Apparel Magazine Top Innovators 2011
Written by — Jessica Binns
Work ‘N Gear nominated by CSC
Work ‘N Gear is the largest U.S. retail chain that specializes in providing customers
with a wide variety of apparel and footwear for the service, industrial and healthcare
environments. It operates 43 retail stores throughout the Northeast and Midwest, with
new facilities planned for the year ahead.
Recently, Work ‘N Gear launched a new store-in-store (SIS) business model called Scrubology
inside selected Sears and Kmart centers. Scrubology offers healthcare apparel and accessories
for medical professionals including nurses, doctors and home health aides. The SIS model is a
strategic, cost effective move aimed at bringing the right kind of merchandise — including
brandname scrubs — to convenient, nationwide locations where the target customer may already shop.
Moreover, customers can take advantage of both Scrubology promotions and offers available
through Kmart and Sears, such as family-and-friends discounts and exclusive reward programs.
The company implemented new enterprise systems to support the SIS initiative and new websites
for Scrubologyshop.com — launching shortly — on Raymark's Xpert-Series™ suite integrated
with e-commerce powered by AspDotNetStorefront. “We are in early conversion/build to a new
fully integrated system powered by Raymark Software Enterprise Solutions,” says Anthony DiPaolo,
president and CEO for Work ‘N Gear.
Work ‘N Gear engaged CSC to support the implementation and cutover of the software suite to
support the store-in-store initiative, with key activities including business process design,
data integration with Sears Holding Corporation (e.g., sales, items/products, promotions,
prices, labels/tickets, etc.), testing, training, cutover and post-go-live support.
Raymark's Xpert-Series™ suite and its components include home office functions such as
merchandising, accounting, business intelligence analytics, distribution, replenishment
assortment planning, open to buy, promotion management, CRM, and warehousing.
DiPaolo expects the enterprise system to be up and running by year’s end; a microsite
for marketing information and promotions and offers was scheduled to be operational last month,
with full e-commerce functionality — also supported by CSC — planned for later in 2011. “Work ‘N Gear
is a relatively small retailer with a very competent, financially backed organization and is able to
make decisions and move quickly to take advantage of opportunities,” DiPaolo adds. “We have had
great cooperation from our counterparts at Sears Holding Corporation, which is fundamental in
making this type of operation a success.”
To date the retailer has opened 10 pilot Scrubology SIS shops, which occupy between 800 and 1,000
square feet apiece. “Work ‘N Gear has an incredibly capable team and we were able to open the
initial set with no new staffing. As we open additional locations we will be looking to continue to
leverage our current team and add staffing as needed,” says DiPaolo. The Scrubology shops currently
are manned part time by Work ‘N Gear staff.
View the article as a PDF as it appears on page 34 of Apparel Magazine’s Top Innovators 2011