Kit Sim 沈杰

Trusted omni-channel e-commerce retail authority in fashion apparel, footwear and accessories. Fashion is the world’s greatest museum - and one we can live in! http://www.ksleconsulting.com

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Barneys.com – Advice From My Heart To A Brand That I Love

A business acquaintance recently asked what I thought of Barneys.com - a question that drew from me a deeply personal and emotional response.

I am a huge fan of Barneys New York. When I lived in New York City, Barneys on Madison Avenue was a regular haunt. Going home happy didn’t always mean buying something; just a visit was enough to leave me inspired. The products, the venue, the shoppers - it was my favourite museum in all of New York. MOMA is nice, what can I say? Even now, whenever I’m in town, I make a point of visiting Barneys.

With all that buzzing through my head, the opinion I somewhat sadly rendered was, in a nutshell, Barneys New York needed to up its e-commerce game.

Some might say I’m a bit out on a limb with a judgement like that.

The more I consider it, the more I think my brash little opinion deserves some explanation at length. Because the storied brand of Barneys New York simply isn’t being well served by their online presence.

The Luxury Market Remains In Good Health

The global personal luxury goods market, though cooling its pace, maintains robust growth, notching 10 percent for 2012 and an expected 5-6 percent through 2015. The online personal luxury goods sales has charted even faster growth of 25 percent for the last few years according to eMarketer.

It’s no wonder every luxury player - brick-and-mortar or online pure-play - is flocking to the online personal luxury goods space for a piece of the pie. The online luxury fashion landscape is more crowded and more competitive than ever.

In the pure-play space, Net-A-Porter is the clear winner. Its expansion through Mr. Porter and acquisition of Shouke in Hong Kong lend the brand near-dominance in online global luxury fashion. FarFetch will certainly continue to make a name for itself, especially after securing a $20 million strategic investment from Condé Nast recently. The top-of-mind pure plays - from North America to Europe to the Middle East and Asia - would include Shopbop, SSENSE, YOOX, TheCorner, LuisaViaRoma, Boutique 1 and so on. And let’s not forget Amazon Fashion, still in the making.

In the brick-and-mortar space, Neiman Marcus, Harvey Nichols and Lane Crawford are all aggressively pursuing the biggest luxury market in the world, the Greater China. Here in Canada, Holt Renfrew will soon unveil its online e-commerce storefront.

In addition to such intense and fierce competition, Barneys New York is also faced with new business models exemplified by the likes of Moda Operandi, Rent The Runway, Gilt and others emerging every day.

Changing consumer priorities and values, the blurring of boundaries between luxury and ordinary, the technology revolution and a complex omni-channel environment are yet more challenges for Barneys New York to sort.

The good news is that Barneys have had great financial success in the last two years with EBITA growth of 40 percent. With 2012 sales of $800 million, the company aims to achieve targeted sales of $1 billion in the near term. To maintain such impressive momentum, Barneys must fully maximize its e-commerce potential.

The Disappointing Reality of Virtual Barneys

The current Barneys.com store front sadly fails to reflect the iconic Barneys New York brand. Remove the Barneys New York logo and the underlying website could be any other mass-fashion retail website, impersonal as a cash register. Not to put to fine a point on it, Barneys.com is a plain vanilla index of the goods - with a buy button.

Fashion is a journey of discovery and inspiration. Barneys.com can’t just drop every visitor directly into the purchase path upon arrival!

Ironically, the concept we bandy about today under the rubric “curate” was pioneered by Barneys back in the day. Only then, they called it their “edit” of a designer. Even when they carried the same labels as competitors, Barneys stamped their merchandise with a viewpoint all their own.

The online assortment offers no such sense of curation. Designers A-Z presents the loftiest names in fashion in alphabetical order, phone book style. Who wants to shop from a phone book?

Barneys is widely perceived as exclusive and avant-garde - an art-gallery-meets-luxury-emporium proposition. The Barneys.com experience must be aligned with this proposition. Luxury products primarily satisfy emotional needs.

Reach Out To Your Fans

Fashion is about people and communities. In this respect, Barneys lags behind its competitors in both the luxury or ordinary categories. The Barneys fan base on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Youtube is negligible. By comparison, Peter Som, a New York based fashion designer - one guy! - has over 3 million Pinterest followers; Barneys has a scant 40,000.

Without a serious online outreach to its fans and communities, it is cost-prohibitive - and mission impossible - to build and maintain lasting customer relationships on a comparable scale.

Bring The In-Store Experience Online

So many fashion retailers are content to copy the Net-A-Porter blueprint. This shouldn’t even be a consideration for Barneys.com. Instead, Barneys must adopt a holistic integrated omni-channel perspective that leverages its beautiful flagship and CO-OP stores to recreate online the incomparable in-store experience that makes Barneys Barneys. This is a tactic the pure plays can’t copy.

Instead of leveraging this strength, Barneys online treatment of their retail locations is yet another missed opportunity. Suppose I’m planning a trip to LA and might consider adding the Beverly Hills store to my itinerary. What does Barneys offer in the way of seductions to seal the deal? A Google Map of the store location!

