Founded in 1958 in Sanjo City, Japan, Snow Peak is an innovator of outdoor apparel and gear, evolving from mountaineering equipment to premium camping products built around quality, functionality, durability, and considered design. Its mission is to reconnect people with nature and each other through goods and services that enable an outdoor lifestyle.
The Challenge
After rapid growth, Snow Peak found its retail operations fragmented — store managers held broad authority over layouts and operations, and the culture was not yet rooted in performance and accountability. With only limited data points (POS data, new-customer counts, and manual shopper tallies), the company committed to establishing baseline retail metrics and building a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
The Solution
Snow Peak used RetailNext in-store analytics in a three-stage plan: design and implement a baseline for store operations, roll it out and identify best practices, then capitalize on continuous-improvement opportunities. It built KPIs around capture rate, conversion, and staff-scheduling efficiency, trained managers and associates on the systems and change management, and instituted monthly and quarterly reviews with RetailNext consultants — using outputs such as kinetic heat maps to judge the effectiveness of layouts and merchandising.
The Results
In the first 18 months, Snow Peak grew total shopper traffic by 8.2% (with top stores up 26%), lifted overall conversion by 13% (top stores sustaining 32%), increased average transaction value, and saw a 213% increase in shoppers converting across both gear and apparel categories — evidence of a self-sustaining performance culture taking hold across the fleet.
