Sandro: Brick-and-Mortar Stores vs. Online Store

As a relatively new brand (launching in 1984), Sandro operates an extremely limited distribution in the United States; there are only 17 brick-and-mortar stores in North America (14 of which are shop-in-shops at Bloomingdale's), and they are focused primarily on the coasts.

This is a panoramic shot of the Sandro shop-in-shop at Bloomingdale's at 59th Street in Manhattan.

This is a closer shot of one wall in the same shop.

The store assimilates into the aesthetic of Bloomingdale's rather than retaining its identity. The wood floors are the only difference between Sandro and the brands that have shop-in-shops next to it: Zadig & Voltaire, Alice & Olivia, Maje, Equipment, Current/Elliott, and Helmut Lang. The shop is merchandised by color: oxbloog red on one wall, blue on another, and forest green on the third. There is a center table with select sweaters and handbags piled on top. The shopper does not get the French "joie-de-vivre" from the shop.

The merchandise is similar to the product offered on the United States website. A major difference is that Bloomingdale's offers handbags which are not available on the United States website. However, the price points are identical as Bloomingdale's uses the MRSP. Because I visited the shop the weekend of Thanksgiving, there were sales throughout Bloomingdale's. Those sales are not mimicked from the Sandro website; they are Bloomingdale's company-wide sales.

Sandro opened its first United States free-standing brick-and-mortar store in November 2011 on Bleecker Street. The white walls and wood flooring are similar to Bloomingdale's, unfortunately. Again, aside from the name on the glass door before entering the store, there is little to suggest that this is Sandro as opposed to another boutique downtown. There are no prints on the walls that echo the site's homepage, which is so inviting. Though there is little personality in the store, the white walls and light flooring suggest higher-end merchandise. The light colored walls and flooring, paired with dark fixtures, mimic Sandro's website colors. The new trend in luxury is to have a predominantly white website, and Sandro matches that here in their shops.

Though the product offering is nearly identical, Sandro's website competes with its brick-and-mortar stores through price point differentiation. Sandro is typically French in that it only holds sales twice a year - its season-end sales. A Sandro customer may be able to get products cheaper if there is a holiday sale (Black Friday, Memorial Day Weekend, etc.) in the United States.

The online store is not as easy to navigate as other online stores, because there is no sort feature (other than sorting by price) once the customer chooses the method in which to view the products. Though, it must be noted, there is not a plethora of merchandise on the website, it is frustrating to manually sift through everything to find a product of interest. There are sections of edited merchandise and look books of the latest collection, but the customer is not able to directly shop the look books. See below.

Instead, the customer has to remember the name of the product and search the website another way. Depending on the product that the viewer is trying to buy, the site re-routes to another unfamiliar site. See below.

This is too clumsy, and can be streamlined similarly to Net-a-Porter, which allows its clients to shop its online magazine.

After choosing the way they want to view the website - categorically, by keyword, or by previously starred items from a wish list - the customer has to find a product that interests them. Each product page is a page unto its own; there is no page that is linked to it, and additionally, there is no product that is linked to the product page. See below.

It is unfortunate that Sandro does not show any other product with this ombre style vest, for example. As a customer, I can't buy any of the product that is shown with this vest in the full outfit shot. Instead, I have to continue to search throughout the website to find the complementary products.
In a brick-and-mortar store, there is a sales associate to reinforce the product and ensure that the customer knows how to wear the product - usually with complementary products in the store. Sandro has no component that mirrors the sales associate online. There is no instant message chat for instant answers to questions. There is no way to entice the customer to purchase more through up-selling or cross-selling. If the process of finding complementary product takes too long, the customer may choose to forgo the original sale all-together.