Anthropologie says it marries data and intuition in merchandising as it looks for ‘calculated risks’
Anu Narayanan, president of women’s and home at Anthropologie, believes data comes in a variety of forms.
Topline revenue, of course, is paramount. But when it comes to deciding what merchandise to put in stores or promote on site, sales are only one part of the equation.
There are also the anecdotes that come from customers about what they like about a particular store, or what they wish that one Anthropologie location carried. Then there are the proof points that trickle in from social media, which help Anthropologie’s team decide when to jump on a particular trend.
Case in point: the popularity of Hulu’s “Love Story,” a mini-series diving into the marriage of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette, which has fueled a renewed interest in ‘90s minimalist fashion.
Narayanan said that even before the show premiered, Anthropologie had noticed increased interest among its customers in items that aligned with these fashion trends, like “little mini oval sunglasses and loafers and khaki pants.”
She laughed as she recalled seeing TikToks of guys riding bikes through the streets of New York City, emulating the spirit of JFK Jr. It was the sales data, combined with the social trends, that convinced her that Anthropologie should take more active steps to capture the increased interest in ‘90s minimalist fashion.
Anthropologie ended up launching a section on its site dedicated to ‘90s minimalist inspo,” which the brand was able to get up in about a week, Naryanan said during an interview on-stage at the Shoptalk Spring conference on Tuesday.
It’s just one example of how Anthropologie tries to marry data and intuition in merchandising to take “calculated risks,” Narayanan said.
“Whether they’re small or large, I think staying relevant, paying attention to what’s happening and knowing how to tell that story along the way, with those little nuggets of data that you’re seeing in lots of different things, is important.”
Narayanan has been the president of Anthropologie for about three years, overseeing growth of both Anthropologie’s core brand, as well as sub-brands like Maeve and Anthropologie’s home line. Between 2024 and 2025, Anthropologie’s net sales increased about 5.9%.
Data collection overall was a hot topic at Shoptalk on Tuesday: At a women in retail event, Jenica Myszkowski, president and CEO of next-gen toy store Camp, talked about how her company uses AI to synthesize data. Debbie Woloshin, chief marketing officer at Stitch Fix, talked about her company’s approach to using client feedback to inform its marketing and her quest to capture what customers truly love about the brand in advertising campaigns.
Another big merchandising move that Narayanan recently made was to expand Anthropologie’s selection of in-store footwear. Previously, only eight Anthropologie stores carried footwear in stores; footwear was largely limited to Anthropologie’s website because of the high level of returns associated with footwear.
But Anthropologie noticed that the eight stores that carried footwear were seeing high levels of new customer traffic. “We noticed that those stores were getting better traffic because people were coming in because of the footwear. So they led us to say, ‘OK, maybe these are higher-value customers who are coming more frequently,'” Narayanan said. Upon further analysis, these customers would frequently purchase from other categories, making them highly valuable to Anthropologie.
Anthropologie then began very selectively expanding footwear to other locations; it added footwear to a newer store in Charlotte, for example, after partnering up with a data agency. The agency said that there appeared to be a white space for footwear in that particular area of Charlotte. The success of that test spurred Anthropologie to add footwear to even more stores, and today it is in roughly 200 of its physical locations.
I think if we only looked at the financial data, without the customer data, we wouldn’t have necessarily been able to make those decisions,” Narayanan said.
When asked how she tries to balance making data-informed decisions without being overly reliant on it, Narayanan replied that “Data doesn’t tell you everything. It won’t tell you what’s next, and it won’t tell you where there are strategic opportunities to go after something new if you are only focused on a certain data set.”
She gave the example of how some members of her team had been reticent about carrying more solid colors in stores, because Anthropologie’s core customer loves tops with lively prints.
“I was like, well, that’s our current customer. … But if we are trying to open the aperture as we are a multi-generational retailer, how are we ensuring that we have something for every generation and that we’re trying something different?” she said.