As part of International Women's Day 2021, Ragtrader is celebrating the incredible women who make up Australia's fashion industry. Here, we ask designer brand leaders what they learned from 2020.
Jane McNally - Camilla CEO
There were so many challenges in 2020 for every discretionary retailer.
Perhaps the biggest single thing to pull out would be the managing of uncertainty.
Of course there’s always some educated guesswork involved in retail but when you add a global pandemic to the mix, you need more than a crystal ball because there’s no longer a fixed history upon which to base long term plans.
At Camilla, we approached the uncertainty challenge by reducing our odds, shortening our lead times and response times to every aspect of our business.
We became as nimble and as agile as possible. It’s quite unusual for a luxury brand with an 18-month lead time to really change their business but that’s what we did and we rose to the challenge.
One major milestone we achieved in 2020 was launching a completely new product category, Camilla Zen Wear and Active, within a six-week turnaround in response to the market and customers in the work-from-home environment.
Sales from the Zen product replaced the revenue from our traditional occasion dressing.
We also hit some tactical goals and which included pivoting from a traditional annual warehouse sale to an online experience.
That had to be done within a week as large public gatherings were banned just 10 days before our sale had been advertised.
The pivot quickly meant photographing and packaging 5000 individual SKUs as well as setting up an online warehouse site from scratch.
We used extra resources from stores and head office. We re-trained some of our IT guys to actually show off their photographic skills.
In the end, we managed to take in far more money than we would have ever done in a physical sale environment.
Everyone involved was really excited to see their hard work pay off and this was a major win for us right at the start of the crisis.
Being super reactive and responsive does add a lot more work and complexity but it’s a real credit to everyone in our Camilla tribe that they were prepared to work harder, faster, longer and always with a hugely positive attitude to help us with this crisis.
I think as we were physically forced apart, the need for human connection also became stronger than ever.
Our most loyal Camilla customers are very sociable, typically spending one hour being styled in stores or enjoying a tea or champagne with our store staff.
We knew that to succeed during lockdown remotely, we had to somehow transfer that experience as it would be key for our success in picking up closed store sales.
Accordingly, we made the decision, even before the JobKeeper allowance was announced, to retain our permanent store teams and transfer their exceptional personal engagement skills into a digital environment.
We created a new virtual shopping experience where customers could connect with their favourite store expert, who was in turn, linked to a fully dressed showroom.
Our customers were able to chat and receive one on one styling sessions from the comfort of their own living rooms. This was either across the whole range or a capsule that had been edited to their taste.
We also hosted remote VIP launches and one of which, featured home delivered wines specifically pared to our prints.
We prioritised building upon that strong Camilla community feel by launching a Facebook forum where customers could connect with one another and their team about their lockdown wardrobes, general experiences, pets, everything.
We saw almost 4000 customers quickly sign up for it and we also used it to host weekly Facebook Watch parties where our in-house stylists would go through each new drop and offer styling solutions and outfit tips.
All of this connectivity work resulted in an engaged team, retention and expansion of our customer base and some truly amazing online trade results.
So much so, that in the latter half of last year, we traded significantly up on an omnichannel basis on the same time in 2019.
Alexandra Smart - Ginger & Smart co-founder
Alexandra and Genevieve Smart
We had to deploy a number of strategies in 2020, as we reacted to what was happening with COVID, customers and store closures.
We had to move quickly, be nimble and change strategies in the middle of strategies!
The key lesson was to bring our sustainability messaging to the forefront, perhaps more than we would have ever had before.
There was a real desire from our customers to hear more about what we’re doing in that sustainability space.
We also had to look at our product mix and be in our customers’ wardrobes more than in the past.
We did this through the rollout of more casual pieces and more pieces for the weekend.
That was a really big change and focus in the business.
The outcome of that is going to be really terrific through this year.