How Tablets Can Improve The Customer Experience

February 2014 Integrated Solutions For Retailers

By Cindy Dubin, contributing editor

Luxottica uses caching software to drop online response time from minutes down to seconds.

Brand is king. And when a brand is at risk because of its retail in-store experience, the customer relationship can be threatened. Tom Schuetz, SVP/CTO — Americas & Asia Pacific Information Technology at Luxottica, understands this concept all too well.

With net sales reaching $9.2 billion in 2012 and more than 70,000 employees, Luxottica designs, manufactures, wholesales, retails, and insures eyewear. Luxottica owns Sunglass Hut, LenCrafters, Sears Optical, Pearl Vision, Target Optical, and others, totaling about 5,000 stores in North America.

In early 2012, it was Sunglass Hut that Schuetz was focused on helping. “Luxottica was looking at deploying tablets in the stores, but the Sunglass Hut brand decided to move ahead with iPads ahead of schedule,” explains Schuetz.