James Wakefield: What we're delivering is affordable luxury and we're democratizing the tailor made suit or democratizing custom clothing and making it accessible to everybody.
Robin McGowan: The experience is one of our main selling points, so it's important that we nail that.
James Wakefield: Call it naivety or call it just blind optimism. We sort of, I guess did things differently and it really has worked out.
[Voiceover]: Welcome to Add to Cart, the podcast that Express delivers all you need to know in the fast moving world of E commerce. Every month Nathan Bush from 12 High and an E commerce industry expert will share the news, research, insights that you need to know to keep you at the top of your game and of course keep your customers Adding to Cart. Hello and welcome to Add to Cart. My name is Nathan Bush, host of Add to Cart and Director at E Commerce Talent Agency E Suite. A few weeks ago I freaked out because I realized that I needed to get a tux and I've never owned a tux for the upcoming online retailer awards, but they've never moved. Boo. So we've got a little bit of extra time, but I'm so glad I started early because I started my search on Google and that's where I came across today's guest as a customer. I'd heard a lot about them in the industry press but never had the experience as a customer and I've got to tell you, it was incredible. Joining me today is James Wakefield and Robin McGowan, co founders of In Stitu In Stitch. Were changing up the suit work and altogether just put together clothes industry by offering tailored designs at a fraction of the cost of traditional bespoke designers in situa. Coming up to their 10th birthday at the end of this year, they started with a 5K website and now have a team of 60 including 5 in house developers, 13 showrooms throughout Australia and customers all over the world. James and Robin join me to share what they've learned over these first 10 years including how they make custom product profitable and we've seen plenty of custom made product not be profitable. They also share why they built a tech stack from the ground on up and how these high school mates have remained close during the ups and downs of business. So thanks to our partners Shopify plus and Signet, here's our conversation with James Wakefield and Robin McGowan from in Stitu. James and Robin, welcome to Add to Cart.
James Wakefield: Welcome. Nice to be here.
Robin McGowan: Thanks for having us.
[Voiceover]: Great. It's really funny how this came about because I was actually in Institute getting a suit mate. We're going to the Oriors next month, the Online retail industry awards and for the first time, E Suite are sponsoring and I get to present an award. And as part of that, I was like, I'm going to need a tuxedo. I'm going to actually have to look good. Instead of just like trying to do up an old business suit, I'm going to actually have to get a tuxedo. So I was like, where do I go? And I had a look around online and I was amazed by the offering of In Stitchu in terms of getting a custom made suit because I need it for these donkey legs. To get a custom made suit, it was incredible. So I went in store and I got measured up and everything and my suit's being made right now. So it was an incredible experience for me and one that I never expected to have because I hate that experience of buying off the shelf. Can you guys explain how the in situ model works for those who haven't had the experience that I've had?
James Wakefield: Well, I mean, firstly, it's good to hear that you're getting the tuxedo sorted well before the actual event because most guys leave the suit or the tuxedo for a black tie event until a few days before. So that, that's a big tick of approval there.
[Voiceover]: It was one of my better moments.
James Wakefield: Yeah, but I mean, I guess the way that we see in stitchiu works is that we are a direct consumer omnichannel custom clothing business for men and for women, where a customer could complete the process online. Whether you go online, design a garment from scratch, or use one of our custom template sort of garments as a starting point, but where you can customize every design option of the of the garment, whether it be a suit, a shirt, chinos, or more casual items like overcoats and puffer jackets and so on. You can choose from thousands of different fabrics and then you can complete the measurement process online where you could have a friend measure your body, you could measure your favorite garment, or you could select the standard size and just adjust it slightly and then have that delivered to you anywhere in the world with our perfect fit guarantee. Or you could come by one of our 13 showrooms where you have that sort of old world tailoring experience. We'll have a beer, a wine, a whiskey, I guess that high end luxury experience that's normally reserved for somebody spending several thousand dollars on a suit. And during that booking, your style consultant will work with create that perfect garment. But that in store experience is still run on the front end of our E Comm Site where the style consultant will show you how our design tools work, where your measurements have been input, and how you can adjust those measurements if they ever need to be changed down the track, really, so that it is super easy for you just to reorder online or at home for your next order so that you don't always have to come back to the showroom so that you can be a shopper who shops with convenience online or experience in the showroom. I guess that's it in a nutshell.
