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Loyalty Lifts Brands in a Recession

As recessionary clouds gather over the U.S. economy, retail CFOs are busy cutting capex, opex, and inventory. Facing the prospect of lower sales and higher borrowing costs, preserving cash seems the wisest option.

But there is an area where we believe you should consider spending more: your loyalty program and member marketing. If the overall marketing budget needs to be cut, then shift funds from customer acquisition into loyalty. Why? Consumers behave differently during a recession and they typically:

  • Gravitate to “budget” channels
  • Seek deep discounts
  • Spend less
  • Are less loyal

In other words, the performance marketing models you’ve built over the last dozen years no longer apply during a recession. New customers will be more expensive to get into the funnel, and they will be less valuable. Loyalty program members may also need some incentive to stay and spend during a recession, and focusing on them will likely be your most efficient way to preserve sales, keep them from chasing deals elsewhere, and maintain their long-term relationship with you.

Loyalty’s Benefits

According to Accenture, 90 percent of retailers have some form of loyalty or subscription program, which usually includes a combination of a rewards program, exclusive benefits, member-only access and experiences, and personalized offers and communications. Customers can gain even more value by opting for the brand’s credit card, which serves as a rewards and benefits accelerator.

The benefits for retailers are substantial: Loyalty customers shop more, spend more and stay longer. They’re more likely to engage – rating products and advocating for the brand, online and IRL. Moreover, in the current climate of iOS privacy protections and increased privacy legislation, these programs have become the richest source of permission-based consumer data collection, which can then be used to fine-tune program features and communications for maximum impact. Lastly, companies with high loyalty and/or dependable subscriptions get higher valuations on Wall Street.

Loyalty During a Recession

If you’re a startup or otherwise part of the 10 percent with no loyalty program, rolling out a new regime on the eve of (or during) a recession will be expensive. Most costs will be spent on new member acquisition, with the major benefits accruing only years hence. But for the other 90 percent, here are a few ways to ensure you get the most out of your loyalty members when the economy and consumer confidence dips.

  1. Affirm the strategic importance of reallocating resources into loyalty and get alignment across the leadership team around the cross-functional efforts required to execute an effective program, including Marketing, Finance, Stores, IT, Planning, and Merchandising.
  2. Revisit program rewards and benefits. Your customers will be most concerned about saving money and lowering risk, so consider tweaking the program’s value proposition. Changing the messaging from “points” to “$ cash back,” for example, is a simple and commonly used tactic. You may also want to do qualitative research among your existing members to understand what language they use to express their anxiety and what benefits would mean the most to them during an economic downturn. Then communicate with them based on these hot buttons.
  3. Remove friction, and streamline components. To increase sign-ups, use emails or phone numbers as the connection points to easily sign up for entry-level benefits. If you haven’t already done so, integrate all elements into one program by using a single loyalty bank with stair-stepped rewards and benefits for non-credit card and credit card loyalty. This will make it easier for members to track and see all rewards in one place.
  4. Raise the visibility and frequency of loyalty messaging. Leverage every opportunity across all channels to promote the loyalty program and the value loyalty members receive. But don’t stop there. Message non-loyalty customers on the rewards and benefits they missed with their last purchase.
  5. Don’t forget the stores. It’s easy and inexpensive to make all these program changes online. But during a recession, customers generally continue to shop in stores, if only for the purpose of finding the very deepest markdowns. Store staff must be well-trained, first and foremost to provide loyalty-worthy service. Maintain ongoing messaging to recruit new loyalty program members and promote its value.
  6. Test and learn. Remember, you have no valid performance model that’s been tested through a recession! Set up experimental tests measuring costs vs. impacts to understand what’s working and what’s not.

Preserve Your Most Valuable Asset

You’ll note that these six steps are not materially different from best practices (and hopefully your own practices) when times are good. The difference in a recession is that your loyal customers will more likely drop quintiles or exit the cohort entirely if you fail to stay top of mind and provide better value. Anticipate the future. Do the work now, and you’ll emerge stronger on the other side.

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The Covid Chronicles

Being declared nonessential during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns perfectly captures the literal truth about mall-based specialty retail.

