British fashion company Brand Machine Group has hit the next phase of its Australian market penetration after recently signing on half a dozen retailers in its local wholesale push.
In conversation with Ragtrader, Brand Machine Group founder Boo Jalil confirmed JD Sports and Rebel are two of the key retailers signed on, with the others sitting within the same calibre.
Brand Machine Group is a UK-based, predominantly vertical business which is home to fashion brands such as U.S. Polo Assn., Duchamp, Penfield and Peckham Rye alongside youth labels such as Juicy Couture, Sugar Pink and the kids version of New Balance – all either owned or under license.
The latest wholesale push follows a swift local-for-local set-up by the business in Australia over the last year, including signing a three-year lease on a showroom in Sydney’s Surry Hills and setting up a national distribution centre housing up to 700 styles that can be shipped to door in 24 hours, all completed late last year.
The business has also launched a local website for U.S. Polo Assn., with others expected in due course.
“We've carried out everything we said we would carry out within our first six months,” Jalil said. “And when we went out to the retailers, they were a bit shocked at how fast we've moved.
“While the market is moving backwards, we're probably in an advantageous position, that we've got no baggage, and we're just running forward.”
Early in the new year, Jalil and his team have met with several retailers to lock in wholesale contracts. He said much of the conversations with them have been similar, talking on certain fashion brands closing doors, new entrants disturbing the current market, and a certain big department store that has new shareholders.
“It feels like the market is in a bit of self protection mode at the moment,” Jalil said. “For us, it's completely the opposite. We're on the attack.
“We have an advantage at the moment that we're a global brand business, and I think that's what's keeping us in good step with the retailers here.
“We're fresh, we're new, we're fast, and probably more aggressive than people are used to in movement, but that's the energy we've got.”
Looking at the upcoming rollout in wholesale, Jalil said the aim is not to push all its brands into all retailers, or opening up a hundred accounts. He said Brand Machine Group is always very tight in its distribution.
“We have a distribution policy that we want to follow. We lay it out around the world, and we generally stick to that distribution policy.
“So from a wholesale point of view, we've not got the baggage of a lot of people who have been here a long time, where they've had a huge amount of accounts and they shrink and shrink and shrink.
“We've come here with the intention of working with a very, very, very selective set of retailers, and that select set of retailers that we're working with, we've actually signed every single one.”
Jalil said the ultimate focus is keeping the customer promise, even for its U.S. Polo Assn. website which is now local-for-local.
“We’ll achieve customer promise over the next kind of three months,” he said. “We'll have a few hiccups, because you always do, but making sure the customer is taken care of.
“Once we've done that, our next website will be Penfield. That's Penfield, USA. And then we'll roll out one every three to six months, depending on the technical stuff that we need to do.
“We have a pitch number of five live brands on web direct-to-consumer towards the end of this year and first first quarter next year.”