Barneys.com should immediately begin showcasing each of its beautiful, museum-liked stores. On the 8th floor of Barneys New York, you can visit genes@co-op, an interactive cafe with 30-foot long digital banquet tables that feature an interactive ordering system and an interface that allows you to view fashion content and even order product while you dine. This amazing experience is mentioned nowhere on Barneys.com!

Tell the story well and customers will flock to the stores. If naysayers point to limited channel-specific sales metrics, forget about online and offline. Focus on your brand and your customers. There are online customers who are transported at the thought of shopping at Barneys, but may rarely have the chance. Let them experience the stores online - it all adds to the value proposition of a Barneys online purchase.

What I miss above all when I visit Barneys.com is the sensation I feel when I stand on the Barneys New York selling floor. As a fan and customer of Barneys and a lover of fashion and shopping, I count on Barneys New York to take a leadership role. This, after all, is the store that introduced Giorgio Armani to America.

It’s time to disrupt the status quo. If anyone can do it, Barneys can.

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Barneys New York - an art-gallery-meets-luxury-emporium proposition

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Barneys New York - genes@co-op

This 30-foot long digital banquet table features an interactive ordering system and an interface that allows you to view fashion content and even order product while you dine. Located on the 8th floor of Barneys New York, Madison Avenue. 

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J.Crew - The Heart & Soul of Merchandising

I am obsessed with J.Crew. It’s a safe bet you are, too. So is Michelle Obama. The First Lady and daughter Malia rocked J.Crew at the president’s second inauguration. His first inauguration, too.

J.Crew manages fashion cachet at a mass market price.

Started in 1983 as a mail-order business with a preppy American style, J.Crew today operates over 400 stores and multiple award-winning e-commerce storefronts in addition to mailing over 40 million catalogues each year. 

The company has also extended into other lines, including Madewell, J.Crew Collection, J.Crew Wedding, Crewcuts and hundreds of collaborations with brands and designers. Last year, J.Crew expanded to over 100 countries through its online store and stores opened in Canada and through partnership with Lane Crawford in Asia.

In every case. J.Crew leaves its singular stamp on all these endeavors.

J.Crew Fiscal 2012 revenues increased 20 percent to $2,227.7 million, driven by strong growth in both store and direct sales channels. Gross margin increased to 44.3 percent from 41.7 percent a year ago. Net income almost doubled from a year ago to $96.1 million while EBITDA increased 27 percent to $359.6 million.  

Rapid growth like this looks unstoppable. So what drives the phenomenal success of J.Crew?

Much ink and many pixels have been spent extolling the merchandising savvy of J.Crew Group CEO Millard “Mickey” Drexler. The New Yorker calls him simply The Merchant. Jenna Lyons, President & Executive Creative Director of J.Crew, has garnered her own share of accolades. Their success goes a long way toward redefining the meaning of “designer” fashion. As a pair, they’re merchandising’s reigning King and Queen. Together they plan, execute and deliver on the J.Crew value proposition - fashion, style, quality and affordability.

Merchandise authenticity

J.Crew is authentic and it’s real. It’s not just a company or a brand. We associate J.Crew with the faces of its people — “Mickey” Drexler, Jenna Lyons, Libby Wadle and many others. J.Crew shares with us its heritage, its values, its fashion likes and dislikes, and takes us along on merchandising trips across the world. The emotion is real and raw. We are made to feel we are a part of J.Crew and are involved in the entire merchandising experience. The richness of this experience is what is makes a J.Crew sequin dress such a steal at just under $1,000.

Merchandise to elevate fashion cachet

J.Crew has acquired unmistakable cachet in the fashion world, even gaining the nod of Anna Wintour. The brand has shown at the New York Fashion Week for many seasons. (If you’re a serious fan, here are the video highlights of J.Crew Autumn/Winter 2013-14.) Showcasing their fashions alongside top couture names such as Alexander McQueen and Givenchy has helped elevate J.Crew from a mass-market fashion brand to designer brand stature, giving its customers a taste of high-fashion style, design and quality at a fraction of the designer price.

Merchandise great products that customers want

Too many fashion retailers merchandise by the numbers, by corporate strategy, category and attribute checklists (“How many sleeveless vs. long-sleeve?”) — concerns that can overpower the beauty, art and creativity of fashion. J.Crew has demonstrated time and again its ability to wire-walk between the art and science of merchandising. They know that customers have mundane needs but also that customers want merchandise to fall in love with.

Merchandise to win at the key category and key product

J.Crew doesn’t compete in every category. But they consistently identify and win at key categories and key items. Take the slim-cut J.Crew Ludlow suit, presented as a wardrobe staple for an array of manly types, each giving it his individual style spin. Simple and adaptable for settings from casual to near-formal, the Ludlow suit is heavily merchandise throughout J.Crew stores, online and in catalogues, giving a winner the breathing room it needs to flourish — a classic application of the 20/80 rule.

