Payless Uses Web-Based 'Shoe Finder' To Link Customers And Products

Payless ShoeSource Inc. caters to customers who have no qualms about browsing store aisles and trying on low-priced shoes--most of which cost less than $15--without waiting for help from an employee. Now, following that same low-cost approach, the company has a new system to help locate shoes, improve customer service, and boost sales to more than 225 million pairs of shoes a year.

It's called, appropriately enough, Shoe Finder, the cornerstone application in a proprietary system Payless started developing 18 months ago and has just finished installing in its 4,700 U.S. stores. When shoppers can't find the shoe they want, sales associates consult Shoe Finder, a Web-enabled PC-based system, to locate the merchandise in a few seconds, either in the storeroom, in transit, at a neighboring Payless location, or on payless.com. The front- and back-office functions of each Payless store are linked, via the Web, to company headquarters in Topeka, Kan.

What makes the new system unique is that Payless shoppers receive a $1-off coupon if the shoes are located at another store. And, although Shoe Finder requires an associate's help, people still pick up their own shoes. "What is self-service? It isn't no service," says Dave VonFeldt, director of information systems development. "It's the appropriate amount with customers finding their shoes. And if they don't, helping them find it before they leave."

Another benefit to the new technology--Dell multimedia PCs running Microsoft Windows 2000 and called the retail performance support system--is that it provides online training for the company's 27,000 sales associates. That's important, VonFeldt says, because "our employees are fairly transient; we compete with fast food for many of them."

Payless customers use their coupons about half the time, and Shoe Finder leads to a sale about 80% of the time, based on results from the first stores that implemented the system 12 months ago, VonFeldt says. He wouldn't disclose the cost to develop Shoe Finder or the number of coupons stores have handed out.

Payless, which had $2.95 billion in sales last year, can use the coupons to monitor what merchandise is out of stock in a particular location, where customers make their final purchases, and what store referred them. In the past, stores were unwilling to send shoppers to another Payless since it meant losing a sale; now, they receive bonuses for it.