[Voiceover]: That's what I love about it. I love that you've got all my data now so that next time I need something that all my custom data is there, ready to go, because I will avoid going in store at any expense. But when I looked at your website, even though it's a beautifully designed website and it's actually easy to use, I didn't trust myself with the measurements. How often are you seeing customers measuring themselves versus relying on that physical experience to measure up?
Robin McGowan: Yes, there's a combination of both. And it really is down to what the customer prefers. I guess what we've found is as we've expanded our retail network and a number of showrooms, it's become very convenient for customers to now visit a showroom. And we in fact kind of encourage them to come in just because of the experience you get. And you probably have this Nathan, where you get to have a talk to your stylist. Your stylist gets to know you and they can help you, I guess, build that perfect wardrobe. And then from there, once your measurements are saved. A lot of customers prefer this is using their sizing profile to create suits or shirts without the need of having to come back into store. But for customers, for instance, for a lot of our European clients or Southeast Asian clients, it's easy for them to measure themselves up. And we do give quite a number of options on how to do it. You can obviously take your body measurements much like you would for a normal e commerce website where you're having to check whether you'll fit, you know, a jumper or something, or a pair of pants. But customers can also have the option of selecting a standard size. So they might know that they're roughly, you know, a size 50 jacket, but that whenever they've bought it off the rack, the sleeves have been too short. So you can actually customize that standard size profile to fit you. You can also measure a suit or shirt that fits you well. Exactly. So we'll make the garments to that specific measurement of that garment that you already Own.
James Wakefield: And I guess one thing to highlight as well is our perfect fit guarantee. So even if you were offshore in London, for example, going through the measurement process online, when that garment does arrive, if any of the measurements are slightly off, we encourage you to take us up on the perfect fit guarantee, which means that we'll cover the alteration cost. So you take it to a local tailor, have the garment altered, we'll reimburse you for that cost and we'll update your measurement profile so that the next order your measurements are perfect. If it can't be altered, we'll get it remade free of charge at no cost to you. And then that remake will be done with the, to the adjusted measurements. And then if at any stage throughout that whole process the customer's just not happy with the product quality, the fit, the service or whatever it may be, then we'll happily refund you the purchase cost. So really making it that, that risk free purchase for customers to, to give us a go because we are so confident in the product, the service and really just the value proposition, what we're delivering is affordable luxury. We're democratizing the tailor made suit and democratizing custom clothing and making it accessible to everybody.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, that's amazing. Like, and it was only at the end of my appointment that my tailor said, you know, you've got six months guarantee on this. And I was like, oh thank God. In my head I was thinking more about winter blowouts, but it's such a great, great vote of confidence for your product and your service. Now this I have to mention here, this isn't a paid podcast. I've already paid for my suit. It's already done. I was genuinely intrigued by the business model and the activity. So I'm so glad we got to have this conversation now when we talk about this. Right, so you've got your traditional model of going into a retail store and buying off the shelf. And you've also, I think most people had that experience going traveling and being able to get custom fitted for a suit and maybe get that at a reduced cost. You've kind of been able to put the two worlds together. Right. And being able to get customized suits to. To your point, James, around democratizing custom fitted suits, how does the business model allow you to deliver custom tailored suits at a similar price that you would buy off the shelf suits from here in Australia?
James Wakefield: I guess that's really underpinned by the technology that we've built. So our, our front end E commerce and our back end supply chain management software is all custom Built by our in house team here in Australia. And it is that technology that has really allowed us to streamline this process so that we can, you know, provide high quality custom clothing at scale and at an affordable price. And this business model operates on slimmer margins compared to traditional soup brands, but also it only really works at scale. So for the first few years when we were trying to actually get the volume required to be able to make this a commercial business model, it was a tough slog. But really, yes, it is a technology stack that, that allows us to deliver this high quality product, you know, for comparative price to a ready to wear suit that's been made as a mass produced factory item in, in anywhere in the world.
Robin McGowan: And just to add to that, I mean, you know, in the early days James and I spent a lot of time, you know, talking to and traveling to different suppliers around the world. And you know, we obviously our younger years been to you know, places like Thailand and seen how you can get, you know, a very cheap kind of custom suit made. But we were thinking in towards the future and we knew we needed to find a manufacturer or partner that could provide us with the scale but also retaining the quality that we needed. And so that led us to our current manufacturer where we're dealing with, you know, the largest suit manufacturer in the world with a focus on producing high quality made to measure garments. And that's really, you know, the backbone on top of the technology that lets us I guess deliver the quality at the price to our, to our clients.
