Are you gaining more sales online or from your physical stores?
"Physical stores. I would say in general it’s about 85% (physical) to 15% (online)."

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How do you direct online traffic to your physical stores?

“Because for us, we have different stores in different malls; we have one in Jewel, which is the latest, and then ION, one in MBS, and then another shop-in-shop in Tangs. So what we do is we do our marketing programme quite individually for each of the different stores because of the different locations and the slightly different demographic. So Tangs is like a shop-in-shop, so whenever market, there is a constraint in how we do it, because it is not our store, it is under Tangs, so the POS system is under Tangs, so there is some constraint with that. With Tangs then we decided to work with TBB (Tiong Bahru Bakery) which is big also in Tangs, I think it makes more sense. In ION we have PV (Plain Vanilla), in Jewel we have BOP (Bird Of Paradise), and then in MBS it is completely standalone, because the store is smaller, so when we do our marketing, some of the customers will move around the store, so obviously Tangs and ION would share the same pool of customers because they’re just across the street. MBS is kind of completely quite different, it’s a lot based on tourists, so the marketing programme for MBS is very tourist driven in a way; a lot of chinese consumers, a lot of regional consumers coming in. Jewel is a mix of Singaporeans and tourists at this moment, and it’s a lot of east siders, because staying in the west, it probably doesn’t make so much sense to travel all the way to Jewel just to shop because we have so many other options near town. It is also slightly different because of the location. We see online as omnichannel stores because we ship worldwide; anybody who shops or tries anything in stores, some customers when they try something, they would prefer to buy online. Sometimes they try certain stuff, and then they go back, think about it, they decide to make a purchase, they don’t have to go back to the store. So, we don’t really try to drive traffic between each of the stores because they’re already quite individual, but our marketing strategy is pretty much consistent, it’s more of experience than discount driven, because IGC doesn’t do markdowns in the stores at all, the only markdowns we do are during flash sales when we clear odd sizes and stuff, and that happens twice a year. Each flash sale would last about one week and that’s about it. And then we have our annual sample sale, which is done outside, so since day one we have decided that you will never ever see a discounted item in an IGC store, which means customers are used to paying full price instead of waiting for annual season sales.”

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Do you think that retail is dying?

“Because everything is so easily accessible, we can basically order anything and everything and customers are so used to having that accessibility, so it is because of this that a lot of customers would then appreciate brick-and-mortar experience even more. So for us, we are really riding on that and a lot of customers are not comfortable buying online, because our clothes need to be tried, it is not like everlane or pieces that you don’t really have to worry so much. There’s a lot of fitting issues and styling, and because the designs are contemporary, most of our customers would still be comfortable with trying in stores, and that’s the experience that we try to provide the customers with. Like if you shop in Zara or in Courts, you’ll never ever find a sales person coming to you or asking “how the fit”, or “there’s another colour like this”, or “would you like to try that”, or “this is the best-selling [pair of] pants”, nobody does that in fast fashion, so this is how we position ourselves to be not like that. So when our customers are trying in stores, our staff are trained to service them with that kind of service that I think consumers nowadays would appreciate. They’re trained to know exactly how the dress can be styled and mixed and matched. They’re also trained to understand the customer body types; not every customer has such a keen eye to pick out the items that they think will suit them, so our staff are trained in these aspects, in terms of service.”

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What was the intention behind the coffee space?

“From day one, we have always believed that it is a brand above clothes. This is why we call ourselves In Good Company, instead of ‘Spend Money’. When we first started five years ago, having a cafe in a store was a very new concept. We had people who’ve done it before in the 90s and we thought that was fantastic, but it was too ahead of time, people don’t really understand. So when we first conceptualised the brand, we wanted it to be a lifestyle brand, meaning we don’t want our brand to be just purely transactional; you come, you shop, you pay, you buy, you take, bye bye, off you go. We wanted to provide that kind of experience where we could prolong the customers’ time spent in the store. This is the reason why we wanted to have the cafe in the store because of the lifestyle element and collaboration spirit that we believe in. Most of the brands that we’ve collaborated with are local, independent brands like Edwin (from BOP) and Vanessa from Plain Vanilla, and obviously we picked the best. We understand how independent designers work, because we are independent designers. Independent designers will find it very hard to have, because of the high rental and operational issues, it is very hard for Singaporean designers to have a physical store, especially in prime malls like ION or MBS. This is the reason why we do this, it makes the vibe of the store very interesting and for tourists to come in, they’ll understand that in this store, everything is local. PV is a great brand, BOP is a great brand, by international standards, and this is what we truly believe in. When tourists come into the store, they want to come and experience something that is uniquely Singapore. A lot of tourists come in and they’re very surprised to see that IGC is from Singapore. Also because the clothes don’t really look local, so they always think that it’s some Japanese or Hong Kong brand and they’re very surprised that this is a Singaporean brand. It’s nice for them when they know that, we don’t try to sell ourselves as like a Singaporean brand, you support local and you buy us because we’re local, you buy us because of our product and service and in return we compare the experience in our store it’s worthwhile and this is the reason why we have that collaboration between PV and BOP.

