Next year, vineyard vines will celebrate a milestone – our 20th anniversary. From humble beginnings quitting our jobs and selling neckties out of a worn backpack, we have grown to more than 90 stores and a thriving online business selling lifestyle apparel and accessories to men, women and children. Along the way, a few things have remained constant: our iconic pink whale, our motto Every day should feel this good, and our focus on finding innovative ways to connect our customers to our brand.

Salesforce’s recognition today of vineyard vines as Pacesetter winner for Innovation is a proud testament to that focus.

Our focus has always been on real people living the good life…we stand for authenticity. Nowhere is that more evident than in our stores, where we leverage Commerce Cloud Store and mobile POS to offer superior service levels.

We use a range of Salesforce products – all in an effort to connect and engage with each customer on a 1:1 level through the entire shopper journey. Our store environments are not about selling; we create spaces where people love to buy from us.

We know brands must embrace technology as a new way to connect with customers. We’re not a fast fashion brand, but we’re also not a heritage brand that refuses to change. We will continue to evolve. We also know that personalized, relevant engagement leads to increased engagement and conversion. Our customers are much more likely to respond to an email that is personalized just for them, based on purchase history vs. the same email promotion that’s received by 100,000 others.

As many retailers are acknowledging, brick-and-mortar stores are in need of an innovation overhaul. And we’re getting in front of it by implementing Salesforce technologies that transform each store into a warehouse, and each store associate into a store owner with the capability to get a real time view of inventory (of that store and all stores) from a mobile device.

This single view of the customer, made possible by a unified commerce platform, is not only what today’s customers demand, it’s what will separate retail leaders from the rest of the pack.

We believe that Salesforce’s Intelligent Customer Success Platform helps us find new and innovative ways to do what we’ve done since 1998 – connect our customers to our brand and our Every day should feel this good way of life.