Merchandise full-price, full-margin

J.Crew understands that creativity and integrity are key to persuading customers to pay full price. Without these elusive ingredients, a brand and all of its products become mere commodities. J.Crew tightly controls its product distribution and clearly differentiates the respective value propositions represented by its full-price merchandise and off-price J.Crew Factory goods. To sell at full price, J.Crew delivers an exceptional customer experience across channels.  J.Crew succeeds as a great storyteller, compelling you to want it now and inspiring you to believe what you’re getting is a steal — even at full price. The online wedding store experience — the Wedding Album, the looks for the reception, the bridesmaids, the flower girls and the honeymoon — will soon have you adding “get married” or “renew your vows” to your to-do list.

Other labels express a brand. The act of curation expresses a brand viewpoint. J.Crew understands that the J.Crew brand experience even extends to the embrace other brands. Over the last few seasons, J.Crew has featured offerings from storied brands the likes of Thomas Masson, Red Wing and Tretorn — even ’70s-vintage Rolex diving watches. The selection of these particular products (and not others) enhances our understanding of who the J.Crew customer is and where his/her passions lie. It’s also a gesture of supreme self-confidence.

Merchandise for an omni-channel success

With the advent of e-commerce, J.Crew didn’t dispense with the catalogue. Instead, they learned to make the different media work in concert to drive maximum performance. J.Crew leverages the e-commerce opportunity by expanding its product assortment — wedding gowns and many other exclusive online shops — far beyond what the fattest catalogue could hold between its covers. The J.Crew merchandising landscape reaches beyond its stores, online store and catalogues to cover fashion magazines and all the essential social media platforms, including Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Youtube, Google+ and Twitter. In the end, everything comes together. Every execution is integrated and unified across channels. They wow us.

Thank-you, J.Crew, for raising the bar in fashion merchandising and retailing. Your example is a lesson for us all that even mass-market fashion can breathe the air of creativity, imagination and love. And still deliver impressive financials.  

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J.Crew On Film: "Shiny Ponies"

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Once Upon A Time by Karl Lagerfeld

When a customer says: "I'll take everything." That is a dream comes true for every fashion retailer. The lesson learned from Gabrielle Chanel is to know your customers so well and to create great products that your customers want.

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Our Industry Needs Our Help Now

Bangladesh garment factory collapse death toll over 1,000. Many children are left without their parents now. They need our help. Please donate here.

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Creativity and integrity are the keys to selling full price.

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Burberry – The Perfect Value Proposition

Last week, Luxury retailers released their last quarter financial results.

LVMH reported fashion and leather goods divisional sales up only 0.4 percent against year-ago growth of 9 percent — the slowest increase in over 3 years. Luxury and sports group PPR (Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Alexander McQueen, et al.) saw shares fall 7 percent, with Gucci like-for-like sales up only 4 percent against a 12-percent rise in the same period a year ago.

While Burberry Group Plc likewise found its shares caught in the downdraft of sector disenchantment, Burberry results defied industry trends with a quarterly sales increase of 11 percent.

Key to Burberry’s strategy has been an increase in average price point to offset a slower turn in units. Conventional wisdom would hold with slashing prices during a slow-down, the rationale being a more attractive value proposition for consumers.

Burberry owes its success no less to a superior value proposition, but one achieved through brilliant execution — and without sacrifice of margin.

The Value Proposition 

Earlier this year, Burberry premiered its Burberry Prosum Autumn Winter 2013 collection before 15,000 guests under a custom-built greenhouse in Hyde Park. The greenhouse and choice of setting can’t help but evoke another grand pavillion once erected on the same ground — the Crystal Palace, built in 1851 to showcase The Great Exhibition.

This knack for breathing fresh life into a romantic past also shimmered forth in the collection itself, which was built around a show of conviction in the brand’s signature item, the storied Burberry Trench Coat. Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey re-imagined the classic in versions made with clear rubber, glossy calfskin, lashings of leopard, zebra and python print leather and even a whimsical heart print.

The same magic infuses the Burberry digital experience. It’s a kind of warm bath where you can soak in the brand. Experience videos that weave a tapestry of grainy archival footage, lustrous fashion imagery and brilliant indy pop. You can even take a virtual visit to its flagship store at 121 Regent Street.

You can shop, naturally. But you can also participate in the design process by creating your own Bespoke Trench Coat from a range of highly customized options. You can even request an appointment to meet one-on-one with a Bespoke Specialist at 121 Regent Street.

For fashion consumers susceptible to the charms of this playful kaleidoscope of past and future, physical forms and formless dreams, a key fashion purchase will be valued at a price far beyond the cost of goods.

It’s these “intangibles,” more than anything, that constitute Burberry’s compelling value proposition. Of course, it’s all in the execution. But nobody ever said fashion was easy.

No Short-Cuts

Burberry also furnishes an instructive example of the limits of visual marketing. Back in the nineties, the brand fixed upon its signature house check and plastered the instantly recognizable pattern on absolutely everything. With such a dumbed-down approach to brand identity, the brand proved irresistible to consumers whose taste-level was equally dumbed-down. If fashion historians had to cite the brand’s nadir, it came when ex-soap actress Daniella Westbrook and infant daughter hit the town in head-to-toe Burberry check.

