A cutting-edge retailer hemmed in by real-world challenges

For Danish-born fashion house SAMSØE SAMSØE, the wireless network isn’t just a backbone for operations—it’s a platform for innovation and enabling rapid growth. From its roots in Copenhagen, the company has created a thriving retail presence across 19 countries and more than 69 locations, including Stockholm, Paris, Munich, and New York. The brand has ambitious plans to grow as its modern Scandinavian aesthetic finds new customers around the globe. At the heart of this expansion is a bold digital strategy.  

Wireless is woven into every part of the SAMSØE SAMSØE customer and employee experience. Whether it’s a designer sharing large files with colleagues, a sales associate processing transactions on an iPad, or a customer enjoying seamless in-store Wi-Fi, there is a clear expectation for constant, fast, reliable wireless connectivity. “We’re a cloud-first, wireless-first retailer,” says Simeon Solarsky, Head of IT Infrastructure and Operations at SAMSØE SAMSØE. “That puts a lot of expectation and pressure on our wireless to be up to par.” From point of sale to security cameras, every device depends on robust wireless infrastructure.  

As SAMSØE SAMSØE has grown, so has the complexity of its network requirements. Just a few years ago, SAMSØE SAMSØE’s IT infrastructure was typical of many retailers: on-premises servers tucked away in store basements, local configurations, and a patchwork of wired connections. But as the business set its sights on international growth and omnichannel retail, it became clear that this approach would not scale.  

Meanwhile, as a premium retailer, the company’s stores have faced increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, physical theft, and gray market fraud. When paired with premium products, rapid expansion, however, attracted not only more customers but also more sophisticated thieves and fraudsters. Managing dozens of stores across multiple countries demands a more efficient way to deploy, monitor, and secure critical infrastructure. 

SAMSØE SAMSØE needed a platform that could deliver continuous connectivity, enable new customer experiences, and future-proof the business against evolving security threats, all while supporting rapid, global expansion.  

Deploying a secure wireless solution

The historic status of some SAMSØE SAMSØE locations, including multiple stores in Paris and Copenhagen, as well as the UNESCO-protected building where its headquarters are, presented significant hurdles. Thick concrete walls, cast iron beams, and dense occupancy made high-performance wireless coverage a daunting task—especially in municipal historically preserved buildings where, Solarsky says, “We’re not able to just pull cables and drill holes through the building.”  

Further, SAMSØE SAMSØE’s brand aesthetic demanded a minimalist solution for its staff and creative team to deliver engaging experiences and personalized service without the friction of clunky apps or outdated technology. Spread across Europe and beyond, each location required consistent, reliable connectivity to cloud platforms for everything from sales to inventory.  

As SAMSØE SAMSØE has grown, they've needed a scalable network and security platform that could be deployed rapidly, managed centrally, and updated in minutes, not days. Faced with these challenges, SAMSØE SAMSØE turned to Cisco and the Cisco Meraki platform as the foundation for its next-generation retail environment.  

In both the headquarters and stores, Cisco Wi-Fi 7 access points leveraging the 6GHz spectrum, provide fast, reliable wireless connectivity in even the toughest environments. Upgrading to a 10 GB backbone with multi-gig wireless access points eliminated bandwidth bottlenecks, allowing designers to work steadily with large cloud files and ensuring every store device, from POS to smart dressing room iPads, stay connected.  

Cloud management allows the SAMSØE SAMSØE IT team to deploy new stores with just a few clicks, using templated configurations. Security patches and feature updates roll out to all locations in under 45 minutes, reducing operational risk and IT overhead. Dual fiber lines and 5G redundancy with Meraki MG cellular gateways in stores ensure uptime, while a centralized dashboard provides holistic visibility across the network. 

MG’s resiliency capabilities also help SAMSØE SAMSØE fulfill compliance obligations in places like Germany, France, Norway, and Sweden, where every transaction must be reported live to the government. “That means you cannot afford to have an offline sale,” says Solarsky. “So we’re running special microtransactional devices from the government, which sends the data live from the POS, from the card terminal. All that data gets approved within a system in the EU and goes back to our devices, so that we’re able to have a successful sale.” 

