Major Retail Project, Part I: All Saints

PART I: ASSESSMENT OF YOUR RETAIL BUSINESS

FASH 420 – Global Retail Operations: Major Retail Project, Part I


Table of Contents

ASSESSMENT OF YOUR RETAIL BUSINESS 2-3

HISTORY OF BUSINESS CONCEPT 2MISSION STATEMENT 3OBSERVATIONS 3

TARGET MARKET IDENTIFIED 4-5

TARGET MARKET PROFILE 4MEET ANNA 5

COMPETITOR’S ANALYSIS 6-8

COMPETITORS: WILFRED & CLUB MONACO 6POSITIONING MAP 7ALL SAINTS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE 8

BUSINESS OPERATIONS 9-13

SWOT ANALTSIS 9CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY & RELATIONSHIP RETAILING 9HUMAN RESOURCES 9-10MERCHANDISE MANAGEMENT & PRICING 10LOCATION 10RETAIL IMAGE & VISUAL MERCHANDISING 11MARKETING STRATEGIES 11PHOTOS 12-13


HISTORY OF BUSINESS CONCEPT

The All Saints private label brand was established in 1994 by Stuart Trevor and Kait Bolongaro in Notting Hill, London, named after the hip and trendy All Saints Road, which was at the forefront of up-and-coming music and design talent. The company started out as a menswear wholesaler, selling grunge-inspired designs exclusively to high-end retailers such as Harvey Nichols and Harrods. The first official store opened on November 1st, 1997, All Saints Day, in Foubert’s Place, London and shortly thereafter All Saints launched its first womenswear collection in 1998.

All Saints quickly became a well-known chain boutique in the 90’s and has since developed into a large-scale global fashion retailer. Between mid-2004 and 2005, Kevin Stanford, a prominent fashion financier, bought out all of the All Saints partners, thus holding a majority stake, with the exception of Stuart Trevor, who was later, bought out in December 2005. In 2006, Icelandic investment firm, Baugur Group, bought 35% share of the All Saints brand, still leaving Kevin Stanford as the majority shareholder. However, by April 2011 the collapse of Baugur Group and the mismanagement by Kevin Stanford resulted in a €53 million debt. In May 2011, British private equity firm Lion Capital LLP, headed by Lyndon Lea, and Goode Partners purchased 76% stake of All Saints for €105 million. This takeover effectively saved All Saints from collapse, as the firm hired eight new top executives, which, combined with a decrease in inventory production following poor sales in 2011, resulted in a 50% profit increase by 2012. As of March 2012, Lion Capital LLP owned 85% share of All Saints.

All Saints launched their e-commerce website in 2006 and their U.S.-specific site in 2009. The brand launched their first fashion campaign for Fall/Winter 2012 in the form of a short film. The influence of the brand’s new CEO, William Kim who was the senior vice president of retail and digital commerce at Burberry, combined with the brand’s involvement with music and digital media led to the development of a fully operational film company in 2013. The film company focuses on documentaries on music, style, and street influences. All Saints first showcased their collection at New York Fashion Week in September 2013 for their Spring/Summer 2014 collection. The non-traditional fashion show, with a multi-faceted mash-up of music, fashion, and digital media, was streamed on their website and highlighted the brands increasing engagement with digital fashion.

As of present date, All Saints has 70 standalone and 70 concession stores globally, including 30 U.S. locations, the first of which was New York City. Other cities include Los Angeles, which opened in 2010, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, and most notably Toronto in Yorkdale mall on April 4th, 2013. Its global head office is located in London with regional offices located in New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Delhi, Istanbul and Porto. In total, All Saints has operations established in twelve countries with over 2500 employees. All Saints plans to open 30-50 stores globally in the next three years, with expansion across North America and Asia.


MISSION STATEMENT

All Saints is a design-led company versus a customer-led company at a bridge price point that aims to be a brand and market leader. The brand thrives on a culture of design, inspiration, and innovation and provides opportunities that enable individualism, whilst also being part of a dynamic, forward-thinking team. Its mission statement encompasses the brand’s goal:

“To create a brand that blends culture, fashion, and music into a potent formula of desirable clothing that expresses individuality and attitude.”

Their mission statement permeates all design decisions, marketing initiatives, and retailing strategies. It is important to All Saints and ambassadors of the brand that employees are a diverse group with an entrepreneurial spirit combined with creativity, passion, honesty, and humility. Core brand values include:

humility decisiveness loyalty hunger

honesty instinctiveness individuality dedication

OBSERVATIONS

All Saints is as much about clothing as it is about a unique brand experience, one that begins as soon as a shopper walks into the All Saints store. The aesthetic of the store is based on an early age industrial open concept design with moody, dark lighting, vintage Singer sewing machines and ram skulls lining the walls, worn wooden floors and exposed brick. At first glance the clothing seems distressed, ragged, and untailored, but upon closer inspection the glam-meets-grunge clothing is shown to be of exceptionally high quality, using luxurious materials to create hand-beaded, stitched, and tailored clothing. Both the clothing and the brand are edgy, unique, and most importantly rock-inspired which keeps the aesthetic on trend and fresh for style-savvy consumers.