The turnaround commenced with the hiring of Christopher Bailey in 2001. By Spring 2008, Burberry was once again at high tide with the introduction of The Warrior, which justly earned its place as that season’s “it bag.” Sporting a £13,000 price tag, The Warrior sold hundreds. More important, the bag’s “halo effect” permitted a better-than 25 percent increase in average handbag price across the line, helping grow accessories to over 30 percent of total sales.

The substantial price commanded by The Warrior is worth returning to. Unless in a version of unicorn skin handcrafted by elves, the price necessarily represents a sum far greater than the cost of labor and materials — and every consumer knows it. What the price differential represents is the value consumers place on the “intangibles” we talked about earlier. The willingness of consumers to part with that difference comes down to the perceived value proposition represented by the intangibles a brand has on offer.

And that will always come down to execution. Again — nobody ever said fashion was easy.

Final words

Every fashion retailer could take a page from Burburry in creating and delivering the perfect value proposition, especially today, when social media is a brand’s best friend to build brand trust.

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Burberry Prosum Fashion Show - Autumn Winter 2013

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Fashion Is The World’s Greatest Museum

To me, fashion is the world’s greatest open-air museum. The astonishing shapes. The exquisite textures. The unexpected colours. Every store window, every well-turned-out passerby — it’s all part of a living exhibition.

Growing up in my small village in Malaysia, fashion was only something to dream about.

It’s hard to picture life in my country only a few decades ago. My village had a school, but no cinema. The nearest small city was miles away.

There was little money for clothes and what clothing we had was made by our village seamstress.  We received new clothes once a year—on Chinese New Year—and it was a gala event.

One year, I designed a dress for my mother. With no glossy magazines or fancy department stores around, all I knew about fashion came from old movies on TV. The movies were black-and-white; the colours came straight from my imagination.

My dress was more like a Hollywood inspired ball gown than anything suitable for a village mom. But my wise mother was very diplomatic. She worked with our local seamstress to adapt my creation to something more practical.

When time came for college, there were no courses in fashion design. Instead, I studied accounting and marketing, eventually earning my MBA in E-Business from Temple University in Philadelphia.

In the years since, through my work and my consulting practice, I’ve had the privilege of helping world-class fashion apparel brands develop strategies for recognizing and leveraging their opportunities in the emerging omni-channel e-commerce marketplace.

But the love of fashion remains very personal. And fashion is still my favourite museum.

For me, fashion is still the world’s greatest museum. Only now, the museum is where I live.

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The Fashion Retail Revolution

Technology revolutions don’t happen overnight.

Today, we tend to imagine the automobile’s ascendancy over the horse was a foregone conclusion. Yet, as late as 1913, Henry Ford was running ads touting the advantages of his Model T Ford over “Old Dobbin, the family coach horse.” The fact that a case even needed to me made against the family nag — “has only one-twentieth the strength of a Ford car – cannot go as fast nor as far – costs more to maintain – almost as much to acquire” — suggests a still-thriving competitor.

The age of the horse may have passed, but somebody forgot to tell all the horse owners.

Retail today may be in same straits as the horse in Henry Ford’s time; the remaining days could be few, but try convincing the large number of retailers still in the game.

I was reminded of this recently while attending Retail’s BIG Show, the National Retail Federation 102nd Annual Conference and Expo in New York City. After experiencing up-close the latest in technology and trends and after considering the insights shared by leading retail vendors and retailers, I see a retail future that won’t leave much room for past practices.

Fashion retail is being disrupted in unprecedented ways.

The Internet, tablet devices, mobile technology, social media, the economic environment and changes to consumer behavior are all conspiring to alter the competitive landscape. 

For the first time, consumers are ahead of retailers. Retailers are playing catch-up. Retailers must re-imagine the future of fashion retailing and disrupt the status quo. If we fail, the industry we love will be gone and forgotten.

Retailers must re-think 5 key areas:

Product

You already know you can’t compete with Amazon on price; Amazon has a very different business revenue model based on products, marketplace, advertising, technology services and more.

There are Long Tail retailers in every unimaginable product category from every corner of the world competing with you. Your products must now stand out in a sea of similar products. Your ability to curate products with an eye that’s distinctly your own will be your most important competitive advantage.

Then, there’s value. The new frugality is the new reality. The current recession is predicted to last for many years and persist on a global scale.

Value has become the consumer’s #1 priority. The fashion spirit is still willing, but the fashion wallet is weak. Rather than splurge on a luxury purchase, today’s shoppers may prefer to Rent The Runway. You must figure out how to add value in consumer’s life through your product offerings. To do that, your merchandising function must stop operating in silos or by channel.

Content

Too many online stores are just electronic versions of the brand’s print or in-store product catalogue, missing entirely the emotional appeal of branded aspiration. This is a recipe for commodification. When all you are selling is a dress, a shirt or a pair of shoes, you have to go head-to-head and compete on price with other retailers selling a similar or identical dress, shirt or pair of shoes. This only leads to lower margins, lower profitability, financial losses and the death of your company.

Smart retailers are able to escape this trap by creating more wants for the customers to buy and convince consumers to buy those wants at full price. They do this by effective curation. They tell product stories wherever the customers are. Retailers could take a page from Net-A-Porter in curating fashion product and creating desirable fashion content that has commercial values. 

