Google Business Automation as a Key to Success for Chicorée

The Google Business Profile is often underestimated in marketing—yet it’s frequently the first point of contact between a company and potential customers. For the Swiss fast-fashion retailer Chicorée, which generates 99 percent of its revenue in-store, Google Business automation therefore plays a central role. The Zurich-based digital agency avolut has developed a system for this purpose that centrally manages more than 180 Google Business Profiles, automatically updates them, and feeds them with data that is updated daily.

Chicorée was founded in Dietikon in 1982 and, with more than 15 million garments sold annually, is one of the leading companies in the Swiss youth fashion market. The company operates approximately 180 stores and employs about 900 people.

Automatic Management of Entries

Avolut's goal was to fully automate the management of Google Business Profiles. At Chicorée, new products are introduced practically every week, and the company sends out newsletters two to three times a week—according to the company, this activity should also be reflected in its Google Business Profiles.

The store master data, including opening hours, was already in the CMS. avolut consolidated it and provided an export that updates all Google Business Profiles at once. This ensures that the information is always up to date and consistent across all other channels. For each location, up to 25 images from current lookbooks, an automatically generated location description, and a link to the respective store page can also be displayed. Chicorée transmits news directly to all stores via an API connection—automatically in German or French, depending on the language region specified.

Check product availability online

For each store profile, customers can see which products are available at that location. This is made possible by Google Local Inventory: avolut transmits the daily updated inventory of all clothing items from the 180 stores to Google Business—according to Chicorée, that amounts to a good 500,000 entries per day.

AI Analysis of Reviews and Google Business: Automating the Evaluation Process

Every day, avolut retrieves new reviews for all 180 locations via the Google Business API. A large language model categorizes them by sentiment (positive/negative) and topic—retail store, staff, clothing—so that Chicorée receives clear statistics on the issues that matter to its customers.

The data is stored in the central Snowflake Data Platform, where it can be linked to additional first-party customer data and analyzed in a data mart using business intelligence software. avolut also exports metrics on impressions and interactions to Snowflake—making it possible to measure the impact of optimizations on visibility in Google products. The result: According to Chicorée, its stores generate approximately two million impressions per month on Google.

For more information about avolut's digital solutions, visit https://www.avolut.ch.

Chicorée and Avolut have a long-standing partnership in the field of loyalty marketing. Users of the Chicorée app can win various prizes with the implemented mini-games. These entertaining formats have become one of Chicorée's most important sales drivers. It turns out that customers who use the Chicorée app make significantly more purchases.

The new mini-game "Shake it" fits seamlessly into the successful series of popular mini-games. The principle is simple: users shake their smartphone to win coupons or discounts every day. The user experience was central to the implementation. Users can view and rotate a 3D gift. Shaking triggers the haptic engine and users receive tangible vibration feedback when the gift reaches the edge of the screen.

The characteristic shaking motion is perfect for the accompanying communication campaign. Here is the realization as a video:

The game ran between September 8 and 20 in the Chicorée app and achieved impressive numbers: Every day, over 70,000 customers shook their smartphones to grab a prize. The redemption rate of up to 10 percent shows that prizes won motivate customers to redeem them much more than benefits given as gifts. Over 5,000 people also installed the app during the campaign.

The success of the campaign demonstrates this: Today, it is no longer just the discount itself that counts, but the entire experience. With a combination of physical activity, haptic feedback, visual rewards and a sense of achievement, "Shake it" creates a holistic brand experience that will be remembered for a long time.