Garmont International Selects MakerSights to Inform Product Strategy and Optimize Assortments

Integrating MakerSights into Design, Product Marketing, and Sales Team Processes Part of Montebelluna-based Footwear Brand’s Digital Transformation Initiative

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MakerSights, the only Voice of Consumer platform purpose-built for apparel, footwear, and accessories brands, expands its roster of customers based in Montebelluna, the hub of outdoor footwear in Italy, with the addition of Garmont International. The implementation of MakerSights is integral to the high-performance footwear brand’s efforts to take advantage of emerging technologies to streamline and accelerate processes, as well as give target consumers a voice when developing products and crafting assortments. MakerSights enables Garmont to rapidly connect with thousands of target consumers to validate its product strategy, as well as identify which products to invest in and which products to cut from the line.

“MakerSights allows us to validate our creativity with consumer data and insights, keeping us in lockstep with our target consumers and giving us the information we need to approach our product strategy with a balance of art and science,” said Garmont COO Davide Calcagnotto.

MakerSights’ speed to insight played a critical role in the design and product marketing teams’ ability to react quickly. The initial test reached statistically significant results within 24 hours of launch with consumer sentiment data and feedback available in real-time via an interactive chart within the platform. Filtering responses by age, gender, where they shop, and the competitors they shop with, enabled them to develop rich consumer profiles within the larger target audience and hone their colorway strategy. Ultimately, 20 percent of the SKUs tested were cut from the line due to low performance with target consumers, saving the company sampling costs and making room in the line for deeper investments in higher-performing SKUs.

“Our first MakerSights test revealed a major market opportunity we would have never been aware of otherwise,” said Garmont Product Marketing Manager Paolo Martignon. “The interactive charts and graphs made it easy to see that a new colorway, originally slated for women, had an equally strong response from men so we quickly decided to bring the colorway to market in both lines. We also discovered that a new style that the team was excited about was also exciting our target consumers, especially consumers that currently shop with our competitors, giving us the confidence to invest more in this style than we had originally planned.”

Moving forward, Garmont will leverage MakerSights throughout the concept-to-consumer process with a particular focus on evaluating newness, line adoption, and sell-in with key accounts.

“We’re proud to support the teams at Garmont in their pursuit to bring the voice of their consumers into the product creation process,” said MakerSights CEO Dan Leahy. “Creating new products comes with inherent risk, whether it's growing into an existing product or space or introducing a brand new category and getting downstream stakeholders excited about them. With MakerSights, Garmont can now take calculated risks and confidently bring exciting new colorways and styles to market, knowing that they have the consumer data to help them establish credibility with retail partners and maximize sales.”

About MakerSights

MakerSights is the leading Voice of Consumer platform purpose-built for consumer insights and testing apparel, footwear, and accessories. Throughout the value chain – from driving category strategies to increasing SKU productivity and identifying new category investment opportunities – MakerSights empowers brands to make consumer data-informed decisions that improve margins, increase profitability, and reduce waste – wasted time, money, and valuable natural resources. The world’s most iconic brands, including Champion, GANT, and New Balance, use MakerSights to enable product creation, merchandising, and consumer insights teams to understand target consumers via easy-to-use dashboards and data analytics so they can create more products that people will love – and less of what they don’t. www.MakerSights.com.