Saks Global | Customer Stories

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Delta Award Winning Story

Saks Global is Redefining Luxury Retail by Placing Customers at the Heart of Every Decision Through Rapid, Insight-Driven Transformation

Saks Global Achieved

Reducing external research spend while increasing insight volume

Capturing real-time customer feedback in as little as three business days from initial outreach

Delivering timely business insights that drive informed decisions

Overview

Following the acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group that established Saks Global as the world’s largest multi-brand luxury retailer, the company faced both an opportunity and a challenge: scaling globally without losing the deeply personal connection that defines luxury.

Through Alida’s platform, Saks Global created a direct line of dialogue with their customers, giving them a seat at the table in shaping brand, product, and experience decisions. This always-on relationship allows the company to live alongside their customers – to understand their lifestyles, evolving preferences, and expectations, so the company’s brands can consistently elevate every moment of the luxury experience, both in-store and online.

As Saks Global progressed its integration efforts with the acquisition of Neiman Marcus Group, this customer community became the engine for customer understanding. This helped the organization crystallize brand positioning, refresh its digital presence, and modernize merchandising strategies for a new era of luxury.

Program Goals:

Keep customers front and center in business strategy, even at scale
Accelerate decision-making across the enterprise with on-demand insights
Continuously refine brand differentiation and merchandising across the three luxury banners
Enhance the digital and in-person shopping experience through customer-led feedback

Business Opportunity

Saks Global’s Research & Insights team leverages a sophisticated blend of methodologies to uncover both fast-turn insights and deep human understanding. The team gathers feedback both from customers and others in the market to understand attitudes, behaviors, and motivations beyond brand perception to identify unmet needs across the category. Each project starts with a clear business question, ensuring research directly fuels strategic impact. Their toolkit includes:

Ad hoc surveys and trackers to capture fast sentiment shifts
Concept and creative testing to guide campaign development
Focus groups and in-depth interviews with customers, stakeholders, and luxury experts
Usability testing and virtual diary studies to refine digital experiences
Segmentation and brand positioning research to distinguish each luxury banner

Insights are shared widely across executive, creative, merchandising, UX, marketing, PR, and strategy teams at Saks Global, influencing multiple layers of the organization.

Results

Speed as a competitive advantage:
When executives needed rapid input to guide a strategic decision, the team leveraged Alida to field, analyze, and deliver customer-backed insights within 3 days—turning what once took weeks into days.

Elevated customer experience:
UX research led to a lift in engagement after redesigning Saks Global’s digital experience to better reflect a modern, luxurious interface.

Smarter merchandising and creative:
Customer feedback helped refine assortment strategies and tailor brand partner selections, while creative testing drove improved ad performance and marketing campaigns.

Thought leadership and brand credibility:
Through insights from the Luxury Pulse Survey, Saks Global became recognized as an authority on luxury consumer behavior, earning consistent coverage across major media outlets.

Operational excellence and cost savings:
In just one year, Saks Global cut external research costs significantly while doubling project output, establishing an insights engine that is both agile and financially efficient.

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"Speed is everything. The world moves fast, and opinions shift just as quickly. With Alida, we can ask our customers a question on Monday and deliver insights to our executives by Wednesday. That kind of agility is how we can make progress on our mission to reinvent the luxury shopping experience while keeping our customers at the center of it all."

- Saks Global Research & Insights Team