Fishing with the net
Gill’s new Ocean Race jacket has seen miles of testing, but will be resting on retailers resources for sales
It’s a contentious subject still, says Stevie Knight. How do you keep up with technology and create a web presence without upsetting your retailers?
Economic pressures, tied in with online advances, have pulled the clothing market in very different directions. One response has been to lower costs by cutting out the middle man and offering a website-based direct buying option for customers.
At its very nearly opposite pole is the idea that “we're all in this together”.
FBI's Mr Bulson is very much of the latter opinion: the retailer needs to be able to be confident he is the first point of call, he says, adding, “Although we have a smart warehouse and a dedicated team, without our retailers we are a just a warehouse with a lot of boxes. Our future development is going to happen through the retailer so the main principle has to be, what’s best for the retailer.”
Helly's Sjolander agrees: “It can’t be about driving customers to an online offering over and above the retailers,” he says. “The ecommerce sites are kept in place by virtue of a price point balanced at the retail value: we simply want to cover the gaps in distribution.” Further, online sales aren’t items like common base layers, but highly specialised technical gear that not everyone will stock.
Grown 20%
The proof is that while the ecommerce site has been around for a couple of years, external retail and wholesale accounts have grown another 20% over the same period. “The key to growth is still the retail partners, the wholesalers. For me its common sense, I don’t want to compete with my best customers,” says Mr Sjolander
He adds this idea of identity linked back to the retail side, saying in the bad old days Helly had a difficult time keeping track of product distribution, which meant the brand became spread too thin. “We spent some time sorting out our distribution so that we could be seen as a solid trading partner,” he says.
Mr Peach says, “One thing we can do is to make sure that people find us, whether it’s by catalogue, web or boat show – and keep up a solid brand identity in store. We see the web as a window to view the brand.”
He adds that customers do a lot of research before getting to buy anything these days and the company sees the web as being an important tool, using networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to raise its presence.
But, he says, people still go out and find the retailers, especially with clothing. “They want to see colours, feel the texture for themselves. And it has to be added, people want to engage in the whole shopping experience – which means while they might go into a store with one thing in mind, they might well find something else that takes their fancy on an impulse buy,” he says.
This is the attraction of bricks and mortar: as with any brand on the high street there’s a point where you want to go and see it, touch it and try it on, but the web is important because it can show the entire range at any one time. “Something seldom found in retail stores,” says Mr Gill.
Traditional way
He adds that 99.9% of Gill’s business goes through marine retailers in the traditional way. “To be honest, our approach has always been to support the retailer. Today most retailers also have their own online component.”
So, while Gill’s own web presence is completely insignificant, Mr Gill explains that the company’s distributors seem to be growing sales through their own online offering, rather than bricks and mortar.
However, he says, it’s not that much different to the old days of catalogues, except its electronic rather than paper and this stops the slightly disheartening sight of a large batch of paper simply going into the recycling tip. There is, however, one last bit of paper – a "web guide product selector" so there’s something for people to take away from stores and boat shows.
FBI’s way forward is to go back to some old principles, with a pure, wholesale offering to the market, adding in some easy options. “We're facing some of the harshest trading conditions for many years, so making sure retailers don’t have to feel committed to huge forward orders does provide a little comfort and helps smooth out some of the lumps and bumps of their cash flow.”
“It’s a matter of working on a few old, tried and trusted principles, like holding the stock for our retailers,” he says.
So, on the whole it seems that most manufacturers agree that retailers are the front line, website or not – although the issue is still contentious.
Happily, there’s still a very large tendency toward people not buying clothing items they haven’t tried on and held. And there’s a good reason to believe that while customers might purchase an item on the web if they’ve had it before and know exactly what’s needed, first time buyers still want to try it all out before committing themselves.
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