Aquila CEO Luke Longo walks Josh McDonnell through the rapid expansion plans he has for the brand which includes 20 stores in 12 months, a stronger eCommerce presence and a whole new product ranging.
Talk me through the expansion plans you have for Aquila?
We've recently opened about 10 stores in the last six months. We are at 50 doors as we speak, the project is to have another 10 doors by the end of this financial year, over the course of this season, which will take us to 60.
The plan is to push above 70 stores in the next 12 months.
Any particular areas in mind?
It will be a mixture of Myer concession stores, because we have a very good relationship with Myer and their concession stores trade quite well.
Part of those 70 plus stores will be concession based and that will be scattered though the Myer network of outlets.
Stand alone stores will be obviously a mixture of, not so much Victoria but more so NSW, QLD and WA.
In more the regional centres too. When I say regional I'm not talking so much CBD, I'm talking more the suburban shopping centres.
What's the split on concession and retail stores?
As we speak we are about a dozen Myer stores and probably have another half a dozen, so probably take it up to about 18-20, roughly by mid year.
What are the future plans for menswear?
We added menswear about four or five years ago, very softly. You could say it was a soft launch but we've had a lot of stores now with a menswear component.
Obviously the objective is to broaden the product reach under the Aquila brand. We are a very, very strong brand within the marketplace and the thought was to expand on that and offer our customers more than just a footwear product.
But to extended it into menswear such as men’s suiting, men’s cotton separates, shirting and fashion pieces.
What has that done for revenue and how do you see it improving?
Well it's only been a small part of the revenue over the past few years because it's only been in a select number of stores but we obviously have been planning for it to ramp up over the next couple of years.
Purely by the fact that we've started to push it into a number of existing stores and new stores we are planning to open up as well.
What's the weighting between menswear and shoes, both sales but also the percentage of the two in regards to stock?
Footwear is still the main game of the Aquila business but if you walk into any of our menswear stores it's about a 70 – 30 split [footwear being larger].
What does that do for sales? Does it mirror the split?
Well in the stores that have [menswear], overall it doesn’t because not every store has menswear but the stores that have it, it's about the same sort of split.
What's prompted the decision to begin selling accessories?
It's an extension of our footwear. Guys come in and there is obviously an association of leather goods with our footwear.
Hence the reason to expand our range of accessories in belts, luggage and also with socks as well.
Obviously we have plans to push into more accessories like leather wallets as well, which is also in the pipeline.
There are plans to boost online, what does online revenue currently sit at?
It sits below 5% so we are looking to double that to get it to about 8-10% of our overall sales.
What prompted that decision?
Just customer trend, not our customer trend but general data shows the importance of online and ensuring that we have an omni channel experience for our customers.
That’s what customers want so we are very concious of ensuring that we provided that to our customer base.
It's not necessarily just a eCommerce perspective, it's an overall strategy of the business to ensure that both channels, online and bricks-and-mortar, work closely together and it's a seamless channel for our customers to buy through.