In fact, specialty stores only exist in the first place because they are magic. They invite us into beautiful stage sets, create new aspirations and help cater to our most refined tastes. Les Wexner, the one-time owner of over a dozen specialty retail chains, frequently reminded his executives that they were in the “wants” business, not the “needs” business. His most scathing (and still printable) critique of his brands’ marketing or displays would be “this looks like JCPenney.” The more magic his stores created, the more margin. The…math…was…that…simple.

Over the past decade, we’ve witnessed a broad and steady decline in that magic, inflicted in part by the infectiousness of a handheld supercomputer that brings the world directly to us. During this pandemic, we worry whether a trip to the mall would be safe; but the journey had already become increasingly unnecessary and banal.

So, what’s next for the malls and their tenants?

The Covid Chronicles

There’s a group of retail executives in Columbus, Ohio who are still committed to perpetuating that magic. We call ourselves CBUS Retail, with the motto, “We love retail.” We are currently producing — supported by Klarna and other like-minded sponsors – a nine-episode, streamed video series entitled “Specialty Retail in Crisis: The Covid Chronicles.”  The series describes the massive disruption in this sector, paints a view of its future and suggests strategies for post-pandemic success. So far, we’ve interviewed 40 analysts, operators and founders from retail hubs across the country. Here is a synthesis of the series.

1. Pre-Covid

Of course, the mall economy was already troubled well before the pandemic, plagued by a persistent supply-demand imbalance, eroding margins and falling productivity. The dynamic duo, Michael Dart and Robin Lewis list several key reasons:

  • Oversupply
    • Persistent falling manufacturing costs.
    • Continued growth of non-mall options – discount, value, outlet and off-price; clubs and big boxes; everything digital.
  • Shrinking demand
    • The mall’s targeting of, and dependence on a shrinking middle class.
    • Consumers spending more on experiences and health & wellness, and less on physical products (aka “dematerialization”).

Other speakers highlighted two other distinct failures of the mall’s tenants:

  • A generation’s-long inability of department stores to increase mall traffic.
  • Specialty chains’ increasing lack of novelty, creativity and differentiation.

In short, too much product, too many stores, and not enough magic.

2. Direct Impacts of the Pandemic

If zombie malls with zombie stores filled with zombie product populated much of the retail landscape pre-pandemic, Covid-19 appears to be finally killing off many of these walking dead. Since March, retailers will have announced the closure of an estimated 25,000+ stores, and a net ~300 malls are projected to “repurpose” or succumb during the next three years. So far, over two dozen specialty and department store retailers have declared bankruptcies, with most emerging much slimmer, with new owners. We are told to expect more Chapter 7’s and 11’s this spring.

NPD’s Marshal Cohen describes “The Discretionary Divergence” in consumer spending.

Shows the categories diverging in spending

3. The Silver Lining

As the pandemic continues to wreck stores, profits, jobs and livelihoods, not to mention lives, our speakers see plenty of future upside for the sector. First, much of the structural oversupply will be gutted from the marketplace. BMO Capital Markets analyst Simeon Siegel argues that the current crisis allows public retailers to strategically downsize without incurring shareholder ire. Most agree that digital commerce is racing through puberty during the pandemic and now stands at least as tall as its offline parent. All in all, there’s a scramble to re-form and reform retail: The future of specialty retail is up for grabs.

4. The Future

A More Diversified and Dynamic Landscape, With Faster Lifecycles and Lower Peaks

With malls and legacy retailers hobbled, the barriers to entry for emerging retailers have never been lower. Traditional wholesalers and DTC brands are finding more mall vacancies with lower rents and more flexible terms, according to Steve Morris, Asset Strategy Group’s CEO. Ottawa-based Shopify provides inexpensive Retail-as-a-Service to over a million ecommerce merchants, who can also co-list their products on other shopping and social platforms including Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Instagram.

Forrester’s Sucharita Kodali foresees an intense battle over the next decade between legacy analog brands now adopting digital first mindsets vs. digital natives seeking heightened customer connection and growth through operating stores.

