American Eagle powers pickup and in-store experiences

The challenge

In 2020, American Eagle began expanding options for customers to pick up orders in-store and at curbside. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, American Eagle wanted to provide a seamless shopping experience for both in-store and buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS) customers. With these new options, customers could place an order online, receive an email when the order was ready, and either pick up the order in-store or call the location to have the order delivered to their car.

The original solution for order pickups fell short of American Eagle’s standards for customer experience and posed a number of operational challenges:

1. Customers had difficulty finding the curbside pickup locations and complained about long wait times.
2. Staff were unaware of when customers were arriving and unable to prioritize orders based on pickup times.
3. Store associates struggled to locate customers in parking lots using only the customer’s initial description of their parked location – a challenge exacerbated for American Eagle, as many of their locations are in malls and shopping centers.

American Eagle realized they needed to find a more efficient way for their store associates to fulfill curbside pickup orders and promote safety for customers who chose to come into the store, and they needed to solve this problem fast. In working towards a new solution, the team recognized a major opportunity to drive customer satisfaction and retention: targeted offers and experiences through their app.

The solution

Radar was able to provide American Eagle a solution for their multiple use cases in one location platform: 1) trip tracking for order ahead and pickup to notify staff when customers are on their way 2) accurate geofencing to power an in-store app mode that offered a self-checkout option. Instead of having to integrate solutions from several vendors, American Eagle was able to solve their customer experience needs with one partner.

American Eagle powers seamless curbside pickup experiences with Radar. With Radar’s turnkey trip’s dashboard installed on in-store tablets, associates can see live ETAs throughout a customer’s trip. American Eagle customers simply designate when they’re on their way to begin a trip. Radar takes over from there, notifying associates when customers are on their way, then again when the customer arrives – adding clarity to the pickup process for customers and employees. Now, associates can fit in tasks before heading to the parking lot to hand off an order, and customers no longer have to wait on hold attempting to contact the store upon arrival.

With Radar’s geofencing technology, American Eagle also added a self-checkout feature within their app, providing a delightful and efficient in-store shopping experience. To power this experience, Radar’s beacon detection feature determines when a customer is inside a store geofence, triggering an American Eagle push notification powered by Airship to let shoppers know a self-checkout feature is available. Opening the app within the store loads this mode automatically, increasing discoverability for a feature that improves customer satisfaction and drives loyalty.

The accuracy of Radar’s geofences meant that American Eagle could successfully gauge entries and exits into their stores – which often share walls with other retail stores within malls. Additionally, Radar’s beacons leverage existing Wi-Fi technology at American Eagle stores to successfully bypass connectivity issues that are common in larger retail structures like malls.

After deploying this project with Radar in September 2020, American Eagle had development completed by their target deadline in November 2020, which never could have been possible with an internal solution or stitching together multiple vendors.

With Radar powering order ahead and pickup and location-aware experiences use cases, American Eagle is now able to accelerate time to value, improve store operations, deliver targeted offers to customers in the moments that matter, and increase customer satisfaction.