The Cisco security suite, encompassing XDR, EDR, email threat defense, Secure Access, Duo, and ISE, delivers comprehensive cyber protection that scales with the business. Physical security is just as sophisticated. Wirelessly connected and powered by POE injectors that are tapped into each shop’s light track rails, Meraki MV smart cameras provide full coverage and real-time analytics, integrated with SD-WAN and the POS system. This allows the team to track every item from warehouse to sale, detect fraudulent returns or unscheduled movement, and review incidents with pinpoint accuracy.  

Tailoring truly seamless customer experiences

When it comes to securing customer relationships, SAMSØE SAMSØE has moved beyond branded loyalty apps, which, despite their commonality in recent years, often suffer from low adoption and high maintenance costs. Instead, they’re pioneering a new approach: instant loyalty club enrollment via Apple Wallet or Android.  

“We’re able to cater data from OpenRoaming, Cisco Spaces, and everything surrounding that technology,” says Solarsky. “It’s no longer just a Wi-Fi access point, it’s a data entry point for us. With Cisco and Apple SDK, we’re creating a loyalty experience that is seamless, instant, and valuable for us and our customers.”  

When customers make their first purchase, they can join the loyalty program with a tap, instantly syncing their data with the POS and automatically connecting to guest Wi-Fi anytime they enter a SAMSØE SAMSØE store worldwide. The same infrastructure powers innovations like smart dressing rooms, where RFID-enabled plates connect wirelessly to staff’s iPads, letting customers request different sizes or get personalized style recommendations, as well as providing actionable analytics on customer demographics and in-store behavior. 

Moreover, by combining MV smart camera capabilities with advanced retail analytics from Cisco ecosystem partner EVERYANGLE, SAMSØE SAMSØE has been able to collect valuable data on who visits their stores and how those guests interact with the space itself. When opening its Munich flagship shop, for instance, the data insights led the operations team to adjust its demographic expectations and drive a 5.5% higher conversion rate for men’s sales within the first quarter of implementation. 

Simeon discusses how MV smart cameras integrated with EVERYANGLE advanced retail analytics deliver key customer insights

Creating possibilities, trendsetting, and seeing positive returns

SAMSØE SAMSØE’s transformation has made a measurable impact on several areas of the business. Now, opening and supporting new stores is as simple as copying a deployment template. No extra IT headcount is needed, even as the company increases digitization. Network and security updates are deployed across all stores in less than an hour, minimizing risk and downtime. Physical and cyber threats are detected, analyzed, and addressed in real time. 

By eliminating wired connections in its UNESCO-protected headquarters, SAMSØE SAMSØE has saved approximately 1.5 million Danish krone (US$231,743) on cabling alone. Moreover, through its internal research, the retailer found the Cisco integrated security stack to be 5% less expensive than competitors, while outperforming those solutions by 30%. “There’s not a single computer in our headquarters that is cabled. Everything is wireless,” says Solarsky. 

In each store, seamless, secure Wi-Fi, instant loyalty onboarding, and data-driven personalization enhance customer engagement and satisfaction. Cutting-edge solutions like Wi-Fi 7 keep SAMSØE SAMSØE at the forefront of retail technology, creating new possibilities: giving designers the bandwidth to collaborate in the cloud, empowering store associates with iPad- and iPhone-based POS systems, and delivering on the promise of a resilient wireless-first workplace where innovation could flourish. 

A spirit of experimentation extends to everything SAMSØE SAMSØE does, from pioneering Wi-Fi 7 before many of their competitors to piloting its smart dressing rooms and leveraging data from its network, with wireless access points, OpenRoaming, and MT and MV devices serving as data entry points, in order to inform better sales and styling decisions. With Cisco platforms as its foundation, the company is not just keeping pace with a changing industry—it’s setting the pace.  

“We’ve come a long way,” says Solarsky. “Now, with everything cloud-based, cloud-first, with single sign-on and integrated identity, we have the foundation to build and scale, with Cisco as one of the cornerstones for our SD-WAN, security, CCTV, and IoT. That’s the beauty of having a partner you trust to help you build for the future.”