Hush Puppies and Clarks GM Charlene Perera talks business strategy during lockdown and changes in customer behaviour.
How have the Hush Puppies and Clarks businesses changed during COVID?
It’s helped us become more nimble.
Working from home we haven’t had all the luxuries and efficiencies that come with working in a large office, so team members have had to think out of the box about how to get things done.
We hustled and moved fast on key products, stories and campaigns to turn around relevant stories that made sense in our new normal.
We saw customer react very positively to our relevancy and we had styles such as our slippers and gumboots sell out super fast!
Describe a successful initiative you’ve rolled out this year.
COVID gave us the opportunity to spend time talking to our consumers about something that is very important to us as a brand but also as individuals in the brand and that is practicing optimism – our customers response to this was so much greater than any of us expected.
As a brand globally we were able to reach over two million consumers in a time of need when learning to practice optimism was of the utmost importance.
We also released our slipper collection earlier in the year than we usually do due to everyone working from home.
We hustled and created a campaign called ‘The New Work Shoe’ and launched the campaign via digital. The slippers sold out within two weeks.
How is trade at the moment?
As we know trade in Victoria is non-existent and we will just wait to see what happens here.
We have seen mixed results across the country, Western Australia has been performing strongly for the brand across multiple retailers for us, we have been seeing results double digits up on last year, however this is certainly a much smaller region in regard to sales volume.
New South Wales has been up and down, the last few weeks, sales have been softer than previous weeks with foot traffic across centres being considerably down to LY.
But our saving grace throughout almost the entirety of 2020 has been our online business.
Across both Hush Puppies and Clarks we have seen significant growth on last year and it continues to be strong.
What have been some trending products and/or categories during this time?
The end use of product types has never been more evident in sales as it is now.
We went into lockdown and months’ worth of slippers sold out in weeks and all through our online channel.
As the weather cooled down gumboots were the flavour and now with the weather slightly improving but everyone still being either housebound or restricted its athletic footwear and sneakers that are driving the business.
What changes in customer behaviour have you witnessed?
Customers are busying for a very pointed end use.
They are not motivated by price but driven to buy what they need.
Whist retailers have been using the red pen to clear stock, purchasing patterns have clearly shown that consumers are buying due to need.
We are making sure that all our messages, campaigns and copy are relevant to what our customers are experiencing at the moment and are using segmentation to personalise those experiences by state too.
How are you preparing for Cyber Weekend and/or Christmas this year? Is this different to other years?
Operationally we need to be prepared for the enormous growth that has happened online.
Last year’s Cyber Weekend result exceeded everyone’s expectations, so we are gearing up for another big weekend this year.
Whilst we are hopeful that foot traffic will return to centres, we are also aware that social distancing is still going to be of the utmost importance.
What is on the horizon for Hush Puppies and Clarks in 2021?
So many things!
New product launches (which I’m not going to share with you yet), further growth and development through our online channels with a significant focus on Marketplace, looking forward to getting back into our stores and engaging with our consumers face to face and a big strategy full of bets that we will just keep firing at!
Watch this space.