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Are you gaining more sales online or from your physical stores?
“It’s been consistently about 60% online and 40% offline. But I think with the opening of our recent store at Takashimaya, we had a pop-up that we opened recently about a month ago, I think the ratio might change slightly, but we’re not certain yet.”

How do you direct online traffic to your physical stores?

“Like you mentioned about retail experience, it’s very true. I think that in order to push people into an offline space, firstly it depends on the demographic and what kind of a community that you’re looking to build. Say for example if we chose a store like Chip Bee Gardens, it would directly be the demographic that surrounds this geographically, so what we see are families or even the expats that live around this area. So I think in order to target, to know your audience, and to be able to target something that is specific for them, for example for families, we hold workshops here for children. And also because we sell childrenswear, I think that is more of a targeted approach to bring more families in. We even had coffee-making workshops, just specifically for the younger ones, and then for the adults we had spoon carving, calligraphy. These are some of the methods we use to provide an experience. And I think not just any workshops, it has to be in line with what your brand is doing. For example we offer coffee here, so it’s natural that we have a coffee introduction workshop, or because we’re into interior design, so with the whole spoon carving thing, it’s also in line with what we are. What matters is the things that can add value to people’s lives. I think that’s the draw of having a space that can be there, compared to what you can do online.”

Do you think that retail is dying?
“I think it really depends on the objective of the retail space. If your objective is to increase footfall, then you use certain ways of increasing your footfall, for example if your objective is that, then you use things like workshops or events to bring people in. But if your objective is sales, then it’s a different mechanic altogether; you may want to do some promotions that are exclusively offline. Retail is, I mean there are omni-channels that are very very used now, but it’s an entire experience; it’s not just about having an online presence, but an offline where people can connect better with the brand. I feel that nowadays online, there’s a limitation of how you can engage your consumers, and also because it’s very noisy already with all the different kinds of digital marketing out there, so I think an offline space offers a different kind of experience and engagement level. It’s all about drawing traffic, and attracting and engaging your audience in a way that fits the brand.”


What was the intention behind the coffee space?
“Well as mentioned when we set up, we really looked at the space and the community here first, and along this stretch before Tiong Bahru [Bakery] opened, I think there wasn’t any of this artisanal coffee that was offered; the closest that we could get was Baker and Cook right next to us. So we looked at our neighbours and what they were offering, and also the needs of the customers around this area, like I said the geographical location right? The whole concept of this store is called Our Second Home, so we created this to have a feeling of home, and the things that we naturally are inclined to when we’re at home, like a cup of coffee, your living space, your dining area. We wanted to incorporate something of this experience, rather than just a standard retail shop with merchandise, that’s why we decided the cafe.”

 

Do you do lifestyle items?

“We do have what we call gift of purchase (referring to digital cards), and that’s how we attract people to shop with us online. And online customers, with every collection, we do either collaborations, or we design our own gift of purchase; it can be something tangible or intangible, it’s to really suit the mood of the collection. For example, in the latest collection we came up with a box of crayons, because it’s called Fragments of Our Imagination, we wanted people to use the crayons to go back to the drawing board and imagine and create, so that’s how the whole idea of crayons come about, and also this collection has childrenswear elements. And then we’ve done things like notebooks, we created our tea as well, our special blend of tea, so we worked with a tea place in Singapore to create our own tea for our last collection, which is called A Morning at the Table. With every purchase online, we give a special, I wouldn’t say gift, but just something to add value to people’s lives, to just give them a bit more connection of what really our collection is about.”


Has this extension of a coffee place been effective?
“All I’d say is that our customers really do enjoy having this element in the shop, and a lot of them feel that it is warm and calm, and in that sense it’s achieved our objective. They’ll come here and hangout; some people work, some of them study. I wouldn’t say increasing traffic was our main priority when we wanted to set up this space, I think it was the experiential value that we’ve achieved.”


Are there any changes in consumer behaviour before and after the extension? 
“We started off with this (retail and cafe), it’s there from the beginning, it was designed and conceptualised this way for it to be a Second Home.”


Does location play a big role in affecting foot traffic?
“I think going back to the core of the brand, and that is to be, I need to provide a very personal and instinctive way of life to dressing, and i think that we chose this specifically because it’s not as fast-paced as the city. And also, we wanted to have a bit more of a different experience, if you notice we don’t have mannequins in our store, we don’t fill the store with merchandise, and that was our strategy from the beginning to provide a more calm and, I would say, more different approach to shopping. And why this location is because we like the community around this area, we think that the demographic it attracts is a different purchase power, and also the neighbours are also similar and more in line with our kind of branding and our aesthetics, and these are all the important elements we consider when we open a shop, especially your very first shop.”