 

We believe that we should only do what we’re good at. I’m not trained as a homeware designer, I do not try to bake or serve coffee because for me what’s more important is the quality and you should let the best person do the job. Food is essential and nothing ever gives the vibe like how food does; when people are enjoying a cup of coffee, or gelato, or pasta, and that draws people together, it’s a meeting point. When we first started, we only had womenswear, so can you imagine how bored the boyfriends, husbands and kids were, and sometimes they shop with their moms, or their aunties. After they shop, they would want a place to sit down, or while the wife is shopping, the husband has a place to sit down, check his phone, read some magazines and stuff. So that becomes a lifestyle now that people are shopping like that, with girlfriends, with their relatives and even mother and daughters. We have grandmothers, mothers and daughters, three generations shopping together at IGC and to me that’s fantastic because all three are buying into the brand. And after that they sit down and have a cup of coffee and then eventually we became friends, we recognise each other in the store. It is unexpected because we didn’t expect to service different generations at the same time but it’s positive to have that happen. So this is why we think that food is important.”

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Do your customers mainly go there to shop and eat, or the other way round? 

“The brands that we work with have their own followings. In Jewel, for BOP customers, it is quite separate because gelato customers and IGC customers are very different. In PV there is a cross; you can no longer differentiate whether this customer was originally from PV or IGC, but there are also customers that come just for PV. So they walk into the store, they go straight there, buy the stuff, then they walk out.”

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Are there any changes in consumer behaviour before and after the extension?
“When we first started off, we were at Front Row. We were there for the first collection, then after that Tangs found us, then we at Tangs, then within one year, ION found us and offered us a space. When ION offered us a space, ION is a huge store, it’s 300 square feet. It was originally G-Star and ION couldn’t find anybody to take up such a big floor plan. At that time, five years ago, that wing was a denim wing, so there were 7 For All Mankind, Axel (?), then CK was still there. Denim was declining, so a lot of the denim tenants moved out. When G-Star decided to move out, ION couldn’t find anybody to take up the big space, so they saw us at Tangs and offered us initially as a pop-up, but we took it on full fledged from the beginning. Because it was such a big space, our collection wasn’t big enough to fill the whole store. There was an option to either cordon off some of the store, or think creatively what could have been done. So then the first person that came to mind was Plain Vanilla, we didn’t know her, but we love her bakery in Tiong Bahru. We called her, and she just came and she’s been our partner since pretty much day 1. So that was how it all started.”

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Which is more important? Product or experience?
“For me, I’m a designer. Product is always going to be number 1 because I think it is very hard for an independent designer to reach the status where people will only buy for your brand. Say you buy a Fred Perry polo, you buy it because it’s Fred Perry; you would spend x amount of money just to get the logo. It is very hard for me to reach that status because these are heritage brands. At the end of the day, when somebody buys my product, they don’t buy it because of me or my logo, they buy it because of the product itself and this is why I think product must be the first. 

It has to be a full package because consumers are very vehicle these days. They can also be very loyal to you if you are able to service their needs, but if you let them down, they could convert to other brands. So I think it has to be a full package for what you’re trying to offer in order to stay competitive.”

What can customers experience in your store?
“How we positioned ION store right from the beginning was that it needs to have a lifestyle vibe. ION has the heaviest footfall amongst all the stores, it attracts almost all kinds of customers. Even when we didn’t have menswear yet, there were still men walking into the store. I don’t know why they walk in, I don’t know what they’re looking at actually. (Interviewer: I think maybe because the store’s aesthetic wise, it doesn’t look very feminine) Yes, it doesn’t look very feminine, so unlike Beyond The Vines, or Our Second Nature, unlike all our peers, nothing in the store should look so feminine, it should be quite neutral. We like the lifestyle element, so we had the cafe. It is almost like a multi-label store’s vibe that we’re trying to achieve, except that our core products are our own. And then we have our accessories… We used to have the Mini Me there, we moved it because we opened MBS, and the position of the store is at the wing where the luxury kidswear are, so it makes more sense for us to put the kidswear there. So ION has the mens and womens and the accessories.”

