Meet Kie & Kate Couture
Kati Kemph loved teaching her class of energetic first-graders in Elmhurst, a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. At the end of the school day, however, she dreamed of something more. Kati sought a job that satisfied her passion for creating women’s apparel. Her vision was to build a fun, rewarding career that provided financial stability and the autonomy to work at home.
By 2008, Kati was busy designing, crafting, and creating women’s clothes. She began selling her products at trunk shows, craft fairs, churches, and schools. Little did Kati know, she was establishing what soon would become Kie & Kate Couture— a boutique for women’s apparel and accessories. In time, Kati’s passion project blossomed into a business, with sales skyrocketing month after month.
Kati made the move into her first brick-and-mortar in 2011. Things were thriving. She was seeing growth via word of mouth and steady traffic to her storefront. By 2018, Kati expanded into a double storefront, and the mood was optimistic. But then COVID-19 swept the world and changed the playing field forever.
For many brick-and-mortar businesses, the pandemic led to an instant loss of employees, drastic drops in sales, and often permanent closures. Things seemed insurmountable in 2020, but that’s when Kati saw a strategic business opportunity: increase revenue online by getting Kie & Kate Couture into multi-channel live selling. Here’s how she did it.
Kie & Kate Couture Leaps into Live Commerce
Kie&Kate Couture relied solely on revenue generated during storefront hours when they opened in 2018. COVID, however, soon canceled the raving fans who loved to visit and shop there. Owner Kati needed a smart solution to increase sales ‘round the clock and replicate their in-store shopping experience online. The biggest challenges included:
- Buildng an Online Presence
With a COVID shutdown in effect worldwide, online shopping was essential for Kati Kemph to keep her thriving business growing. The question wasn’t how to bring more customers into the store, it was how to bring the friendly, engaging in-store shopping experience to online shoppers.
- Going Multichannel
Not only did Kie & Kate Couture need to build an online presence, they needed to do it across all channels—social media, webstore, and mobile app. Kati envisioned an engaging brand that would grow an online customer base outside of their small town.
- Managing Inventory Across Platforms
These retailers needed a way to manage their in-store and online sales seamlessly without extra integrations, fees, and downloads.
CommentSold: The Total Solution for Multichannel Live Selling
“Before CommentSold, we exclusively sold to our brick-and-mortar customers. We did a ton of social media posts and that would bring in business through Instagram and Facebook, but we didn’t have an online presence.”Kati Kemph, Owner, Kie & Kate Couture
While posting on Instagram or Facebook is a great way to start, it’s a long way from establishing an engaging, branded web presence for your business. Partnering with CommentSold empowered Kie & Kate Couture with the capability and technology to sell live, sell everywhere, and streamline their backend operations. Here’s a quick summary of the CommentSold strategy:
- Live Sales Integration
The adoption of live selling fosters online engagement, recreates the in-store shopping experience online, and helps build a community of excited shoppers.
- Relationship Building
With a strategic, live selling presence on Facebook and Instagram, Kie & Kate Couture drives shoppers to their webstore and app, where they become loyal, repeat customers.
- A Robust Point of Sale System
By implementing CommentSold’s Point of Sale System that supports in-store, online, and live sale purchases, Kie & Kate Couture can now manage an influx of online sales, streamline their operations, and scale their business.
How do you implement these plans and begin selling products online? Kati first needed to launch a retail brand online to supplement the storefront. She knew that choosing the right partner initially would help streamline their operations and set them up for long-term success. End-to-end e-commerce platforms like CommentSold are designed to support entrepreneurs from day one. These retail solutions save retailers time, energy, and money by offering automatic invoicing, streamlined inventory management, shipping and fulfillment solutions, marketing automation, and more.
Now, loyal followers of Kie & Kate Couture—plus an ever-expanding new audience—can shop multiple sales channels, simultaneously
Start with CommentSold’s Point of Sale System
With such lucrative online upgrades in the works, Kie&Kate Couture also required a streamlined and responsive inventory management system. CommentSold answered the call with their new point-of-sale system. It manages and tracks inventory for in-store shopping, live commerce events, and online purchases. Here’s how it sets any business up for success.
- Streamlined Retail Technology
Unify your commerce platforms and point-of-sale solutions with CommentSold. With this new point-of-sale system, you can eliminate the need to integrate with third parties for webstore or in-store purchases.
- Multichannel Inventory Updates
Manage your inventory in real-time from the CommentSold dashboard without additional syncs, apps, or integrations. With one platform, there’s no risk of overselling, overcomplicating, or overworking.
- Seamless Shopper Experience
Create a positive buying experience that transitions effortlessly online and in-store. By using one platform for all sales, you are creating a consistent experience for your customers, no matter where they shop.
The addition of the CommentSold Point of Sale System has proved a seamless experience both for the brick-and-mortar customer, for the website, and for their backend operations. Kie & Kate employees are happier, their operations run smoother, and their business has never been bigger.
Multichannel Live Selling: The Most Innovative Way to Engage Shoppers Online
Kie&Kate Couture boutique has built a thriving online business to complement its brick-and-mortar store. They host engaging and entertaining live sales that create hype around their products and allow customers to interact with them like old friends. If a shopper misses a live, he or she can view the event replayed on Facebook, Instagram, the mobile app, and the webstore. Since partnering with CommentSold, the changes have been exciting and even more profitable:
Annual GMV has grown more than 50% since launching live sales with CommentSold
Annual live sale revenue has steadily reached $1M – $2M since live sale launch in 2020
Top shoppers have spent more than $40,000 total on Kie & Kate live sales
Repeat purchase rate has increased to 90% in 2022
“I just love the whole package of the CommentSold platform. I love that I have a website, I have a mobile app, I have a point of sale system within my brick-and-mortar store, so it’s very cohesive. I love the fact that I can use it in one shopping experience.”Kati Kemph, Owner, Kie & Kate Couture
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