Whoever wins, the spoils will likely be smaller than before. Analog-first brands that took a generation or more to build tend to top out at $2-3 billion in the U.S. at retail, according to Siegel, with only NIKE swooshing beyond. The current generation of venture-fueled concepts – monied, impatient, and viral-when-successful – will peak faster, but at a level limited to consumers’ goldfish-sized attention spans.

Given the increasingly complex and integrated nature of the equation, analog + digital = sale, J.Crew’s Billy May believes we should focus mostly on market and customer profitability, not channel.

Oliver Chen of Cowen argues that community is the unlock for sustaining consumer loyalty in an attention-deficit world. Aerie and Glossier use social media especially well to foster engagement, according to Chen. Pre-pandemic, Revolve, a brand positioned to party, hosted big, fab, in-person parties instead of investing in brick and mortar.

A Re-Engineered Retail Value Chain

During the pandemic, the design and merchandising teams at the tween girls’ retailer Justice took the whole product development process virtual — from inspiration to concept to line — removing months from their calendar. The compressed timelines prioritized merchant conviction and improvisation ahead of test-read-react. Truly energized by the speed, efficiency and empowerment in the new process, VPs Kat Depizzo and Julia Hanna  are convinced these changes will largely be permanent.

More frequent and smaller buys closer to floorset/listing is a recurring theme. Lower markdowns will make up for slightly higher unit costs. Supply chains will be leaner, faster and more distributed, avoiding single points of failure. Inventory transparency is doubly important as omnichannel options proliferate. Good forecasts are the ultimate lubricant in a lean, forward-positioned supply chain. From a tech perspective, Karl Haller demonstrates how IBM projects demand to the store level.

In stores, all agree that we’ll move towards contactless customer service and payments post-pandemic. Kodali states, “a customer should never have to wait in line to talk to a person.” WD Partners’ Lee Peterson reports that Alibaba is way ahead on these and other innovations in his talk “Innovation, Alibaba Style.” There was widespread agreement that Chinese companies and consumers provide a good benchmark for what’s ahead.

A New Role for Physical Stores

Cathaleen Chen wrote a Business of Fashion article in August, both profound and so obvious (as in why-in-my-decades-in-this-business-hadn’t-I-thought-of-it kind of obvious). There are four roles for physical stores: brand, service, immersive experience and community. Think slow on this.

A future strategy for a market-based store “portfolio” makes sense. Some stores offer full brand presentation, high-touch service and interactive community building; at the other end of the spectrum, are dark stores that only fulfill pick-ups and deliveries.

Less Algorithm, More Imagination

Author of “Aesthetic Intelligence,” Pauline Brown, states that in business there should be a tension between analysis and aesthetics. But that the only way to beat the robots is through the uniquely human ability to create beauty, infuse joy, and surprise and delight customers.

Aaron Walters, CEO of Altar’d State, asserts that the larger a business gets, the more it needs to either simplify the model or empower its employees. He advocates bringing the “special” back to specialty retailing.

Former Google executive and arts student, Abigail Holtz, observes that ecommerce has not evolved for 20 years and now seems emotionless and flat, not effortless and fun; and stores have their own shortcomings. She created online shopping site The Lobby to merge the best of both channels, where they curate emerging brands “doing something special” and make shopping fun with an original, authentic and very human-centered interface.

Magic.

NOTE: This is just a small sample of the smart commentary in the series. Please visit https://cbusretail.org/covid-chronicles-season-one/ to stream for free and join our live Community Roundtable https://cbusretail.org/member-events/ on January 6 to discuss the series content with several of the speakers.

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True Stories: Strategies from Seven High-Growth Specialty Retailers

There is not much “new” to write about when it comes to specialty retail. How often can we talk about the inexorability of Amazon; the metastasizing of dollar/value retailing; the exigency for experience; the hotness of young, unproven business models; the hard march to AI and automation? And let’s re-mention the digital-native darlings.

What I’ve never seen remarked upon is that there is a small group of quite traditional, offline-native specialty retail chains, focusing on things that specialty retailers have always focused on, who are also experiencing significant store, comps and profit growth.