How else do you engage with your customers?
“Service. We need to train [our staff] quite rigorously in order for them to understand the collection. Obviously, not all our staff are fashion-conscious, but they need to understand the products, and they need to try the products themselves. So whenever we have a new launch, we will have the training here (referring to the main office/warehouse), where they will be trained on how the styles should be worn. Some of our styles are a little bit more complicated (while showing and explaining some of the more complicated products); once the customers are in the fitting room, they’re lost, but when a staff sees a customer bringing this dress to the fitting room, they know they need to service them, ‘let me help you’. This is what is different from us and fast fashion, not so straightforward.

Who do you see as your competitors?
“I wouldn’t say competitor. In terms of positioning, we are always [positioned] beside COS, Bimba Y Lola, Massimo Dutti, Club Monaco.”

What challenges do you face?
“The ongoing challenge is always because of our positioning in Singapore, so there are advantages and disadvantages with that. As a designer when I first entered the industry, it was very hard for me to gain experience because there were very limited amount of companies that were able to offer the kind of training that I needed. Because of this, it was very hard for me to find hires as for designers. I would often find that I need to train them from scratch, which is very time consuming and a challenge for me. If I want to hire someone, I’m paying you, you should be able to do the job. But instead of that, I need to train you from scratch and it’s a long process, and there’s no sure guarantee. Whereas if you’re an ID, you look at the portfolio and more or less you know this person can do the job, [like] autocad [and rendering]. But in fashion, it's not the case; not just in Singapore, it is [a worldwide] problem, people are having that problem, companies are having that problem. Even when I open the position to graduates from Saint Martin’s or Parsons, the best schools, Bunka, their portfolios are not substantial enough, the skills that they have are also not substantial enough, in the sense where if I give them a brief, they wouldn’t be able to do the work. I give you a project, [depending] on the style of the designer, whether he drapes or she tailors, or whether she’s the feminine type, or it’s all about suits and shirts and stuff, it doesn’t matter to me. So even if I give them a project based on their strengths, they wouldn’t be able to understand this quality of finesse that we’re trying to achieve. When we look at our items, even though everything is very simple, they look almost quite easily achievable, but when it comes to physically making or designing it, they have a very big problem, because all that they have learnt is simply through styling. It is the image of that 1.8m model, the make up, and it is always the runway that they’re thinking of. It is very hard to get somebody who understands, and I’m not trying to ask them to make boring clothes, but to understand it from a point of view [of] what makes something desirable. It is a very tough challenge for them, so I think new hires is one of the ongoing challenges. I would love to have a bigger team of designers and we’ve been looking for [and training] people for the longest time and it is a very tough process; it takes about maybe up to 2 or 3 years, in order for both parties to know whether this person is even suitable in the long run.

 

The other challenge we have is because we’re also based in Singapore, there is no industry here for fabrication, trimming, manufacturing, everything is pretty much coming to zero. This was not that case when I first started out. Nobody wants to be a seamstress here. In order to sustain that, we will have to outsource. Because we’re based here, it’s hard for us to be constantly travelling, and juggling the business and the designs, so that’s also a very big challenge which we have to solve creatively.”

What are some areas of the brand or space that you think have room for improvement?
“We are constantly trying to evolve the brand. I think what we [can improve is] price point. I think it’s too high but we don’t have a choice. Our markup is unlike typical retail markup; it is below typical retail markup [by] 5 times, we are way below, simply because of all the costs that we have to absorb to come up with a collection like that. It is not so much of manpower cost, it is the cost of manufacturing and also the cost of rental, because we’re in all the prime malls. MBS is a luxury mall, it is very hard for a local brand to be in MBS. ION, for me, is the best mall in town, because of the footfall and the positioning, and it’s very international, the segregation is very clear. We have to be in ION, that’s why it’s the biggest store. We are also on the level where… it is an international level. They used to have more like a local level a couple of years back, B3 I think, but all the local designers have been asked to leave. Basically, when dealing with landlords, they don’t really see us as somebody local, of course they know that we’re from Singapore but in terms of positioning and in terms of operating, we position ourselves [at] an international level. And obviously because we don’t have the economy of scale, like what our peers have, Massimo Dutti, COS, they have stores worldwide. Our main stores are still in Singapore, so that makes manufacturing cost much higher. All in all, I would wish that we were cheaper, we could be cheaper.”