By now, a fashion and content editor should be playing a critical role within your organization. You don’t have one? Hire one.  

Customer Experience

The Web is not an innately intimate or personal medium. Your opportunity is to make personal by filling your online store with your brand personality, values and promises. Amazon has proven that, across the Web, Amazon still delivers the best customer experience. Amazon has topped the list of most satisfied customers for many years now. 

Too many retailers still operate as though a distinction existed between online and offline channels. Customers see only one thing — your brand. Focus on your brand and your customer. Deliver a consistent experience online and off. Create a better online experience that builds on and blends with the offline experience. Selling an emotional experience through an integrated and omni-channel approach is retail nirvana. But achieving this higher state will require you to overhaul most parts of your company’s system and infrastructure.

Social Community

The store of the future will be merchandised by the people for the people. Brand dictatorship is out; a brand voice shared among your stylists, tastemakers and customers is in. Brands must embrace and get more involved with their communities. One of the best examples is Lululemon’s ambassador program, which spotlights local athletes and trainers as members of a virtual worldwide community that embodies Lululemon core values. Brands must be prepared to give stylists, tastemakers and influencers a voice on their marketing team.

At this stage, brands have only scratched the surface in their efforts at listening, responding, scaling and commercializing social media. Social search engines such as Facebook Social Graph will force brands to exploit and commercialize big data to create content that’s both more relevant and more localized.

Talent

None of the above will be possible without the right talent. Enlightened leadership and strategic alignment drive innovation and support change.

Today’s team members — especially front-line staff — no longer work in silos. They conduct sales, customer service, social media marketing and many other functions. How do you transform them from associates to brand ambassadors?

Above all, today’s consumers are looking to do business with leaders, brands and companies that resonate with them — whether through a sense of shared values or a sense of shared humanity. This requires a reboot of your talent agenda and requirements. 

Today is a scary time. But for brands and companies who get it, who are able to make sense of it, this is an exciting time, a time of great opportunity.

Those who don’t? Economist Joseph Schumpeter called it “creative destruction.”

How is your company preparing to face this great retail revolution? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. 

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10 Big Questions To Guide Your 2013 E-commerce Plan

While your customers are pondering the Holidays, many of you are still finalizing and locking down your 2013 plan. For most of you, February 1st, 2013 will be the beginning of your 2013 financial year. 

The coming year will be more of a challenge than ever. The economy remains uncertain, owing largely to continued worry over the Fiscal Cliff in the U.S. and the macro conditions in the Eurozone. In our own industry, the ever-changing and often-unpredictable technology space continues dictating the rules of game; content proliferation, changes to the tax code, privacy laws and many others factors will be key drivers. 

As Canadian fashion retailers, your competition is no longer Joe or Jill Shopkeeper at Eaton Centre or on Queen Street, Bloor Street, Sainte-Catherine Street or Robson Street. You are now officially competing against the global powerhouses. These are the titans of retail and household names - Amazon, eBay, Gap Inc., Target, Nordstrom, Victoria’s Secret and many others. The Bigs. These retail giants bring to our shores not not only their bricks-and-mortar shopfronts, but the cutting-edge technology and e-commerce know-how to wow our customers into their seamless omni-channel branded experience.

While you may lack the resources, retail footprint and marketing throw-weight of the majors, e-commerce and digital marketing can be powerful equalizers. In the asymmetrical warfare of digital commerce, “smart” isn’t something The Bigs can buy at volume discounts.

Given the odds we now face, your 2013 business plan and strategic planning need to take into account the fresh challenge represented by these new rivals for hearts and minds (not to mention the loonies) of Canadian shoppers.

As you are reviewing or working on your e-commerce plans for 2013, I would challenge you all to think through the following questions. Having the right answers will help guide your strategic planning and development for the coming year and well beyond.

Here are the 10 big questions to guide your 2013 e-commerce plan: 

How should you deliver a complete branded experience? Most retailers only see their Web sites as cash registers. Online stores are generally designed to funnel customers into the checkout. In the real world, however, the most, about half your customers are not coming to your website to buy. The customers might have priorities and intentions other than a simple purchase. How do you deliver a complete branded experience that is relevant with all customers — regardless of where they are in the shopping journey?

How do you deliver an inspiring fashion shopping experience? Fashion items are not commodities. Fashion is as much art as commerce. How do you deliver an inspiring and fun shopping experience? What is the social component of that experience?

How can you leverage bricks-and-mortar stores for growth? Your current online penetration rate might be in the single digit whereas your company have over 100 bricks-and-mortar stores. How best to leverage that footprint to drive overall brand growth? What is your omni-channel strategy?

What should be your e-commerce business model? Should your brand continue to operate the way it has? Or should you consider evolving your e-commerce business models into “endless aisles” (to extend your in-store assortment) or best-of-brand (to offer your best and signature products) to drive aggressive growth into the future? 

How can you enhance the product experience? With most fashion apparel retailers, the existing online product experience is dry and limited. Customers are typically served with one large photo, 2 or 3 small thumbnails and workmanlike copy that often consists only of bullet points. Is this enough? Isn’t this a sadly impoverished online experience? We’re selling fashion, after all. What can you do to enrich the product experience to seduce and excite your customers?

