It is over a year since Underlines caught up with Mark Tweed, Brand Director of Cyberjammies and Fable & Eve. Their experience is quite different from many others in the marketplace as the two brands were performing above expectations ahead of the first lockdown in March 2020. Being in the right place at the right time with the right product was perchance more luck than design but the company is well aware of its fortunate position and grateful for the support of their wholesale customers. Like virtually everyone out there, Mark and his team are longing to meet their customers face to face later this summer.
How have the last 12 months affected your wholesale and direct to consumer business?
Both the Cyberjammies and Fable and Eve brands were performing well before the first lockdown but with nightwear and loungewear taking centre stage in people’s wardrobes last year they thrived even under lockdown.
Obviously, the wholesale side of the business had mixed fortunes with stores closed for such a long period – those bricks and mortars who also had transactional websites fared pretty well – they saw their store business transferring to online to such an extent that overall turnover has been well up on pre-lockdown levels.
Working on a number of sales levels has increased your response to the market?
Yes, certainly it enabled us to be flexible with any store that wanted to cancel their pending orders that we were still holding at the time. There was of course some reworking to be done but in the overall scheme of things a small price to pay to move stock from customers who didn’t (or couldn’t) take it to those who did.
So the business has grown over 2020-2021?
Both of our brands have seen significant growth on all levels over the last 12 months – a 50% increase in the wholesale side and the websites over 3.5x’s last year’s level.
We are particularly pleased with the growth of Fable and Eve. Given the higher price point, we were happy to see steady growth from launch but have managed to achieve a significantly higher level than we were expecting: with selected Fenwick stores added to our customer base ahead of lockdown, plus a number of key INDX customers and independents. Major growth has come from the website. We have changed the platform during lockdown which has allowed us a great deal more flexibility and the ability to improve our SEO and marketing capabilities.
So how has this shift in emphasis affected your business relationships?
With our focus shifting online it has enabled us to learn a great deal about communicating with our end customers. Our database has increased and our marketing spending has continued to grow significantly. We have been able to tap into a large number of new customers that have never bought from us previously. Having introduced the brand to so many more customers we are now confident that both the online and bricks and mortar side of the business can benefit from that improved brand awareness: we are in this business for the long-term with our store partners.
Now as stores have opened we’ve been contacting key wholesale accounts and are very pleased to report that business has been strong. So much so, we’ve already had a good number of repeat orders on the current SS21 collections.
The women’s side of the business continues to dominate accounting for over 80% of our turnover but the kid’s business is growing well, with some key accounts thriving over lockdown. Menswear has also grown for us online and we will be adding into two substantial accounts in the coming year which could have a major impact on future growth.
So where do you see future development and growth now we are out of lockdown?
With lockdown coming to an end, we have debated long and hard whether our business will see a slowdown or even a reversal of the good fortune that we have had to date over the last year. We don’t believe that will be the case. Working from home, as a trend, is not going away even as lockdown restrictions ease. Businesses have quickly learned that they can function incredibly well without having their full team in an office environment. Just one example – we have been impressed with how rapidly buyers adapted to buying from online catalogues and zoom meetings.
The key to our continued success will be adapting to the conditions that we find ourselves in. The customers are dictating how they want to buy, and that is evolving all the time. In our view, a strong balance between online and bricks & mortar stores will remain the right one for the foreseeable future.
You have been running a very active social media campaign – what new social tools have you been using?
Yes, we’ve been working hard to improve our social media engagement for a number of years now. It has definitely helped our business. We asked our customers recently if they would buy from a social media advert: we were surprised the response was so positive. 53% said they would. At the same time, 47% said they wouldn’t. Asked why they wouldn’t, the overwhelming response was lack of trust/fear of being scammed. Social media has become a key part of our conversation with our customers. Instagram in particular, but also Facebook. We’ve also started advertising on Pinterest, but it’s too early to say if this will be as successful as the other two.
Clearly, social media is crucial when speaking to our end customers, but having multiple ways to purchase our products is essential as not everyone is a social media fan.
Have you noticed the usual spikes around Christmas or Mother’s Day (during which England has been completely closed)?
Christmas has and will always be a key trading period for nightwear. Last Christmas was no exception, just at much higher levels than the previous year. Mother’s Day achieved great sales for us as well.
Have you adopted new digital technologies for use both internally (within the company) and externally (to customers/consumers)?
Absolutely! We will continue to automate as much of our business as we possibly can and look to new technologies to help propel us forward. We moved warehouse, to a far larger, third party company that has a focus on system integration and automation of processes where possible. Without that move we would not have been able to achieve the sales we have over the last year. We are also increasingly automating our communication with customers while keeping it as personalised as possible. We use an email delivery company called Klaviyo which allow flows of emails to be automatically sent, which are responding to actions that customers have taken on our site. We have been using Feefo for a number of years to gain reviews from customers: now invaluable data which helps our product development and to improve service and how we speak to our customers.
What about the supply chain? Have you had many interruptions to supply? And what of Brexit repercussions?
Once again, we’ve been lucky! We did work incredibly hard to make our factories COVID-safe early on which has therefore allowed us to continue producing throughout. Having said that, the worsening situation in India has started to impact our ability to produce and ship goods over recent weeks. Not too much impact so far, but we are continually discussing and reviewing operations.
As for Brexit, who hasn’t been affected! We’ve had issues sending anything from the UK to Europe. We have now managed to get some wholesale orders through, but additional duty charges are likely to lead to changes going forward. We’ve stopped our own web sales to Europe as too few were getting through without delays or issues/being returned. We shall wait until the dust settles and try again in a few months’ time. However, we will now review the long term web order management for Europe, most likely delivering directly into Europe from India, and then supplying from there.
Have you had requests from customers regarding sustainability, garment providence or biodegradability?
Yes, our web customers are increasingly asking questions about where our nightwear is made. Questions range from sustainability to our ethics, and how we treat our teams. Interestingly enough, as part of our recent survey, we asked customers to rank a number of priorities when they made a purchase.
In order or prominence, the priorities were Comfort/Fit; Quality of Fabric, Price, Unique designs and Sustainability (7% of respondents). So sustainability is still comparatively low when compared to fit, or quality of fabric. However, if we had asked the same question a year ago or even further back, I suspect it would have been even lower. From our point of view, sustainability and strong ethics are essential for any brand as we move forward. Customers will expect them to be there, they will no longer be a competitive advantage to market.
If INDX goes ahead in August will you be returning whatever format that takes?
Yes, we will be there! INDX has been a key part of our business ever since we first attended. We’ve really missed the shows and are looking forward to being back. To be frank, we have learned swiftly that we can still secure the business without necessarily attending the show. However, nothing beats a face to face catch up with our customers that we’ve been working with for years!
We may well have a number of key account orders already put to bed ahead of the show, but that will help to ensure we have time for those that haven’t placed beforehand. For stores, missing out on getting to see all the brands in one place, able to pull together key trends quickly over a few days, must have been very difficult. Also, assessing new brands in person must be an even bigger challenge. Can’t wait to get back there if I’m honest!
Have you put in place strategic plans for one year hence, two years hence?
We are always looking forward! Always looking to learn and improve. We have a couple of projects in the pipeline which will significantly increase our offer with some of our key accounts which should hopefully lead to further increases in sales. We may well be changing the platform for our Cyberjammies site over the coming year to ensure we future proof our web business for several years to come. International growth is also fundamental to our business strategy in the coming 18 months.