[Voiceover]: Just like the quest to find the perfect pair of jeans. Finding eco friendly packaging solutions that are a great fit, cost effective and look great can be a tiresome pursuit. Eco friendly and zero wastewater product brand Ecoru were having this exact problem. Multiple suppliers, clunky packaging, inefficient processes. That is until they found Signet and their adjustable cartons which allows them to adjust the size of the shipment while remaining environmentally friendly. What a snug fit. Visit signet.netaublog to find out more. Do you get fabrics from all over the world and then whereabouts is your manufacturing?
James Wakefield: Yeah, so we've put a focus on for our suiting fabrics just to use natural fibers and for our wool suiting fabrics, it's all Walmart certified 100% Australian merino wool. That's the focus and it's from mills all over the world. And I guess it is that Walmart tick of approval that really does mean that it is a high quality fabric that we can actually, I guess, you know, put, put our Trust in. And then also at the same time, Walmart actually has some. Some very interesting sort of technology which we haven't brought to the market yet, where we can actually trace back the origins of the fabric using a particular suit and the wool that's used in that particular fabric, and trace it back to the specific farm of where that originated from. So that's some interesting things that we look to, I guess, you know, promote it in years to come. And that's again, going back to technology and then transparency. So we're fully transparent across our whole supply chain, right down to the fact that we actually mention and promote the factory that manufactures our garments on our website. You know, we. All the fabric mills that we work with, I guess we promote that as well. And I think that that goes down to the modern consumer. They want that transparency. They don't want to think that their garments could be getting made in, you know, these factories in Bangladesh or any of these other countries where, you know, there may not be the right working conditions. And again, transparency is in our supply chain because we're proud of it.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Now, you talked there a bit about scale and how this business model thrives when you get to a scalable level. Was there a moment in building this business where you went, that was kind of the tipping point for scale to go, okay, now we can really take off.
Robin McGowan: Well, I mean, the funny thing is the business is actually gonna be turning 10 years old at the end of the year, which is kind of hard to believe. Seems like only yesterday James and I were selling suits above a tiny cafe in Sydney. But the business has grown to. We've got a team of over 60 staff now, as James said, 13 showrooms, with the plan to open another five by the end of the year. And we ship our products to customers all over the world. I guess for me, there wasn't one moment. But as you start to grow kind of snowballs and, you know, one thing leads to another, then it's not. So you kind of look around or step back and you're like, oh, okay. Maybe it was, you know, randomly seeing that customer. I think I was in LA and seeing a customer walk by with a situ suit bag, and I was like, that's pretty cool. So little things like that make you realize, okay, we've actually grown this to quite a size.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. And coming into the industry 10 years ago, as I understand you guys don't have tech, fashion, or retail experience, you've got a lot of other experience behind you. But in Those areas, you're all fairly new. What's been the biggest lesson for you in those 10 years?
Robin McGowan: Yeah, well, they say you don't know what you don't know. I mean, for us, not having experience in retail specifically meant that we probably did things a bit differently and thought about things a bit differently. I guess we knew what we didn't want. And when we were setting up the business and we looked at all the pain points of retail, you know, being holding stock, expensive leases, and in my previous role, I was, I spent a lot of time looking at shopping center leases and kind of the deals that greedy landlords were making with, with tenants on percentage rent deals and things like that, and obviously stock issues that come with a big retail business. So we, and for our business, we only do, you know, made to measure. Made to water garments. So we only produce the garment when it's ordered by the customer, so we don't have those pain points. So that was really how we were thinking in the early days.
James Wakefield: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think the reason we were able to succeed was because we just did things that a traditional retailer or someone with retail experience would go, that's never going to work. That's like, you can't do that. And so I guess it was, call it naivety or call it just blind optimism. We did things differently and it really has worked out, but I guess not without a lot of hard work and, you know, really slogging it out. And I guess on the, on the tech front, again, it's, you go blind. Robin and I have this vision for the technology that we, that we want. But I guess getting that creator means that we've actually, you know, got to trust and put out, put our faith in the team. And I think what we've done as a business is Robin and I know, as he said before, we know what we don't know. And so it was about hiring the right people around us that have the right experience and that are. That are smarter and far more experienced than us in their respective fields so that we can, as a team and as a business, grow and move forward together. Too many people try to think that they know the answer to everything. I think it's better to just understand what you don't know and then move forward off the back of that.