What is your content strategy? YouTube led the way in user-generated content. Content has since proliferated — across the Web and in every form imaginable. What types of content should you be providing? Should you leverage consumer participation to help create content? Where should you be distributing the content? Are visual blogging sites such as Tumblr or  Pinterest tools you’re making the most of?

How do you get to know and engage with your customers? Do you know your customer so well you can predict what she’ll want and when and how she’ll want it?  How will you build lasting relationships with your customers? These are key questions to answer in order to drive customer productivity and life-time value. 

Should you go global? The Internet makes border vanish. E-commerce has the power to connect consumers with retailers from around the world. Hard as it might have been to image just a few years ago, today we can order a sweater from Net-a-porter.com and have it shipped directly from London to Montreal. Today we must have an eye out for global opportunities — especially in the fastest-growing Asian and BRIC -country markets. 

How will you use big data? Amazon is one true winner when it comes to big data. The company is able to quickly understand and commercialize its findings to build and sustain long-term growth. Do you have the know-how and talent — analysts, programmers and software engineers — to find the gold amid the mountains of data created by every customer visit?

What is your talent agenda? How do you develop and retain the best e-commerce talents available? As an organization, how do you stay relevant to your employees? Will your organization and culture be relevant to the wants and needs of the emerging technology and e-commerce workforce?

Have you nailed down your own top priorities for 2013? If you have any questions regarding your business and strategic plans for 2013 or beyond, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You are also welcome to share your ideas in the comments.

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Holiday 2012 — What Have We Learned?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday already seem like happy memories. And from what the numbers tell, 2012 is turning in a strong holiday shopping results.

Online sales have exceeded expectation. Canada’s online Black Friday results were up 6.5 percent over 2011 while Cyber Monday sales grew a robust 23 percent.

Before it was upstaged by Cyber Monday promotions, the second Monday in December was historically online’s biggest shopping day. This year, many retailers — including Walmart and Zappos — added Green Monday promotions to the season’s shopping calendar.

Despite America’s dancing on the Fiscal Cliff and the Euro zone’s waltz with economic and monetary challenges of its own, consumers appear poised to continue opening their wallets for the remainder of the holiday shopping season.

According to Federal Express Canada, 55 percent of Canadian holiday shoppers plan to purchase online this year — a 10 percent increase over 2011.

The Canadian retail landscape is forever changed. It is only a matter of time before Black Friday and Cyber Monday trump Boxing Day.

As we approach the holiday finish line, it is vital that we hindsight what has worked and scrutinize our challenges to keep growing our businesses and position our industry for an even more successful season next year.

What have we learned so far?

Fashion apparel, footwear and accessories are the fastest growing product categories.  Canadian Cyber Monday apparel sales topped last year’s performance by an astonishing 77 percent. Canadian consumers are learning to love online apparel shopping as much as our neighbors to the South, promising a bright future for those of us who toil in fashion e-commerce.

Free shipping is no longer optional. It is a bare minimum offer. Even then, it is no longer perceived as special. According to the National Retail Federation, 92 percent of online retailers offered free shipping during the holiday 2011 selling season. Over 200 merchants participated in this year’s December 12 Free Shipping Day in Canada.

Deep discounts. Storewide discounts of 20-50 percent are no longer uncommon. Retailers need to pay attention to the green eyeshades to make the P&L work for such aggressive and deep discounting on fresh merchandise. Margin is a terrible price to pay for increased traffic.

Mobile is a game-changer. At the season’s outset, Deloitte forecast that 68% of smartphone owners would use their devices for holiday shopping. With smartphones and tablets at their fingertips, consumers are fully empowered to set the terms of their own shopping. With merchandise being comparison-shopped at the point of sale, a retailer’s best price better be THE best price.

Showrooming. Retailers must come to terms with showrooming. When sellers compete on price, the lowest-cost producer wins. If that’s you, put your feet up and relax. If not, you need to get busy differentiating your business with tactics beyond promotions. Citing the showrooming challenge, Target sent vendors a letter in early 2012 requesting more store-exclusive products. World class service can also be a distinguishing attribute, a perk more and more retailers will need to pay attention to.

Social shopping. According to a holiday retail report by American Express Co., nearly a quarter of online shoppers take advantage of deals offered via social media, giving retailers with a strong social media presence something to like.

Omni-channel. While Canadian online holiday shopping has grown by double digits, Canadian holiday retail sales are expected to rise only 3.5 percent, according to Ernst & Young. Meaning, the growth in online commerce owes mainly to consumers shifting channels. Omni-channel must now be a top priority.

Global competition. You are competing with international brands and long-tail retailers and sellers from around the world. You need to bring your A-game every day, not just during the holidays, but every day of the year.

What lessons has your business taken from Holiday 2012? Let’s hear from you!

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The Retailer’s Last-Minute Check-List for Holiday 2012

We expect a strong online holiday shopping season.

Canadian retail sales are projected to grow 1-2% this holiday. 65% of Canadians plan to purchase one to ten gifts this holiday season, with gift cards/money, clothing and toys the top three choices.

