Article by Filips Birzulis
Mentioning Jugla - a neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Riga, most locals would first imagine monotonous Soviet apartment block buildings rather than a clothing store. More than ten years ago, Ivars Bitmets decided it would be a challenge to sell quality clothes at an affordable price in this area where he grew up, rather than further overcrowding the city center.
Focusing on quality yet affordable and stylish men's pants and later offering products for women as well, the store Bikšu Bāze gradually gained a loyal customer base from Riga and other parts of Latvia, as well as from other countries.
The striking wall painting, perfectly advertising the store and enhancing the urban environment of the neighborhood, became a local landmark for new customers, bike orientation participants, and selfie takers alike. 😊
"When the world suddenly turned upside down in March 2020, during the spring pandemic phase, Latvian stores were allowed to remain open, but people were very afraid of getting sick, and the number of visitors critically decreased. 'Since we assign the highest value in business to knowledgeable and skilled employees, we had to think about how to pay salaries and rent,' the store owners Ivars and Beata updated their existing website into a full-fledged online business."
"Anyone who has ordered clothes online knows that the biggest problem is determining the right size. Here, Bikšu Bāze specialists used experience accumulated over several years. At the beginning of the store's operation, it was necessary to learn the understanding of size and create their own universal system because factory-rejected models without size labels were sold, and any size of a labeled model can differ significantly depending on the manufacturer. Thus, the store owners and sellers became experts in searching for the perfect fit."
"To notice and read sizes, the task is to be able to see the peculiarities of a person's body and develop a methodology, rather than rely on what is written down. Then, together with colleagues, we realized that the process can be recorded and divided into data," says Ivars."
"Several different Facebook videos were recorded, in which Ivars invites men to mark their height and weight in a simple questionnaire (no jokes 😊) and choose their style. In response, the customer receives links to pants and jeans models suitable for them — products on the Bikšu Bāze website, and the customer can conveniently place an order, receive the goods by courier, or possibly pick them up at the Jugla store."
"The video became widely spread, and Ivars says that strangers jokingly tend to mention the advertising opening words: 'Hello, Gentlemen!'"
"By supplementing this formula with the advantages of artificial intelligence, it clearly still works both in customer service and in training new employees. The Bitmetu couple especially pride themselves on often being able to correctly fulfill requests and orders from very tall or short people or persons with special needs."
"We always ask for honest feedback, and people gladly respond," says Beata, "this way we can measure the accuracy of our methods and further improve them. It must be said that in 95-97% of cases, customers say the fit is excellent. However, there is a small number of mismatches. Sometimes these must be admitted as our mistakes, from which we learn, but they also occur because people carelessly provided their data, or the wife ordered for her husband and made a slight mistake because she sees her husband as even more handsome 😊"
"Ivars says that Bikšu Bāze has overcome several big and small crises; currently, things are going well because they have managed to find new great employees and attract customers not only from all over Latvia but also from other countries."
"We're for non-standard solutions because each of us is unique. A person is not just data to be loaded into an Excel table," says Beata. "After several months or years, we'll still be talking about pants — even more styles, models, shapes, and a greater variety of colors!"