PART I: TARGET MARKET IDENTIFIED

All Saints is a fashion retailer from the UK, currently executing an expansion plan into the Canadian market. All Saints’ target customer is a male or female ranging from the age of 18-50. Their customer has a strong appreciation for the arts, with a special emphasis on music and film. The retailer’s unique aesthetic caters to a niche market that appreciates the culture of the brand as much as the actual purchased product. The All Saints customer is on the cutting-edge of fashion and wants to incorporate a sense of individuality into their style. All Saints occupies a niche in the market that appeals to an up-scale, but edgy and powerful attitude and image.

TARGET MARKET PROFILE

CATEGORIES VARIABLES BREAKDOWNGeographics Region Canada, USA, Europe, Asia

City or Census Metropolitan Area Size

1,000,000+

Density UrbanClimate Any; Cold OR Warm

Demographics Age 18-50Gender Male or female; predominantly femaleFamily Size 1-4Stage in Family Life Cycle

- Young single adult- Young married, no children- Young married, with children- Older married, no children- Older married, with children- Older single adult

Income $65,000+; high disposable incomeOccupation - Professional

- Managerial- Sales- Works in the fashion industry or

another creative field such as music or film

Education College or University graduateEthnic Background All ethnic backgrounds; middle to upper

classHome Ownership Owns or rents home

Psychographics Personality Trendy, creative, innovative, edgy, entrepreneurial, style conscious, grungy, music-lover

Lifestyle - Unstructured and creativeBehaviouristics Benefits Sought - Style

- Quality- Individuality

Usage Rate Medium to heavy userUser Status First-time or regular userLoyalty Status Medium-high; many regular, returning

customers

PART I: TARGET MARKET IDENTIFIED

ANNA

Meet Anna, she is 31 years old and is the creative marketing director of a well-established fragrance and cosmetics line, where she makes an annual income of approximately $100,000. Anna lives in the heart of downtown Toronto in a high-rise condominium. She is single, but remains fiercely loyal to a select group of close friends and family. She also keeps a small daschund, named Toby, whom she walks daily. She is extremely involved in supporting local culture and the arts. Many of

Anna’s friends have chosen to pursue a career in the creative fields of film or music. She is constantly engaged in cultural movements and artistic endeavours. She enjoys listening to up and coming artists, testing out the newest and hippest restaurants and bars, and shopping at the most exclusive retailers.

According to the VALS™ framework, Anna is considered an innovator. She is hard working and proactive, and lets nothing interfere with her choices when it comes to business and style. Anna is on the cutting edge of fashion, and she is open to trying new styles and trends before they become popular in the marketplace. Anna seeks exclusivity and raw, handcrafted quality. She is drawn to things of a sophisticated nature, and appreciates the endurance of a quality garment. She is willing to pay a higher price point for items that will last many years in terms of their aesthetic relevance and the quality of construction. Innovators like Anna tend to shop within niche markets. She enjoys stepping beyond the traditional large chain stores and shopping mall staples for a shopping experience that offers exceptional service, atmospherics, and brand associations. All Saints offers Anna the large selection and combination of staple and statement garments that makes the retailer her go-to for many occasions, be it a night out to see a new band or a day at the office. All Saints offers Anna lasting pieces, while still keeping up with moving trends. Image is everything to Anna, not to signify her personal wealth, but to express her tastes, personality and independence.

By building such a strong identity on culture, All Saints is able to appeal to a wide range of customers, developing a target market that is defined more so by attitude and taste than demographic qualities, as there is “no typical All Saints shopper.”

PART I: COMPETITOR’S ANALYSIS

ALL SAINTS

All Saints is a private label retailer that sells vintage-inspired womenswear, menswear, footwear, and accessories and is currently only located at Yorkdale Mall within Toronto. The brand aims for a trendy, style-conscious niche with a target demographic of 18-50. All Saints products are sold at a bridge price point, meaning that it is right below the luxury price point, and sits between the high street and contemporary fashion. The brand sells quality products with a European sense of style and a rocker-chic aesthetic and is positioned as affordable luxury. All Saints sets itself apart from the competition by following a design-led approach that aims to set trends, not follow them. The store is located in the new wing of Yorkdale mall, which tends to cater to more expensive, trendy, and high-end retailers.