Almost 60% of Canadians — up from 49% in 2011 — will turn to the Internet for some aspect this year’s shopping.

For many Canadian retailers, Holiday 2012 is make-or-break time for customer loyalty. The competition seriously ramps up once Target opens its Canadian locations in March, 2013.

When it comes to price, consumers have sharper pencils.

Against the backdrop of a languishing economy, consumers are holding fast to their wallets. 

Price remains the strongest single influence on Canadian shoppers. Nearly 70% citing “whomever has the lowest price” as decisive when choosing where to buy.

Given these conditions, larger numbers of consumers will go online to stretch their budgets.

Mobile devices are the price-comparison killer-app.

While only 40% of smartphone/tablet users make purchases via their devices, an astonishing 70% employ their devices for product research, with Amazon emerging as the shopper’s gold standard for comparison pricing.

In retail-dense Toronto, over 15% of shoppers report using their mobile devices for making price comparisons in-store!

If you’re relying on promotions to keep your edge in the marketplace, you’re going to need a much sharper pencil than your shoppers.

Build on your strategy, but keep it flexible.

November and December are the most important holiday shopping months, but with aggressive doorbuster pricing timed around Black Friday events, we can expect a front-loaded shopping season.

At the outset, execute your foundation merchandising according to plan. But as the season progresses, read-and-react based on the insights you gain from daily sales data.

Through their purchase behavior, customers are telling you where your winners are; don’t argue with results.

Give greater prominence to the items and categories your customers are gravitating toward. On the flip side, resist the temptation to rescue your neglected “darlings” that customers just aren’t that into.

To win at the holiday season, retailers must win at the top holiday categories. Remember the 80/20 rule and focus on key categories such as casual shirts, dresses, sweaters, pajamas,outerwear, hats, scarves, gloves and boots. 

Last-minute check-list to win-at the holiday: 

Deliver a balanced assortment to achieve your financial goals — November vs. December, self-purchase vs. gifting, fashion vs. basics, price points, silhouettes, themed collections, etc.

Review key product pages to remove any barriers to purchase. Don’t confuse your customers. 

Take every opportunity to cross-sell. Support all key product pages with complete-the-look suggestions and key gifting items. Context is everything. Propose the right product at the right time.

Make it easy for the customers to shop. Especially at the Holidays — and especially when gift-buying — customers are looking for guidance. Curate and propose the holiday looks and gift ideas.

Get the word out. Share your curated contents on social media including Facebook, Pinterest, Polyvore, Tumblr and let everyone discover your brand and your products. Don’t underestimate the power of picture-sharing. Research shows visitors referred from Pinterest are more likely to buy compared with referrals from other social media.

Provide a seamless omni-channel shopping experience. Coordinate Web site content with store events and merchandising to reinforce key messaging with customers.

Holiday inspiration.

If you’re seeking last-minute inspiration, one of the best merchandised, most thoughtfully curated Holiday Gift Shops is at landsend.com.

One of the earliest cataloguers to embrace the Internet in a really big way, Lands’ End manages to stir the flavor of its brand into the smallest details. The Gift Shops are no exception.

Now, let’s hear your thoughts. How has your own planning for Holiday 2012 differed from retail seasons past? Please share your comments.

  NOTE: For retail statistics quoted in this update, we’ve drawn on the excellent research contained in the recent Deloitte® publication 2012 Canadian Holiday Outlook.

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Merchandising Tips To Win-at the Holiday Season

Once again, it’s time to bust out the tinsel and deck the halls for your November-December holiday sales season.

For retailers, this truly is, in the words of that holiday song, the most wonderful time of the year and can account for upwards of 20% - 30% of annual receipts. If you’re counting on a black Christmas, you need to be well prepared and fully optimized to come out a winner at the holiday season.

As you plan your holiday season, here are some essential merchandising tips and cadences that most of you could really leverage for making the most of your holiday season. 

In October, she shops first for herself. Get the season rolling by encouraging self-purchases starting in mid to late October. Be the fashion source she’ll rely by advising her with authority what’s hot and trending for the season. Pull together all your merchandising, creative and marketing strengths to build the momentum into the peak of the holiday season.  

In November, she’ll combine shopping for herself with early gift buying. Get her in the mood with your most dazzling holiday looks. Surprise her. Inspire her. She is always more likely to buy for herself first. Her earliest gift purchases are likely to be the most important gifts for the most important persons in her life. Be sure you propose her to best-of-brand gifts that shows you know her, you understand her and that you are relevant. This will ultimately maximize your average unit price and margin. 

In December, the main event. By now, she’ll be shopping for gifts in earnest. But she must also meet a budget. Offer her can’t-go-wrong gifts by price point. Also propose gifts of your key product categories such as the sweaters gifts.  Make gift buying with your brand as easy as possible.

Gift cards when it’s down to the wire. As the holiday looms closer and you your shipping cut-off date nears, encourage gift cards and e-gift cards as the perfect gifts. Remind customers that they can still choose e-gift cards until the last day of the holiday. Let her know she can personalize her gift card by strongly promoting the ability to send a greeting card with a gift card or message with an e-gift card - this is a key selling point.