Robin McGowan: Yeah. And I think as we grew, you know, there was that point where we're like, okay, we've kind of created this retail business and then it's about bringing on food people who have the skills or have the experience to help you in areas that you might not be perfect at. And so that was when we started, you know, bringing on heads of retail general manager, built our tech team in house and focused on, I guess hiring.
[Voiceover]: Who was the first, most significant hire that you guys made to fill those knowledge gaps?
James Wakefield: I would say it's who is now our current general manager. He came across from a finance background at a very well established retailer where he had been instrumental in their growth from a small number, a handful of stores, up to 50 or 60 stores. So I guess bringing in that particular person was game changing and he moved into a general manager role but from a finance background. And it was really all of those, the understanding around the traditional retailer metrics and KPIs and again financial metrics as well, which allowed us to know what I guess the appropriate industry benchmarks are and how we're performing. And it's just fascinating to look at. So many retailers might be operating on, you know, like their, their rent as a percentage of revenue is 15 to 20%. But then we can be operating at some of our stores at 3%. And that's because we're in, our showrooms are in non traditional retail areas where we use our digital strategy to drive appointments to that, to the, to the showroom where we can track and we can measure the ROI on every single marketing dollar that we do spend, even when it's converted in offline sale. And then we're able to through technology merge the consumers or the customers online experience with their offline experience. Somebody comes in store, they're greeted by their stock and so welcome back Nathan. So great to see you again. And they'll have actually been able to look and see okay with this particular consumer or customer may have been, you know, looking at tuxedos, could be a black tie event, it could be a wedding type event. So then they'll know to ask the appropriate questions. And then after that interaction in the showroom, we'll update our CRM. So then it's based on the offline interaction, the face to face interaction. So we're able to create a uniform sort of, I guess one world sort of shopping experience, merging the online and the offline into a better, more relevant experience for that particular customer. So then they get served information that actually relates to them. If they're somebody who's, who doesn't wear a suit to work groomsmen in a wedding, well, we're not going to be sending them all this corporate suiting type material. We'll send them more around the casual suiting or how to dress for the races or how to dress just smart casual events and things like that. But it is this data that allows us to create a better, more uniform shopping experience for the customer.
[Voiceover]: You've got data that most retailers would kill themselves for, right? Like there is just so much there around customers, not only from a fit perspective, but from an event and a lifestyle perspective as well. How do you work out which data opportunities you hone in on to get that next purchase?
James Wakefield: I mean, it's a, that's a good question. And I mean, we look at all of our historical data and we can see, okay, well, based on a particular basket mix that a customer has, we can say, okay, well, when are they most likely to be reordering? So then we can be serving them, you know, just I guess, re engagement sort of emails. At the right point in time, our style consultants can be just reaching out to that customer and just be touching base to find out how their garments going and just that continuous sort of relationship building. Never as a sales call, just as a sort of, you know, touching base customer service call, but really it's done at the right point in time because we've got that data that we can leverage. Interesting enough, like we look at what happens to the lifetime value and the order frequency of a customer who has a shirt in the product mix of their first basket. So what we know is that even if we were to be, you know, gifting a customer a free shirt with their first purchase, it more than pays for itself because then that customer doesn't just buy suits from us, they also buy their shirts from us. So they come back far more frequently than a customer who just buys a suit from us in their first basket. So again, it's all of this sort of data that we are able to, to leverage to create a better, you know, shopping experience for the customer. Personal shopping, but then also just more target it from a, from a business perspective. And then again, that's not even touching on the measurement data that we capture and how we're continually evolving and adapting our measurement algorithms to continually improve and perfect the fit of all of our garments.
[Voiceover]: Yeah, that makes sense. And from a technology point of view, you touched on it before, how technology has enabled you to scale and make this business profitable. I read somewhere, I can't remember exactly where, that you built your first website for 5K and now have six developers in house working on proprietary software. How do you decide what you build yourself versus what you buy off the shelf?