What else do you see yourself venturing into?
“Not at the moment. For us, it’s always the regional market because we only do Spring Summer, we don’t intend to do Autumn Winter, so the partners we’re working with in Manila, in Jakarta, in Bangkok, all shares the same climate, we’re all tropical. At this point of time, we’re testing out the brand, we would hopefully like to convert that into more flagship stores like ION. For me, our stores need to be big, because our collections are big, if it’s too small, it's very hard to showcase the collection. ION is probably the best size; it could be 2,500 square feet, ION is 3,600, minimally 2,500, that would be the ideal space where we can showcase the brand and if we would need to have the lifestyle concept. All these other places are behind Singapore, Bangkok I would still say is behind Singapore, just slightly behind, so you need to have one big store like ION with a really good concept to really stand yourself apart from brands with similar minimal aesthetic. We hope to build this into all the regional countries that we’re in right now.”

What is your take on technology in retail space?
“We are behind, but we’re working on it, so every year we have different strategies. Last year it was [hiring], we did our recruitment heavily in the beginning of the year to get the right people on board. We have a tech lead specialist on board now, working on enhancing the e-store experience, to further make use of technology to track and basically service the customers more efficiently. We have quite a big group of chinese customers shopping in MBS and in Jewel [and] these chinese customers are very hard to service because they don’t use email, everything is through WeChat, so our EDMs and none of the information that we sent out ever reaches them. Their QQ emails will be bounced back because they can’t receive emails like that, but we can’t ignore the fact because they’re chinese, and they’re big spenders, so that marketing strategy has to be completely separated. We tried to count up and we are hopefully able to transact them through WeChat, but I think that takes a bit of time and also you need to garner the following. Right now, if we check on the IGC WeChat account, official page, it is a lot of brand bid at the moment, I think we started maybe 3 or 4 months ago. And also copywriting, it is very hard to write [about] fashion in chinese but you have to do it, and you can’t just do it in a Singapore-chinese standard, it needs to be a chinese-chinese standard. None of the chinese brands ever find the need to venture out of China because their internal consumerism is so high, so you don’t really see a lot of chinese brands. But within China itself, the brands are very self-sufficient. As long as I’m a chinese brand, it’s so self-sufficient that I don’t even need to think of going to Bangkok or Singapore because these markets are so small. I have the biggest population, so it’s more than enough if I can [serve] my own chinese consumers. But for excellent brands going into China, they need to think and understand the mentality of chinese consumers, which is very different from cosmopolitan consumers like Singapore. Singapore consumers are very ‘seasoned’; they touch the fabric, they know exactly whether this is worth the price or this is crap, you can’t cheat, you can’t get away with bad workmanship at this kind of price point. They know exactly what they want, they look at the colour, they try the style; they crave freshness, they also crave wearability, that is cosmopolitan consumer behaviour. Chinese consumers are very different. And because there is still quite a big social class difference, they wealthy are very wealthy, the poor are not so wealthy, they mentality when they shop and what they look for, they tend to look for more occasion… It needs to be different visually in order to tick their boxes. The kind of messages and your brand language needs to be closer to them, I guess. In order for them to understand your brand, you can’t expect them to make you adopt and you need to kind of juggle that. For us it’s brand bid at the moment, we foresee that it will take some time in order to be able to transact in China itself; whether we go with a partner, actually we need to go with a partner, it depends on which partner and through which channel. We are typically not an ambitious brand, so a lot of times, all our partners they all come by chance, we don’t really market ourselves aggressively because we truly believe that by working our best to present what is the best for this brand, people will come, just like how MBS came, Jewel came, ION came to us. It is very hard to shop nowadays, of course there are so many brands there but it’s very hard to find something nice and tickles your cravings to consume. So when the customers come, you have to value them; once you get that right, they’ll always come back.”

What do you see in the future of retail?
“More experiential brands. I think brands who would, maybe, have interesting concepts. You really need to have an interesting concept in order to be taken seriously. I think that’s not so easy to achieve in Singapore because of our high costs, but on the other hand, that could also be quite easily achieved with social media. I think, a point of difference, that’s what I would hope to see.”