After your shipping cut-off, direct her footsteps to your store.Besides choosing gift cards, late shoppers can still find great gifts at your brick-and-mortar locations. In all your customer communications - your Web site, emails, tweets and social media presence -give prominence to your store hours. This is a clear omni-channel winner. Best of all, customers are likely to spend more during in-person shopping visits.

The season doesn’t end when the holidays are over. Post-holiday, invite customers back to spend their gift cards or make exchanges. Hint about that cute little item she was disappointed not to find under the tree - and remind her that it won’t be long before the hottest styles are gone.

Let them know you care. On Christmas or just prior, make sure you thank your customers for a year of patronage and wish them a happy holiday. It’s a little thing, but it means a lot. Customers like knowing that you’re not “all business.” Also, it doesn’t hurt to give a shout-out to Hanukkah (December 8-16) on your Web site or in your emails - everybody likes it when you make them feel included.

If you need yet more suggestions, check out these tips on winning the holiday season from seasons past:

Use your gift guide to boost holiday conversions - here's how.

10 last-minute tips to win-at holiday.

How fashion retailers are reinventing holiday offers and promotions.

I hope this is helpful. And here’s wishing all of you a happy and successful holiday season! 

Now it’s your turn - how do you win-at the holiday season? How do you make holiday shopping fun, inspiring and easy. Please share your comments. 

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5 Bright Ideas From The Shop.org Annual Summit 2012

The Shop.org Annual Summit is the must-attend event for all in retail. For the fashion tribe, especially so - as fashion retailers, we’re always the hungriest for breaking trends. 

I was pleased to attend this year’s mile-high confab in Denver. Thousands of participants from around the world turned out for this cutting-edge, industry-leading event.

While I always look forward to seeing old friends, what I really count on from these events is to keep me up-to-the-minute with the latest technological solutions as well as the valuable insights shared from the podium by our retailer peers.

This year, Shop.org lined up keynote speeches from some of the most respected retailers and leaders in our business. There to share their insights were Jerry Storch, Chairman and CEO of Toys ‘R’ Us; Jamie Nordstrom, President of Nordstrom Direct; and Michael Zeisser, Senior Vice President of Liberty Media Corporation. 

Across the board, everyone agreed that today’s customer is in control and better informed than ever. Customers crave information and have no patience for irrelevance.

Above all, customers don’t view channels the same way retailers do - customers want to interact or shop with retailers wherever and however they want in a true omni-channel experience.

Today, we have greater clarity about what omni-channel means and how to deliver it.

We know bricks-and-mortar stores won’t go away. We know the catalogue won’t go away. And we know online won’t be the only way customers shop.

Omni-channel is the mix of all these acting in concert. If your customer yearns for outfit inspiration, she can find it on your Web site, then head to your store to try it on. As Jerry Storch put it, “The notion of bricks-and-mortar retailers versus internet-only retailers will cease to exist.”

At present, customers are moving faster than retailers. The industry has gone from mid-‘90s Web portals to Web 2.0 user-generated content to the current era of smartphones and mobile devices. As retailers catch up to consumers, we’re all wondering what comes the next.

While nobody can predict with certainty what will happen in the next five or even three years, these leaders all offered actionable advice for the journey forward. As Michael Zeisser said, “History can inform the future, but it cannot predict it.”

Here’s some of the buzz I caught from this swirling beehive of omni-channel thinking -

Stay relevant and evolve with your customers - Jamie Nordstrom’s advice was understand today’s consumer behavior - know how your customers interact with your brand with their desktops and laptops, tablets, smartphones and media. This knowledge is critical for successful acquisition of and engagement with your customers.

Focus on your core skills - Jerry Storch predicts a retail future that belongs to the store-based retailer. He leans on the math to make his point - supply chain costs to ship  direct-to-consumers are three times higher than traditional retail inventory models. To come out on top, traditional retailers must leverage their core retail and merchandising skills. As for the pure plays, they, too, must build on their retail and merchandising core competencies.

Add value - Also from Jerry Storch: winning retailers will be the ones who deliver customer service and a shopping experience that add value to the purchase. For some customers, these added values may be more important than the product itself. To stay relevant with your users, Michael Zeisser exhorts companies to engineer and deliver services based on user insights. With so many customers present on social media, leverage these tools to engage with your shoppers.

Re-think management - Michael Zeisser contrasted Management 1.0 and 2.0. In our fast-moving industry, the requirement for leaders is to re-think organizational strategies. Instead of the top-down, vertical hierarchy of Management 1.0, Management 2.0 aims for innovation, led by inspirer-in-chief management that stimulates a culture of collaboration, transparency and creative problem-solving.

Pay attention to global competition – Michael Zeisser reminded us that our competitors are not the ones next door, but the global ones. Pay attention to them.

For more than a decade, Shop.org has had an outsize influence in guiding our industry. I strongly encourage everyone in the business to attend Shop.org events and support this pioneer organization.

So... were you in attendance? If you were, what did you learn? Were any of your own suspicions confirmed? Any surprises? Let’s hear about your experience. 

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