Designer shoe label John Fluevog opened its first Melbourne CBD store in October 2019. Store manager Meagan Naish details how CBD retail is faring today, as it recovers from COVID restrictions.
After months in lockdown, the return to retail in the CBD is proving to be a challenge.
While we are excited to be opening our doors again at Fluevog, but we are definitely opening them to a new landscape in terms of Melbourne CBD retail.
Once known as the best city for shopping, we are still something of a ghost town in post-COVID lockdown.
Since reopening, it has been a slow start to say the least – while we are generally seeing an increase in traffic, it is still very unpredictable and there is still a feeling of uncertainty in the air.
People are apprehensive about being out and about, not sure how to integrate into the community and engage with other customers when out on the street.
The easing of restrictions also often causes some confusion amongst people about what they can and can’t do, what limits they are needing to acknowledge and how they can move in what was once a bustling city.
Fluevog has definitely been up against it, having only opened our only branded boutique in Australia back in October 2019.
With a strong, niche (but loyal) following for the brand, we were received with much excitement from Fluevoggers, but still had a lot of work to do around building brand awareness in the wider community.
We were fortunate enough to have our founder, John Fluevog, visit us in early March, which saw people travel from Queensland, South Australia and even New Zealand, all to come and meet John in person.
There was a buzz to the store, with a line wrapped around to Flinders Street from before the doors opened, until we finished up for the day. The brand was hitting its strides with people coming to see what the fuss was about, then COVID hit!
Lockdown delivered new challenges, but with an engaged customer fan base, we found the sense of community astounding.
Fluevoggers were contacting us ‘just to check in’ – they were keen to understand how we were coping with everything happening.
This only grew more in the second lockdown from July, where our interstate fans even further championed us with support from afar.
Their sympathy to what we were going through was immense and greatly appreciated when things were at their most challenging.
During both lockdowns we continued our marketing through our databases and social media activity, we offered telephone appointments where our staff were in-store (not open for trade) filling orders through both the eCommerce platform, but also by taking their phone appointments where they consulted customers on the styles and product they were interested in, talking through existing purchases they’ve made, specifics around their foot shape, etc. to help keep customers purchasing while our doors were closed.
We also offered more flexible return options and provided everyone with the option of free return, making their purchases a little easier to commit to when they didn’t have the opportunity to ‘try before they buy’.
Since reopening our online sales have stayed fairly consistent after booming during COVID (for which we are grateful), our in-store sales are definitely growing week on week, with an average increase of 15-20% each week. We are hoping to continue to grow this even more in the final days leading up to Christmas.
One of the key issues we now face at John Fluevog Shoes is that we occupy very small real estate, nestled in the heart of Degraves Street.
Our normal capacity in store would see about 10 people (including staff) in store comfortably. Now we have a limit on five people in the space at any given time and that includes two staff members.
Our store has always been open to everybody, a place of fun where people can take their time, chat, try on and have a play with the creative styles we offer.
Now we are trying to juggle the balance of keeping people moving through to allow new customers in, while maintaining the relaxed and fun atmosphere that John Fluevog Shoes is known for, but we are doing pretty well I would have to say.
Another thing that amazes me is not only the sense of community with our customers, but the community amongst the retailers in the CBD.
People speak openly with each other about their struggles, share ideas for how to make things work better, things to try and how they can work together to help bring the life back to the CBD as quickly as possible.
I know some of the owner/operators are really under pressure at the moment, the usual busy Christmas trade is always supplemented with a heavy dose of tourist visitors, something which we are lacking this year.
The number of interstate visitors is definitely on the rise, but it’s not anywhere near the norm.
While there are so many challenges and difficulties, we’ve also been incredibly fortunate – our CBD store staff have remained part of our team and worked in flexible conditions, our customers have become even more passionate about our brand and we are excited about what the summer holiday period has to hold.
We hope for more visitors, more shopping, and more life back in the Melbourne CBD, bringing back what was one of our country’s best shopping destinations.