Do you foresee a chance of having an IGC cafe in the future?
“No, I don’t see that, because we’re not an F&B person, so we believe in collaborations more than doing it ourselves. Because of the aesthetics of our clothes, we cannot be in Holland V, we would completely lose all the customers. The customers are too young for us, in general, and the vibe is not right. You go to Holland V, you go to Sunday Folks to eat ice cream, you’re in slippers, mini skirts or shorts, you’re not in the mentality to shop for clothes like that. We need to be in malls like ION, MBS and Jewel, in prime malls, because that’s where our consumers are. And malls like that, it’s very hard to marry both F&B concepts and RTW because of the exhaust problem. Certain stores were just not made for F&B; if you want to have F&B, go to B4, of course we can’t be at B4. That’s why our partners that we look for, their food doesn’t require exhaust. We have an overwhelming response for PV to do deli and we did try, but the smell of pasta is just too strong, it will affect the clothes and the customers. We tried that, and we tried ways and means to counter that, but food smell is just food smell, so we have to change the menu. When we went to PV, we came with a deli concept. When PV started with us, of course they have their cupcakes and their standards but they also did pastas, which was so well received that when she stopped, a lot of people were writing in and telling us ‘why did you stop this?’. But on the other hand, we also had consumers who were shopping and saying ‘I just can’t shop with pastas smelling so strong’. It’s just not right but coffee is different, so at the end of the day, we had to give up the deli concept, and it became a bakery. Same thing in Jewel, there was no exhaust, so you have that kind of constraint when it comes to prime malls. You’ll know that neither Vanessa or Edwin would want to be placed in the same level as the food court, it’s just not right for them, so neither would we want to be at Basement 4 or Basement 3. To do F&B ourselves, even if we find the right space and all, it is still a big challenge to get the food right. You really can’t serve bad food. Once you serve bad food, I mean, us as consumers, we’ve tried and we know that’s wrong, we would never ever try it again. There’s no second chance, so you need to get it right.

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(While talking about the smell of BOP’s waffle in Jewel) 
Yes, they need to glass it up, then they need to have the exhaust up there. But the smell of the waffle, the thyme leaves, is nice, which is also why we put it right in front, because we know there’s going to be a long queue, and if we put it inside the store, it will completely jam up the store. We actually went with Edwin for the MBS store; MBS store was supposed to be a bigger store, it was not supposed to be this unit. We were late with our negotiations and somebody took the space, it was a much bigger store that we wanted. When we were first approached by MBS, straightaway we wanted to have BOP, because of the kids, then it makes a lot of sense. When somebody beat us to that unit, we ended up taking the smaller unit, which is what we have now, we couldn’t house any collaborators. And then Jewel came on board, the leasing director of Jewel is a customer of IGC, so she told me about Jewel many years ago, right when we first started at Tangs, and she just came to introduced herself [and the upcoming project]. I was the one serving her, so we were one of the first ones to view the project, she took us to see the space and we said yes quite immediately. Before Jewel, it was just us and PV; with Jewel, we didn’t want to go with PV, we wanted to go with Edwin, somebody different. If we have a new store that has this concept, we would go with somebody different, it has to all be different because that’s what the whole concept of collaborating is about. You choose the right partner for the space; I think we made the right choice choosing BOP for Jewel because if you see the queue you’ll know, and it’s a good choice for PV at ION because in the whole of ION, all the fashion brands have offices in Orchard, and we see a lot of these people going to PV because if you are in ION, you’ll find that in such a big mall, you really don’t have an independent kind of F&B in a place where you can sit and talk and not be so visible. The closest one you have is marmalade pantry, obviously that’s a higher price point. But sometimes if you just need to have a quick meeting, you just want to have a salad and talk about something, and not be seen by so many people, a lot of people have their meetings there. And because the food that they serve has a kind of finesse that is not so local, and in a sense I think that’s great, that’s why she’s got a big following of expat customers, and that makes the vibes slightly different and more international. And then of course you have the more tired shoppers and the TCS stars in ION because they can’t be going to Coffee Bean or Starbucks, so they will go to PV.”

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If you were to have a collaboration at MBS, who would it be?

“It really depends on the space and which wing it is, but for me, MBS doesn’t have a lot of food options. You go to MBS, everything is so expensive. I think they also don’t have a decent bakery there, it’s just so limited in terms of food choices. This is why a lot of Singaporeans don’t even go there, and parking is also very expensive. For sure it has to be somebody local, and for tourists to know that we have somebody good, rather than Ya Kun and the typical ones. I think Mother Dough is very good, I really like the bakery, I’m there almost every alternate weekend. I think she did a very good job and right now she’s kind of the only one I’m fanatic about, and because she’s still very fresh in the market, she’s not everywhere yet, I’m sure her store at Kandahar Street will not be the only one, I’m sure she’ll open a bigger store somewhere. It’s good because her food is also something that you can take away, I don’t think in terms of what she’s offering, there’s many people that are her match, this is why maybe [for] MBS I’ll do Mother Dough.”