommerce site live, Eizenstein are also hard at work on running a series of innovative designer pop-ups in their store.
“One of our really important values is supporting young designers and giving them a platform to showcase their art” says Aga. Every three weeks, a new designer will be collaborating with Eizenstein to curate a display for the shop window. We’re certain it’s going to turn some heads!

If you’re in Shoreditch, London make sure to stop by Eizenstein at 105 Redchurch St, London E2 7DL.