Robin McGowan: Yeah, I mean, I can't remember the number of times we rebuilt the website. I think the 5, the 5k one was probably one of the very, very first ones. And then we realized, okay, there's no way we can go to market with this. So from Gerald, did you just scrap it? I think we basically did. I think we're like this just not going to work. So then we made the decision to, I guess build something much better and bigger that represented what we thought was the brand at the time. And that was again using a third party provider and that was a much better experience. Again, it was very expensive but we didn't have any cash at the time. So we did a small equity deal which worked out well for us. But then from there I think we revolt it one more time, maybe with using a different e commerce provider. But then we kind of made the decision, all right, like we're not just building the website now. The website is one piece of our business. As we started to open more stores, we needed software that could, I guess, power our offline experience too. So that's when we realized we wanted to create a full custom stack that was, you know, suited to our business because it is kind of unique in the fact that, you know, it's all custom made and you've got measurements coming in and you've got fabrics coming from different suppliers. So there's a lot of moving parts, there's a lot of reporting that we wanted to do. So that's when we kind of made the decision to invest in and build out our tech team in house. Bring on full stack developers and front end and back end developers and actually build the whole thing from scratch. So it's all proprietary tech and that's like you would have seen Nathan in your appointment. That's the software that the stylus uses to facilitate the appointment, but also the same software that powers the website to allow you to reorder your garments as well. But that was a decision that took a long time to get to. But we're very happy we did because once you've got your own custom solution, you can kind of just add to it or tweak things or if one department wants something, you can just build on it. So yeah, it's got its, it's got its benefits.
[Voiceover]: And does that custom go all the way to the endpoints, like sending emails, analytics, all those endpoints along the way? Everything, okay, literally everything.
James Wakefield: And then it's, you know, it's talking real time with our various like manufacturers with the fabric mills. So the customer's getting real Time updates on their order based on it moving through the various production processes in the factory. So the idea being that, you know, by using technology we can create a, you know, more transparent flow for our staff, but also for the customer so they can get updates in real time about the status of the order, minimizing, I guess, human interaction, so to speak, but really ultimately just giving far better communication to that customer. Because what you've got to remember is that somebody is coming into our store and they're parting ways with their hard earned money, but they're not walking out of anything because that garment then has to get made. So then it is unbelievably important to be communicating and over communicating to the customer about that experience. And one thing which I did want to add in about building the custom stack. So Robin and I also realized that again, to build out this in house tech team and build a custom stack from scratch is going to be a big task. So we actually went and approached a technology founder called Adam Dong, who was one of the founders of oneflare. And he actually invested in our business and he came on board as a, I guess a interim sort of CTO to help build out our tech team and help manage and work with Robert and I to really develop this technology stack, this custom built stack. And I guess that goes back to hand in hand. It's like it's all about the team and the people around you. And when you actually find people that share your vision and passion for, you know, what it is that you're doing as a business, you know, there's, you know, there's so many opportunities that do unlock and present themselves.
[Voiceover]: Absolutely. I always talk with founders around what type of retail business do you want to be? Do you want to be an operational one who kind of buys things cheap, sells them a little bit more expensive? Do you want to be a kind of a marketing or a brand LED one where you build up this beautiful brand and you can kind of sell anything, or do you want to be a technology brand where, you know, the technology itself creates a moat around you that makes it hard to compete from a investor point of view, which you've touched on a couple of times. There's. And building such a comprehensive stack over those years, when people come to invest in your business, how do you value the value of that technology stack?
James Wakefield: Ultimately, we don't see ourselves as a retailer. We see ourselves as a technology platform linking consumers anywhere in the world to high quality tailors in Asia. And it's this technology stack that facilitates that so we value ourselves as a technology business, but then also ultimately still there is that retail component of the business. So it is that blend between a direct consumer retail, omnichannel, retail business, and also ultimately the technology platform that it is. But in terms of how do you come to that evaluation? It is just by looking at what sort of, I guess, transactions are happening in the market and benchmarks and then how do we compare as a business across the traditional metrics, whether it be revenue, whether it be earnings, whether it be growth, and so on.
[Voiceover]: So still using retail metrics to value the business, but technology is the underlying growth tool? Essentially, yes. I saw that you trialled 3D scanning. This is back in 2014, so it's a long time ago now. And I might be digging up old articles now, but basically those booths that I remember, there was such a big thing at the time in Westfields where you could walk in and they do the body scanning technology to spit out your perfect jeans at your perfect retailer. Did you get any learnings out of that? How did that go compared to your manual process now of tailoring people up?
Robin McGowan: There's been a lot of innovations about it, I guess, sizing technology. And as the business is growing, we've always been interested in trying to find new solutions that could be helpful to our clients for getting their measurements done. We've still found that the best way, you know, when it comes to an in store experience for us is the trusty tape measure. But again, we've always used some sizing technology for our online experience for clients who can't get to a store. But, you know, now we've seen even further iterations of technology through smartphone apps which claim to get the perfect fit with a couple of photos. And we're always having conversations with solutions like that, but we still think it's a little bit far off in terms of where it needs to be if we're going to promote it as the perfect tool to get the perfect fit when it comes to a suit. But I think it can be certain solutions can be helpful for maybe getting the first range of measurements or like a broad spectrum or gives you an idea of where your pant length should be or your, your neck measurement should be. But there were definitely some learnings from, from that and it was for us, you know, great, great PR in the early days and we did have a lot of clients who enjoyed doing it, you know, jumping into a booth, getting the measurements sent to them. Yeah. So interesting learnings for sure.