This G7 is: Aerie, Athleta, Bath & Body Works, Boot Barn, Lululemon, Madewell, and Ulta Beauty.

On the surface, these high-growth chains have little in common. Madewell and Aerie are adolescents, launched in 2006; Boot Barn is a grizzled-yet-vigorous 40+ years old. Five of the seven are mostly mall chains, combatting landlord traffic declines. Two feature mostly third-party brands. One is male dominant; another sees men’s as a huge growth initiative. Combined, they sell active, beauty, boots, denim, intimates, home fragrance, personal care, sleepwear, sportswear, workwear and cowboy hats.

So why are these retailers winning while their peers suffer? I recently posed that very question to a group of my colleagues (all current and former specialty retail execs). Our answers should not surprise you.

Aerie
This intimates brand took several years to find its footing, but for the past 20 quarters has experienced double-digit comps. With 141 standalone and 170 side x side stores, Aerie will soon exceed $1 billion in annual sales.

Aerie’s success stems from a brand positioning focused on un-retouched body positivity, a fun and more casual aesthetic and a genuine embrace of diversity and inclusion — a brand for “real women” according to brand President Jennifer Foyle. As Victoria’s Secret’s angels have fallen, Aerie has risen. Its core product focus was initially in t-shirt bras, bralettes, cotton undies and sleepwear, but as the brand attains more “lifestyle” dimension, it is expanding into apparel and active, with huge growth implications.

Let’s also not overlook Aerie’s strong sibling connection to American Eagle Outfitter, who generates its own store traffic, lends its strong brand equity and builds awareness and trial for whatever Aerie cooks up next.

Athleta
Athleta was founded in 1998 and acquired by Gap in 2008. With 190 stores and exceeding $1 billion in sales, the women’s activewear retailer is considered the singular growth vehicle within Gap Inc’s specialty labels (excluding Old Navy, which Gap Inc. will spin off in 2020).

Women’s active apparel is an estimated $24 billion market, growing six percent annually (NPD). While Lululemon owns the premium yoga wear positioning, Athleta merchandises a broader assortment of “sportwear” in the store, with sections marked for training, hiking, yoga, “commute” and girls. They also have more style variation, colors and sizes than Lulu. Additionally, the brand actively messages its social responsibility — for women’s empowerment and, as a B Corp, for fair trade and sustainability. Athleta positions itself as a premium brand, with prices just a bit lower than Lulu’s (e.g., core leggings at Athleta are $89-109 vs. $98-129 at Lululemon).

A big draw for many customers is the brand’s loyalty program. While the retailer runs mostly clean ticket, its Rewards program offers five points for every dollar spent, which build to coupons worth $10 for every 100 points earned.

Bath & Body Works
Bath & Body Works was birthed from the Express apparel chain in 1990, and is now, combined with White Barn Candle Company, a $5 billion unit of L Brands operating 1,740+ stores. The most dazzling statistic, however, is its 23 percent operating profit margin.

How does this personal and home fragrance brand continue to grow so rapidly when two-thirds of its fleet remains in malls? First, Bath & Body Works has chosen to compete in product categories – giftable and everyday products with high margins in categories that, through its merchandising skill and scale, the retailer can thoroughly dominate. Second, the body lotion, soap, fine and home fragrances are treated as fashion, with frequent launches and in-store storytelling driving demand that no other retailer can sustainably match. Third, it merchandises with agility and speed. Its domestic sourcing capability allows it to test and react quickly and confidently, helping to maximize sales and minimize markdowns. Lastly, the company makes major investments in consumer insight-led product innovation, which allows it to improve quality and innovate new products in areas its customers value most.

Boot Barn
With sales nearing $850 million and 250 stores, Boot Barn is the country’s largest western and work wear retailer. The roughly $8 billion western wear market (think Ariat, Wrangler and Justin) is driven by the popularity of country music, ranching and agriculture, horse ownership, and Western events like rodeo. The roughly $12 billion rugged workwear sector (think Carhartt and Wolverine) is driven largely by outdoor blue-collar jobs in construction and oil & gas. Over time, the western + work combo has evolved into a highly productive format, generating significant cross shopping between the two segments. Boot Barn had once grown mostly by acquiring smaller regional competitors in what has always been a highly fragmented sector. But since its last acquisition in 2015 of the 25-store Sheplers chain, Boot Barn has relied principally on organic growth.