CLUB MONACO

At an average price point comparative to All Saints, and a similarly fashion forward mentality, Club Monaco competes for the same consumer dollar as All Saints. Club Monaco targets a broad and varied target market, attempting to transition from a store that offered staple pieces to a fashion forward retailer taking inspiration from global street style, particularly New York. The target market ranges from 25 – 55 male and female young professionals with an urban casual style. The brand offers both key basic items, and products in the most current colours, prints, and silhouettes. Club Monaco also occupies a position in Yorkdale mall directly across the hall from All Saints, ensuring foot traffic that naturally travels into both stores. WILFRED

Wilfred targets a slightly different consumer than All Saints, but maintains a similar product positioning in terms of price and fashion-forwardness. Wilfred is a private label brand from the popular Canadian young adult retailer, Aritzia, and thus targets the older, more established, and more fashion forward customer of Aritzia’s overall target market. This consumer is aged approximately 19 – 35, may be in school, graduating from a post secondary education, or entering the work force in a creative field. Like Club Monaco, Wilfred occupies space in the new wing of Yorkdale mall with All Saints, alongside stores such as Kate Spade, John Varvatos, Holt Renfrew, and Ted Baker.


POSITIONING MAP


CLUB MONACO vs. ALL SAINTS

Club Monaco occupies a price bracket that is close enough to All Saints to attract the same customer, but remains slightly lower, giving them the competitive advantage of price. Their aesthetic is also different from All Saints in that they offer product that maintains a very strong colour story, often involving brights and pastels. They like to incorporate a signature collection print that they repeat in multiple items throughout each monthly collection. Club Monaco continuously maintains a few signature staple items their customer relies on them for. All Saints offers less diversity in styles, maintaining a colour story in the neutrals season after season, and maintains a strong cohesive element in all of their styles. Both Club Monaco and All Saints have their own competitive advantage. Club Monaco supplies on trend colours, prints and silhouettes for the constantly evolving consumer. In contrast, All Saints offers a very consistent aesthetic that appeals to a loyal customer and features staple items and investment pieces in neutral colours, with a more edgy and grungy aesthetic. Furthermore, though Club Monaco offers a limited selection of leather goods, including jackets and shoes, it does not have the leather-centric focus that All Saints has, which allows All Saints dominance in the leather market in comparison to Club Monaco. WILFRED vs. ALL SAINTS

Wilfred offers a product assortment that, similar to All Saints, focuses on lasting silhouettes and neutral colours to maintain dominance in the basics market. However, Wilfred targets a younger segment of a similar target market. They have a competitive advantage in the sense that their product, through price point and branding, may appeal more to a younger generation of consumers. Furthermore, if they have a similar product offering, they may attract some of All Saints target market due to their competitive pricing. However, All Saints may maintain their customer base with quality garment construction and quality fabrics, such as cashmere, silk, and lamb’s leather, which are not as prevalent in Wilfred. All Saints also offers strong competition through their culture, which promotes customer loyalty and creates brand associations that may encourage consumers to maintain loyalty to All Saints over Wilfred, which has relatively fewer interactive brand culture elements than All Saints.

ALL SAINTS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

All Saints holds a competitive advantage over retailers such as Club Monaco and Wilfred in that it is a brand that encompasses a brand experience in addition to offering trend-setting and stylish clothing. Despite selling at a higher price point than Club Monaco and Wilfred, All Saints offers investment pieces in luxurious materials with exceptional tailoring and a consistent aesthetic. Consumer loyalty is strong and All Saints has a high standing image and reputation based on perceived value, quality and directional creativity.

PART I: BUSINESS OPERATIONS

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES Customer service strategy &

relationship retailing Human Resources Location of retailer Retail image/visual merchandising

management

Merchandise management and pricing

Current marketing strategies

OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

CUSTOMER SERVICE STRATEGY & RELATIONSHIP RETAILING: STRENGTH

All Saints’ prioritizes customers’ in store experience. They always keep a fully staffed floor to ensure all customers entering the store are serviced individually. They also often have greeters in the entryway to welcome customers into the store. Associates are welcoming and available for assistance. The store layout also offers a comfortable environment, including spacious change rooms, to encourage customers, as well as the friends and family shopping with them, to spend time in the store. Sales associates are knowledgeable about sizing and styling and quick to offer potential outfitting options.

At point of sale, the cashier takes the customer’s email before processing every transaction in order to build a record of transactions in their customer profile. However, mass promotional emails are rare, even to those who opt to subscribe to their mailing list. The customer email capture provides clienteling opportunity, allowing associates who work frequently at styling one customer to reach out to them personally with information about new collections, products they may like, sales and promotional events that might appeal to them.