James Wakefield: And there's so many people on the play, there's so many players in the space and somebody will win the race of that sort of, I guess that body scanning technology to get the perfect fitting clothing, whether it be customer, whether it just be normal online e commerce from traditional retailers. But I do feel that there's no one who's really won that race just yet. There's no key standout, but it's just a matter of time because there's some really exciting things happening in the space and you know, we're testing them out, we're trialing them, we're having discussions with many, many people, many, many providers in the market at the moment. It's a matter of time. And one day that's how it will work. But not quite yet.
Robin McGowan: If anyone listening thinks I've solved it, let us know.
[Voiceover]: Your LinkedIn inboxes might be full after this. But it reminds me actually of a conversation we had with the guys from Preezy and they basically do recommendations. So you take a quiz online and it spits out a recommendation, but they don't just spit out a recommendation for you. The UI on it actually shows thinking like it's almost like it's loading, but it's not really loading. It's already got the answer, but it shows the customer that it's loading. And to me it's similar for you guys is actually that experience of being in and getting that tailor measure up with the whiskey and that really nice experience actually adds to it, even though it's not as fast and there's a little bit more effort by the customer. It's actually the thing I've talked to people about the most and I haven't even got a suit yet. I've got great updates on where the suit is, but I've told so many people about that experience and that to me is just as important as getting a great suit.
Robin McGowan: Yeah, it's really important. And that's something we spend a lot of time thinking about. I mean, you can, you could buy a suit really in a lot of places these days, but when it comes to providing an exceptional service, that's really what, what we're about and making it a unique and I guess fun experience for men and women to shop with us. So, you know, when you come into the shop or showroom, you'll notice there's not much stock. There's a lot of kind of sofas and it feels relaxing. Like you almost get, you know, an hour out of your day to just, you know, relax and maybe have a drink if you want or Just take it, have a chill or whatever. And then it doesn't feel like a daunting shopping experience because the stylus is there really to streamline the whole thing and make you feel comfortable and really, yeah, provide a fun experience. And that is what we found, you know, as our biggest source of referrals is just word of mouth and customers telling other potential customers about the experience they had.
[Voiceover]: And then.
Robin McGowan: And we've also got to make sure that the product quality lives up to that when it arrives. And that's something we spent a lot of time working on as well. But yeah, the experience is one of our main selling points. It's important that we nail that when the customer comes in for their appointment.
[Voiceover]: Think Shopify plus is just for simple retailers. Well, let me tell you, JB hi Fi is no simple business. But when their old site crashed for two hours during Black Friday, doing nothing was simply not an option. Shopify plus was selected as their E commerce partner to help facilitate the fast growing $5 billion retailer. However, with over 200 dispatch locations, a reliance on a web of APIs and the ability to handle triple growth, it wasn't an out of the box implementation. But the results spoke for themselves. JB hi Fi cruised through a record Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2019 without a hitch, have reduced average page load time by 15% and were even able to redeploy three techies whose job it was just to watch the servers to make sure it didn't go down. JB hi Fi and Shopify plus not just smashing prices, but smashing E commerce. To read more of JB hi Fi storage and see other case studies, visit the customer section on shopify.com au/. Now have I read right that you've also got a presence in David Jones throughout Australia?