Boot Barn’s biggest selling point is a category-killer sized assortment of cowboy boots in one section and a like assortment of work boots in another. The boots are all open stock, assorted by size. If you are a size 10, go to the rack marked size 10, quickly try any number of styles, and if a pair fits, walk to the wrap and hand over your $200+. The vendor then is immediately alerted of the sale, and delivers the replenishment SKU straight from its DC. But other selling points are: head-to-toe merchandise mix; full omnichannel ordering and delivering capabilities; a local store that authentically represents the western and work lifestyles; store associates who are boot experts and themselves live the life; and a brand that invests in community rodeos, 4-H clubs, veterans and other local organizations.

Lululemon
In 2000, Lululemon opened its first boutique in Vancouver, Canada, offering its own make of high-priced, yoga wear for women in a serene, centered aesthetic. The brand quickly evolved to be the status brand for all yoga-inspired fashion; and now “sweat” replaces serenity as a core equity. For FY2019, Lululemon claims 460+ stores in 14 countries, nearly $4 billion in sales, $1,600 in store sales per square foot, and an operating margin likely above 22 percent.

To achieve this success in what was a decade ago still a niche fashion segment, the brand did many things right — foremost was designing a legging that made a woman’s buttocks look toned and fabulous. It entered new markets by enlisting yoga studio instructors as brand ambassadors, hiring only yogis as customer-facing associates and sponsoring and supporting the local yoga community. The brand famously conducts yoga classes in-store on Sunday mornings. Its current phase of double-digit expansion is to use this formula to grow significantly across other “sweat” activities (running, training, etc.) and across more classifications of fitness apparel and accessories. Digital, men and international are also big targets for growth. One example of the business’ omni/digital prowess is that lululemon.com lists markdown product located in individual stores across the chain. Pop-up stores? Lululemon has over 40 of them.

That yoga wear/athleisure has now become mainstream, casual-occasion dressing also helps. One Canadian journalist best summed up the brand’s magic, “Lulu is not selling workout clothes so much as they are selling membership to a club with a very appealing uniform.”

Madewell
At 138 stores, roughly $650 million in sales and a looming IPO, Madewell’s continued growth momentum caught me and my colleagues by surprise. A fast-growing and profitable mid-market women’s specialty apparel chain?

With denim at the foundation of its assortment, Madewell has had the good fortune of riding (and perhaps playing a central role in) the diversity of denim pant silhouettes, fits and sizes for women. Remember when low-rise, skinny was the uniform? See how many more jeans and matching tops you now have to buy! But leave it to Mickey Drexler and his teams to somehow make basics “must have” fashion items through continuously landing on-trend collections and superior storytelling.

Another factor in the business’ success is the “heritage brand” play of Madewell 1937. The store design, types and copy convey a simpler time, but also help communicate the high quality (made well) garment construction, with an implied greater value and longevity than competing designer denim brands can offer. The brand also makes a unique commitment to social change: by donating an old pair of jeans, which will be recycled into home insulation for Habitat for Humanity homes, you get a discount on the next new pair you buy.

A Sample of Madewell Denim Silhouettes

Ulta Beauty
Founded in 1990 in suburban Chicago, Ulta has 1,241 stores and an estimated $7.4 billion in sales. The retailer adopted an old formula, the off-mall category killer, and added a couple “new retail” twists. Defining beauty broadly, Ulta has assembled an estimated 500 well-established and emerging brands from prestige and mass cosmetics, fragrance, skincare and haircare. Second, the store incorporates a 900+ square foot beauty salon, adding to the store’s “customer experience,” imparting expertise and providing product referrals. Third, Ulta has had tremendous success courting and quickly becoming the biggest outlet for celebrity and social-media fueled emerging beauty brands such as Too Faced, Kylie Cosmetics and SugarBearHair.

