That’s not a knife. Thaaat’s a knife

 

It’s a bit like Crocodile Dundee all over again, only this time, the subject matter has less to do with wrestling crocs as it does with wearing their quilted, crackled skin.

Those who missed out on Zara’s mock croc gladiator sandals in spring/summer 2009 – ie a majority of the Australian female population – were given hope that a similar omission would not occur in 2011.

Zara parent company Inditex confirmed a store would be in operation here within the next two years at its recent annual general meeting. When www.ragtrader.com.au first reported this late last month, the hits and links from readers came hard and fast.

But of course Zara is not alone: the internationals have identified a new and exotic prey.

Much like Mick Dundee drew global attention south of the equator in the mid- 1980s, our recession busting performance over the last two years has tweaked the interest of Europe and the US.

On top of ongoing speculation that H&M, Abercrombie & Fitch, Uniqlo and Forever 21 are currently scouting the local market, London High Street players Lipsy and Coast London confirmed their entry to Ragtrader in recent editions.

There are also those luxury players such as Luxottica helming their own ambitious concept stores (see page 19) in capital cities. I’m not going to enter a debate on whether we have the spending power to sustain all these internationals as well as our own – short answer, no; footnote: there’s plenty more on their way as future editions of Ragtrader will attest – but rather, mention the other element to this trend.

Those pesky online traders. Topshop, Forever 21 and Marks & Spencer already ship to this country for instance, and many of them have identified Australia as a key part of their export earnings.

I spoke with the international PR manager from asos.com last week, after noticing the e-tailer had strong, localised marketing content on its website. Head over there now and you’ll probably see a banner ad publicising a standard shipping rate of £10.50 on Australian orders.

For those unfamiliar with asos, it is a behemoth of an e-tailer, offering over 37,000 branded product lines across several product categories, and attracting some 6.9 million unique visitors per month. PR executive Kevin Fegans confirms Australia is consistently one of its top performing countries.

“Our traffic and conversion are consistently growing in Australia,” he says. “We credit this success to the work we’ve done to increase brand awareness through marketing and PR [including] email newsletters and localised marketing campaigns.”

And in this instance, the love goes both ways. Australian brands offered through asos include Minkpink, Evil Twin, One Teaspoon and Something by Natalie Wood.

Here’s hoping the Zaras follow suit when they get here.