James Wakefield: Yeah, absolutely. So then that's a really exciting partnership because David Jones is, you know, such a prestigious department store where I mean it is the pinnacle of the traditional shopping experience for many consumers. And so we are the only tailor or made to measure soup provider in David Jones and we're currently in their flagship store at Elizabeth street and really think of our concession as its own store in store where it is still lounges in there where people can come in, they can have a whiskey, they can go through the whole design process on the computer still. And it's a great partnership. And why I do feel that it's important is because often it's when the customer, when they don't know what they're after or maybe they do and they Want the variety that they go to Data Jones and they've got this idea of this, you know, this particular suit that they're after in their head. It could be, you know, style and so on and price point. But so often ready to wear brands can't, you know, cater to everybody. So they've got that, you know, they end up having to compromise on fit, style or price. But what we're finding is that when that customer would otherwise be leaving because they can't find what they're after in the department store, all of the other brands inside David Jones are saying, well, we might not have that here at Canali, but Institute offers, you know, high quality custom tailored clothing at, you know, from 59 9. Why don't I take you over and we can have a look through some of the fabric. So we're finding a really good source of, I guess, referrals from other brands inside David Jones. And I think that it's, it's a partnership that we're very happy with and often it's a consumer that we may not otherwise be reaching through our digital marketing activities online across Facebook, Instagram, AdWords and some of the retargeting stuff that we do. The department store shopper is different to our online shopper. So it is a good partnership that we're very proud of and we're seeing some really great success. We did launch during a difficult time with COVID when they opened up their new Elizabeth street flagship, but we're finding some really good traction and yeah, we're excited to see see more David Jones partnerships open up in the future.
[Voiceover]: That's great. It's, it's a really interesting one from the outside because looking at it and how in stitu burst onto the scene, onto the scene, it was like we're here to disrupt that traditional suit buying experience of which David Jones is very, very closely associated to. Can you tell us how the partnership came about in those early stages?
James Wakefield: I'm not too sure because, I mean, we had it on our roadmap that we would love to have a discussion with David Jones about launching up store in stores or showroom inside store. But I do believe they actually approached us and yeah, then as we, as we got chatting, we realized that, you know, this is something that is mutually beneficial to both parties where, you know, again, it could be a shopper that's on the floor that would otherwise be leaving that we can look after. But then also we're attracting traffic to David Jones through our digital strategy where people go, well, that's my most convenient showroom. I'll head into David Jones, Elizabeth street and then also that consumer will come back and pick up their garment. They're coming back to the store twice. And for David Jones, it's an opportunity for them to go out and buy a pair of shoes or, or buy their mum a gift for Mother's Day or whatever it may be at the same time. So I do feel that it is mutually beneficial in many, many ways.
[Voiceover]: There's a halo effect for both. Right?
James Wakefield: Yeah.
[Voiceover]: Yeah. Now, guys, I understand that you guys met at uni and have been mates for a long, long time. From a business perspective, how do you operate together? What are the strengths and weaknesses that both of you bring to the table?
Robin McGowan: Yeah, I mean, we kind of serve a joint manager and managing director role, but obviously co founders. And yeah, we definitely have, I guess, things that we like doing or strengths versus weaknesses in certain aspects. But there's always crossover when it comes to, I guess, some projects or if we're talking about high level strategy, we'll always work together closely on that or thinking about new showroom locations, working together on that and actually going and visiting sites. And when it comes to marketing ideas, there's always a crossover. Hiring, for instance, fundraising, there's always, we're always working together. But then knowing when, I guess the other person wants to focus on a certain project or is probably going to be better suited to that and certain, like, okay, giving them, you know, that project or letting them go and do that with, you know, respective teammates, I think that's important. And yeah, having respect for each other when it comes to knowing what the other one might be better at and not thinking that you, you know, best, but that's important. And like, you know, we've, yeah, we've, we were, we're actually at school together before uni, so, so year seven, God knows how long that is now. But yeah, so. And we've still remained, you know, we're still great friends and, you know, enjoy everything. When it comes to being an innovative retailer or a business owner and collaborating on interesting, interesting things when it comes to business.
[Voiceover]: And as co founders, have you ever sat down and like, divided responsibilities? Like, Robin, you're looking after Xero, you're looking after the tech stack. James, you look after the retail stores. Or is it a bit more organic than that?
James Wakefield: It's definitely more organic and it just naturally happens because of, I guess, a skill set that that particular person just gravitates towards. So when it comes down to like, our product and you know the collection and what we're releasing and so on. That's all Robin. I mean I dub myself as being the most unfashionable guy in the fashion industry. You know, I look good because I'm wearing it stitchy. But other, other than that, Robyn is the brains behind our actual product and collection and why people would like to wear in stitches suiting. And me and I like to get more involved in I guess the sales, you know, how we're going to sort of, I guess grow the business and different marketing campaigns and so on. But ultimately there is so much crossover because in every aspect of every project where we are both involved and working and we I guess the relationship that we have it just no one, we don't mind, you know, it's fine for the other person to jump in and give their $0.02 and, and get involved and we find that that's when we work best together. And there's. For me personally, there's never been a time when I'm like, you know, I wish I was, you know, a sole operator and didn't have a co founder. I love sharing the highs and the lows of, of what was, you know, once a startup but now an established business. And you know, for every business ever in the future I would always look to do it with co founder and always advise people to do it with a co founder. And it just happens to be relationship of knowing each other since the age of 12. It just works so well. Like we've never had a blow up. We have differences but we respect the differences and you talk through it. We've never had a real disagreement. So it's been like, you know, I guess, I guess the perfect partnership here so far.
