Holiday Retail Strategy in 2020
We spoke with leaders from Gorjana, Hatch and Billy Reid on their holiday strategies this year and how COVID has impacted their business.
Last week, we joined forces with clienteling platform, Endear to host a panel around holiday retail strategies with leaders from Gorjana, Hatch and Billy Reid. With COVID-19 top of mind and omnichannel retail strategies evolving rapidly, each panelist shared business insights from the last 9 months and how their team plans to move forward into the holiday season and Q1.
How COVID has impacted business
“Leading a business through a pandemic…there’s no playbook,” admits HATCH COO Lindsay Bressler. HATCH, which makes chic maternity wear, saw that its product demand was resilient during COVID but noticed that more women were into buying basic, less fashion-oriented items. “We were able to pivot pretty quickly once we saw things turn,” Bressler also stated, and the brand launched a content platform in May, shifting focus to digitizing its content and events.
Jeff Zens, COO of Billy Reid, immediately focused his team on cost cutting, prioritization and cash management to help his business get through the uncertainty. “We then went full speed ahead with our digital business,” Jeff notes, implementing things like Shopify, while looking toward reopening stores in the late summer. Gorjana also quickly pivoted, CEO Jason Griffin Reidel shared, getting back to their entrepreneurial roots and figuring out how to do retail amidst all of this. “We’re just flying on the seat of our pants and running loose,” he said.
Planning for Black Friday, holiday promotions + beyond
With consumers and brands all zigging and zagging during COVID, the Black Friday approach is bit different for each brand too. Billy Reid, which has relied on selling items full price since the fall, is trying to limit its level of promotion moving forward, even going back on some original Black Friday plans. Zens shared Billy Reid has brand building activity running, highlighting a recent campaign with Mumford & Sons — but will selectively participate in Black Friday deals. HATCH just released a curated holiday gift guide, “playing some sort of holiday [promo]”, said Bressler, but they want to make sure they’re proceeding cautiously from a messaging and marketing standpoint during this time.
Reidel predicts holiday sales will be steadier overall this year, and echoing Bressler’s point, says his team is focused on lighter messaging, dropping their promos and collections more piecemeal, instead of going all out for holiday.
Going into 2021 planning, all teams mutually agree that their businesses are looking to make things more consistent with their inventory buying strategy, so they’re not in feast or famine mode.
“The more we can have [COVID] as a catalyst for being more nimble, I think is a silver lining for making it through,” Bressler stated.
Remaining focused on stores and physical retail
“We now have a line outside our stores for the first time,” Reidel says, calling it the “Disneyland effect” which has made people more likely to convert after waiting in line outside. He also says his retail footprint in some cities have been successful in markets less affected by COVID and the protests this summer. “It’s not a volume game but a quality game” moving forward, and built upon the success in retail saying,
“retail is going to be the way we survive”.
Clientelling is a big strategy for Billy Reid, accounting for over half of its business, and Jeff says his team is figuring things out as the world has gone more remote and SMS-based. Operationally, most of all BR stores have rebounded — now including safety measures and occupancy limits — but moving forward it’ll be all about where his team wants to place their retail bets. “We want to make sure we’re getting the traffic and the economics of the stores makes sense,” Zens adds.
HATCH’s stores have had to get creative to drive sales, as its two existing stores were in the most hard hit COVID areas in the country, but have focused its efforts on things like hosting trunk shows, and “white glove service” to make their customers feel that they are being “taken care of” shared Bressler. In the Chicago Leap powered pop-up, Bressler mentioned, virtual appointments were a key part of the store’s success. Overall she is optimistic about retail, believing in their future store strategy and making investments there.
Retail Strategy Planning for 2021
While it’s hard to predict what 2021 will hold, Reidel stated he planned to double down on retail, but keep more flexibility in what he does in terms of Gorjana’s retail footprint.
“The lifetime value of our customer is double when they omnichannel cross convert in retail and ecomm,” said Reidel.
Gorjana also plans to partner with other brands to take over empty retail spaces and will proceed in signing new leases.
While Zens says Billy Reid’s retail strategy remains the same — he’s tightening inventory and investing more in marketing . He also plans to be more data-driven with the decisions he makes, especially in retail.
You can listen to the full panel [here]
