Hi Miss Ashley!” That’s a greeting managers at the 89 Ashley Stewart plus-size women’s apparel stores across the United States are accustomed to hearing when regulars walk through their doors, says Donna Yu, director of customer relationship management for Ashley Stewart.
The retailer’s repeat and loyal store shoppers often affectionately call store managers ‘Miss Ashley’, Yu says. “They think there is a lady named Ashley somewhere and she runs the business,” she says. While that’s not the case, Ashley Stewart, which launched in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1991 and now sells online and in stores in 22 states, has a strong base of frequent store visitors, Yu says. And recently, the brand began looking to replicate the personalized store experience on the web.
The retailer, which began selling online about five years ago, now employs a team of about 20 working on web operations, Yu says. Web sales are inching toward a 50/50 split with stores, with annual e-commerce revenue totaling close to $100 million in 2016 and growing by double-digit percentages each year, she says.
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