[Voiceover]: It's amazing.
Robin McGowan: It's like the perfect, perfect marriage.
[Voiceover]: Maybe that's why you still get on so well. Gents, what is next for yourselves and institute.
James Wakefield: I guess in the post Covid environment we see so much opportunity where we're ready to really put our foot ground. Like we feel like we've spent the last 10 years building the foundations of a great business that has scale but really we're really now ready to scale. We see in the market, we see traditional retailers, they've been really hurt. Like they weren't able to just batten down the hatches and hibernate like, like we did. They had expensive shopping center leases that landlords may have not been super supportive without the mandatory codes that are kicking into gear. They had, you know, all the stock that they had just ordered. Oh that they were currently sitting on the stock they had just ordered as well. That arrived and then they're reselling last season stock as this season stock. A lot of the retailers are hurting, so we want to really put our foot down, grow. We're looking to roll out a number of new showrooms. In the short term, we're looking at really increasing our marketing spend. We find that right now there's media assets are significantly cheaper because a lot of the players that actually just pulled back. But so for us, scale growth and to continue doing what we're doing, I guess that's the focus.
[Voiceover]: Beautiful. Keep it rolling. All right, now we talked a little bit about technology and what you're looking forward to there. What's the best way that people can get in touch with you guys or your team? And what are you looking for help in?
Robin McGowan: Me personally, Most available on LinkedIn, obviously in situ. Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook. Personally, LinkedIn is my main tool for connecting with people.
James Wakefield: Likewise for me. LinkedIn for sure. And then, you know, I've had countless coffees and just phone conversations with people that reach out, wanting to pick my brain. And then that said, I still always, I'm reaching out to people that I see as, you know, possible mentors to myself. So I feel that learning is a continuous thing and the best way to learn is from people that have had experiences that you're looking to have or looking to avoid. And yeah, like always feel free to reach out because I, I still do it myself to different people.
[Voiceover]: That's awesome to hear. I think it's awesome to hear from everyone who kind of has that hesitancy around reaching out to people to go, oh, should I be, should I not be? It's nice to hear that other people, no matter how much success or how established they are, do the same thing. Thanks for joining us today, guys. Really appreciate it here. The inspiration story so far and I'm sure we are only at the start of it. There's so much more to go.
Robin McGowan: Thanks, Nathan.
James Wakefield: Thanks, Nathan.
[Voiceover]: One of the key themes here is that James and Robin see in Stitchu as a technology business rather than a fashion or an e commerce business. And I guess we've heard this over the years from a number of brands and when you really dig a little bit deeper, they are retailers. They haven't done anything out of the ordinary from their tech stack. But as you can hear from these guys, they've actually built a system from the ground up so that they can make customers lives easier, help their team service their customers better and make the supply chain function so that they can deliver their business model, which is very unique in a sustainable and profitable way. And despite being in a very different industry, Domino's is another business that comes to mind when it comes to being a technology first retail business. We heard this from Michael Gillespie back on episode 23. Both business models would not be sustainable for the long term if they didn't build custom automations. It's another consideration when you're thinking whether you should be buying your technology off the shelf or developing it from the ground on up to finish up, I have three resources for you. Firstly, if you're a first time listener of Add to Cart and you want to stay up to date with new episodes, head over to addtocart.com and you can sign up for our weekly newsletter. We'll let you know every time a new episode drops, as well as giving you my three takeaways from each episode and a link to the transcript so you can know that this is an episode that you want to dive straight into. Secondly, if you want a weekly roundup of the best e commerce case studies, tools and research, sign up to the High Five Friday newsletter which is delivered to inboxes at 8am every Friday morning. I read all the e commerce news and send you the bits that I think you can take action from. Sign up at 12 high. And the last thing if you are looking to explore your next e commerce opportunity, head over to esweettalent.com we are a dedicated e commerce talent agency connecting the best e commerce talent with the fastest growing brands. Check it out. Sign up to the email and get in touch with me if you want to to discuss your next move. Until next time, thanks for listening and keep those customers adding to cartoon.