Perhaps it’s the company’s Midwest heritage, but the broad-based, accessible assortment is matched with attentive, expert and above all friendly customer service, forging significant customer loyalty. The company’s Ultamate Rewards program has 33 million members and captures over 95 percent of Ulta’s transactions. Within the beauty space, Ulta has a comparatively large and active social media presence and, at least during this holiday, dominance in paid search.

Takeaways
What can we learn from these retailers’ growth stories? Pre-Amazon Prime, malls multiplied and brands ruled. If a brand could claim one big thing (i.e., lowest price, biggest assortment, aspirational lifestyle, best customer experience, sexiest underwear, etc.), that was sufficient for success. In this current era of endless disruption, Barbara Kahn in her book The Shopping Revolution, argues that a successful retailer must stake a claim in at least two dimensions.

Here are the strategies that our G7, in some combination, employed to win:

  • Sell the right product categories, i.e., those with intrinsically high emotional content (and therefore loyalty and margin), like beauty, fragrance, yoga-inspired wear, denim, intimates, boots. Then merchandise to own the space in a format and channel you can dominate.
  • Create (or adjust) a brand position to resonate with current culture. Today’s culture values sweat, ruggedness, authenticity, innovation, value, convenience, body positivity, diversity, inclusivity, empowerment and social responsibility.
  • Support the local ecosystem and become its “local” store. Lululemon and Boot Barn invest in the local lifestyles that then support the store, a virtuous cycle.
  • Tell good stories. How else do you sell fashion? Bath & Body Works and Madewell excel here.
  • Innovate. Lululemon is the leader for yoga-inspired fashion and its expansion throughout sweat activities. Ulta offers the latest innovations from the trendiest brands across the market. Bath & Body Works now makes the absolute best three-wick candle.
  • Engineer loyalty. Ulta’s loyalty program covers 95 percent of transactions? Insane.
  • Roll up a highly fragmented sector. Boot Barn has a track record and the superior retail formula in its sector.
  • Consider the category, competition and cultural bend. Activewear is hot now. Denim is, too, but for how much longer? Beauty’s growth has slowed as women revisit more natural looks. (Handbags was the last major category to rocket then flame out – or at least suffer from oversaturation.) How fast would Aerie be growing if the Heathers and Mean Girls still ruled? Where would Athleta be if Chip Wilson had first started making leggings in technical cashmere?

So, let’s honor these seven retailers and their strategies as David Byrne might (though with less music) – with a celebration of specialness.

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Five Strategies to Strengthen Stores

We all know it: the Web commodifies the customer shopping experience. Nevertheless, the sheer convenience and unlimited access provided by online shopping continues to draw a greater portion of her spend. So how can mall specialty retailers draw her back into stores, where they’ve deployed the vast majority of their assets? Mōd proposes the following five strategies:

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How to Win in Your Most Strategic Categories (Part I)

When I was VP of Brand Planning at Limited Brands, one of my team’s core responsibilities was to help with the merchandising strategies for several key business units. The main thrust was to develop plans and inculcate disciplines that would drive large-scale growth and achieve absolute dominance in specific strategic merchandise categories. These were big businesses, and our CEO Les Wexner, who drove these engagements, would devote substantial corporate resources to these efforts because he envisioned (and frequently realized) topline gains in half-billion dollar increments.

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Retail Strategy in the Digital Age

After twenty years focused on retail strategy, I took a two-year hiatus in an attempt to make my Internet riches with a software start-up. When I returned to consulting in late 2012 (alas, sans riches), I returned to a significantly changed retail landscape. The Internet was certainly important in 2010, but not nearly as integral. Well into the late ‘00s, stores always mattered more. Today, few retail decisions are made without consideration of digital. And for most retailers, digital is their fastest growing and most profitable channel, for both marketing and transactions.

Digital has altered both supply and demand Continue reading “Retail Strategy in the Digital Age”

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Dig Out of the Promotion Trap

Promotions offering discounted prices have always been a prominent feature of U.S. retail, but they’ve become significantly more so since the recession melted away demand and technology reduced to near-zero the cost of targeted communications. An unintended consequence for many retailers is that their customers now expect discounts; ticket prices lack credibility; and discounting becomes the only way to move merchandise.

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