Which is of more value to you? Product or experience?
“It’s a chicken and egg thing, right? You have to make sure that your products are of a certain quality, and of a certain value in order to provide the kind of experience that you want for the customers. It’s not a matter of which one comes first, I think it goes hand in hand. Well, I would say that product is definitely a bigger focus than experience, because without products there isn’t experience. So it’s really a chicken and egg thing. I think consumers are very savvy nowadays, they know how to tell what a good quality product, and what kind of value they want to pay for that product.”

 

How else do you engage with your customers?
“I think currently we take a very organic approach and we don’t really have a specific target of how many customers we want to bring into our stores. I think it really exist to give them a different dimension of the brand; a place where they can come and you know, feel and touch the material, and try it on if they want. That really is our primary objective of having this place.”


Who do you see as your competitors?
“Well I think at our price point, we’re kind of at Zara’s price point, so in terms of price point wise, they are, of course, the closest to ours. In terms of local, I think there are, I would say In Good Company, but they are also of a higher price point than ours, so we are not direct competitors. They do have a similar concept, but they’ve got an extended vendor to come in, so I would say the strategy is different; maybe for them it’s to fill up more retail space for rent (agrees that they can reach out to both audiences), and to attract lunch crowd because I think Plain Vanilla provides lunch.”

 

What challenges did you face with the extension?
“I guess one of the biggest things about retail, which is very known, is that manpower is one of the biggest challenges. I think training and hiring the right staff, the people that fit well, and would be able to communicate the brand, the brand delivery, the customer service, I think that’s something that’s very important, so that’s definitely the biggest challenge.”


What are some areas of the brand or space that you think have room for improvement?
“I think perhaps one thing is the product offering, because for us we drop collections maybe, it used to be about once a month, and every month we find that that’s not enough to meet the demand of our customers, and so we’re increasing our launches more frequently. We do have drops, and our drops actually attract a lot of queue, so one thing that happened to us here is that because of the capacity of this space, the queues actually extend quite a bit, and that’s why we decided to have another pop-up space at Takashimaya, just to increase the retail footprint. They are our more popular pieces, for example every collection we design them around a print, and the print tells a story, and I think because of that story people feel connected with the print pieces, firstly, so I think those are the pieces that go out really fast. And then the store also exist for them to explore the other parts of our collection, which are the non-printed items and the basic pieces that they could wear everyday. So in a way, I think you can say that it acts like a drop system. I think our model is quite similar, it’s just that we do not intentionally do that to attract, it’s just the way how our customers are more inclined and attracted to the print first.”


What else do you see yourself venturing into?
“I think that we have always, right from the beginning when we set up Our Second Nature, we wanted it to be more of a lifestyle brand, so apart from clothing, womenswear and childrenswear, we really want to extend into other lifestyle products. And I think that’s why you see with our GWPs at the moment, we’re experimenting with our lifestyle elements. At this moment, I have no clue, I think we’re just focused on improving our current product line, and we’ll see where it takes us; I think the room to explore is definitely there. It really is, again, about firstly building your brand equity; if people are connected and engaged with your brand, then the products that we put up have to be an extension of what they want, what the consumers are looking, and that’s why I say market suitability, because I mean, yes, as much as we would like to set up, say a beauty line or a homeware line, it really is about putting the right products to fit the customers, that’s our priority. And at the moment we feel that improving whatever that we’ve put out and making it the best that we can offer at our price point is a higher priority than introducing more product lines.”


What is your take on technology in retail space?
“I think it definitely is important, for example at our Takashimaya store, we actually have a customised label. So when you register or shop with us, it’s all integrated, for example if you’re an account holder at OSN at Taka, you can key in your, I mean even here, but at Taka we have this other special customised service, where once you walk in and purchase something, at the backend we will print your name onto a sticker label, and it’ll come out as your parcel, your package, so a bit more of a personal touch. It’s a program that we developed [that collects] purchase data, your order history. [You’ll know] your customers’ journeys, their preferences, so I think technology helps us a lot in that way. It has to be relevant, and I think it depends on the industry also. (When mentioned about interactive mirrors) I don’t think so, I mean maybe for us the core of our brand is really something more personal, and I think that having an interactive mirror is not something that is part of our brand DNA. At the end of the day, it boils down to the brand and its values.”


What do you see in the future of retail?
“I think, firstly, and I’m already seeing very much so, is that there’s a lot of personalisation and customised services, down to each customer and their preferences, which is why it’s to our concern as well, to know exactly what they’ve purchased, what kind of size they like, what coffee they drink, and that’s something we’re looking towards. And that gives the bit of elevated experience for each customer as well when they step in. At the end of the day, retail is [about understanding] our customers, it’s to have a platform where we can get their feedback, and we can translate that into our designs and products.”

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