HUMAN RESOURCES: STRENGTH

All Saints approached their human resource management from a business savvy perspective in their Canadian opening, with the intention of developing a highly skilled and well-trained team of professionals to manage the flagship Canadian location. In preparation for the Canadian grand opening, the Yorkdale location brought in an upper management team from the All Saints UK team and used a combination hiring method that involved direct recruiting and open call interviews. The HR team researched the area and its talent in order to build the most effective team of managers and sales associates. They then leveraged the connections of the newly acquired Canadian management team and recruited the strongest selling


talent in the city. In the hiring process, All Saints placed a heavy emphasis on appreciation of the brand culture in prospective hires in order to ensure employees were passionate and well versed in the culture that is so heavily incorporated into the business model. In doing so, associates embody the identity of the target customer, allowing associates to easily relate to the All Saints consumer on a personal level, facilitating sales and client relationships.

MERCHANDISE MANAGEMENT & PRICING: WEAKNESS

The average price point of All Saints product emphasizes the exclusive brand image. The price point may limit the brand’s accessibility to consumers of a lower socio-economic status. However, the price point also creates a sense of exclusivity that elevates the brand against other competitors in the Canadian market. By positioning themselves at a bridge price point just below luxury pricing, All Saints appeals to a wide range of the market that appreciates luxury product, but may not have the means to afford the luxury price point.

The merchandise management of the first Canadian location faces limitations in inventory replenishment due to such issues as duties and shipping. The fact that Yorkdale All Saints is the only Canadian location thus far also presents allocation issues. There is no alternative retail location to move product to if an item is a poor performer. Stores are not able to test success at different locations so allocations to Canada must be carefully thought out and risk must be minimal, which poses issues with regards to product selection and sizing. Size availability may be limited in the beginning while All Saints is testing the market and determining the most effective size distribution.

LOCATION: STRENGTH

The location of All Saints within Yorkdale mall is a business strength. They occupy a position in the most recently developed wing of the mall, alongside their primary competition, Club Monaco and Wilfred. Their close proximity to the competition ensures their target consumer is exposed to the new store and draws in foot traffic of customers who may not otherwise have known about All Saints. It also benefits the business to be located near such stores as John Varvators, Holt Renfrew, Stuart Weitzman, Kate Spade, and other relatively high price point retailers because it positions the retailer at an approachable price point in comparison to their designer competition. Through location, they position themselves at a bridge price point between average and luxury.

All Saints also benefits from being location in the most newly renovated area of the mall, by positioning itself as the cutting edge, most current of fashion retailers in Yorkdale. Conversely, the retailer’s sole location in Yorkdale mall limits their potential customer reach. Yorkdale mall is located outside of the downtown core, which makes it inconvenient for urban dwellers. Through expansion, All Saints


meets opportunity in expansion throughout the urban core, which would give the retailer access to the younger sector of their target market. RETAIL IMAGE & VISUAL MERCHANDISING: STRENGTH

All Saints allocates a lot of manpower and resources to visual merchandising and store experience. Though other stores such as J. Crew, Club Monaco, Diesel, and Ted Baker engage in extensive store experience practices, few compare to All Saints in their ability to incorporate brand culture into their visual merchandising. There is also no other store in Yorkdale with a comparable visual merchandising theme and bold, dark aesthetic. Everything in the store, from wall texture to small fixtures maintains a very edgy, industrial aesthetic. From outside the store, there is a floor to ceiling display of vintage Singer sewing machines arranged in a backlit grid composed of black wrought iron behind a glass casing. Upon entering the All Saints Yorkdale location, the lighting and atmospherics creates an environment entirely separate from the rest of the mall. The shelving and fixtures feature what looks like old piping, the furniture is made of heavy wood or rustic looking metal, and the fitting room doors are large and strong looking with heavy metal hinges and locks. All Saints optimizes every available opportunity to convey the brand’s image and culture with their visual merchandising efforts.

MARKETING STRATEGIES: WEAKNESS

All Saints’ marketing strategies are extensive and successfully create a strong and cohesive brand image. They do not take the form of traditional paid advertisements. Instead their marketing focus primarily centralizes around their involvement in music and film. By creating their own short films and exploring and sharing local musical talent, All Saints raises brand awareness through non-traditional marketing methods and offers customers more than the average shopping experience. The brand also remains very active on Social Media, keeping Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube accounts and engaging in constant activity on all platforms. The content of their social media efforts centralize around the product and their music and film involvement.

Though the brand’s marketing efforts are prevalent in the UK and New York, their marketing efforts lack penetration within Canada. The films are not as well circulated within Canada as they are within All Saints’ UK and US networks. They also don’t speak to the Canadian music and film industry in their marketing efforts. Because All Saints is so new to Canada, there is a lot of marketing opportunity to feature Canadian musicians, explore Canadian set locations, and reach out to Canadians over social media to raise brand awareness within Canada.


PHOTOS

Major Retail Project, Part I: All Saints

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