DTC

Don’t Sleep on the Nap Dress Strategy

Hill House Home had the kind of summer brands in the Before Times could only dream of: Its hero product, the nap dress, exploded in popularity. 

• Hill House Home launched its nap dress last fall and trademarked it in January. But searches for "nap dress" hit an all-time high in July. 
• Hill House Home sold through a four-month supply of nap dresses in one week when preorders opened for its summer drop, founder and CEO Nell Diamond told Retail Brew.
• Most of the attention was organic: The brand’s marketing budget was only 5% of total sales and it didn’t have a PR team when demand spiked.

This isn’t a normal year. So Diamond told me how she  ~ navigated ~ surging popularity during challenging circumstances...while also 1) remaining a profitable business and 2) avoiding employee layoffs or furloughs.

Behind the seams

In some ways, Hill House Home was already built for apparelmageddon: The brand uses geographically diverse suppliers, meaning nap dress production never halted as the virus spread. But Diamond said the brand still had to make split-second adjustments to meet heightened demand.

Adapting with suppliers. Diamond’s team moved up payment terms for suppliers that needed it and created a staggered delivery timeline to meet demand. “We had some factories that had tons of canceled orders from their big suppliers,” said Diamond, “and suddenly us, the tiny client that they weren’t that excited about, we were increasing our orders.” 

Boosted web infrastructure. HHH upgraded its online storefront, the only place its nap dresses are sold via preorder, so customers could see their anticipated ship date. “That level of transparency is what gets people to believe in preorder,” Diamond said. 

Customers > everything else 

HHH’s biggest hiccups came from shipping bottlenecks. “We’d have boxes sitting on the tarmac at JFK for weeks,” Diamond said. 

So Diamond personally wrote a message to customers whose orders were delayed, offering an explanation and the option to cancel their orders, free of charge. “I don’t care if someone spent $1,000 or $75: They’ve given us a level of trust, and we owe them a clear explanation,” Diamond said.

Final result: Only 3% of customers affected by Hill House Home’s delayed shipment batches opted to cancel; I wasn’t one of them. 

Looking ahead...Hill House Home will expand its nap dress assortment into more colors and styles this fall. “It’s definitely a deeper assortment than we’ve ever had before,” Diamond said, “but we think the demand is there.” 

E-COMM

Save TikTok, Live Better

Walmart is reportedly, probably, almost definitely purchasing 7.5% of TikTok in a tentative deal with Oracle. You’ve seen how this has played out; I have to hedge my bets. 

More details: Walmart CEO Doug McMillon will become one of five board members of the new TikTok entity, TikTok Global. In a statement, Walmart said it would bring “omnichannel retail capabilities” to the platform.

TikTok’s survival is a blessing for dance challenge choreographers and commerce pros alike. 

• TikTok’s 100 million U.S. users provide Walmart (and its third-party seller network) with advantageous customer data. 
• The retailer will likely encourage TikTok to prioritize in-app purchasing tools and advertising opps. 

My caveat: Former MySpace users know how fickle social media rankings can be. If power users interpret Walmart’s efforts to monetize TikTok as too corporate, the app could lose the quirks that made it an overnight success.

Zoom out: A revamped TikTok could be an inflection point in U.S. social commerce. Pre-deal, the industry was on track to generate more than $23 billion this year, but that’s less than a tenth of China’s social commerce market, per eMarketer.

SPONSORED BY ROUTE

Safe Passage for Holiday Packages

It might be shocking to learn that it’s basically the holidays. And if you’re an online retailer who’s shipping more than ever, you know how important it is to get customers their packages on time and in one piece.

Route is how the smartest businesses ensure a seamless post-purchase experience, as they are the premier solution for package tracking, order protection, and customer re-engagement. 

With Route’s Visual Tracking™, shoppers get everything they need in one place without having to even dig up tracking numbers. Which means:

• 45% fewer messages asking, “Where’s my order?”
• 18% decrease in customer support costs
• 124% increase in customer engagement

So unless you’re Santa Claus himself, you’ll want to get your products on the right track with Route.

Get more info here.

BANKRUPTCY

Unspent Gift Cards From Bankrupt Retailers:

...but not if shoppers represented in a new string of class action claims can recoup their value.

Consumer firms are challenging Lord & Taylor, Sur La Table, Stein Mart, and Century 21 over policies that render gift cards unusable during bankruptcy proceedings, the WSJ reports.

What the lawyers say: Retailers don’t give customers adequate information about bankruptcy gift card expirations. So shoppers lose spending power as expiration dates slide by. 

What the retailers say: There’s no legal obligation to honor gift cards during bankruptcy under current laws...so why start now?

Why it matters: All the half-spent gift certificates in shoppers’ wallets can become windfalls for bankrupt retailers. Lord & Taylor is sitting on $35.5 million in unspent gift cards, according to its August bankruptcy filing. When Pier 1 Imports filed in February, it had roughly $59 million in unspent gift cards. 

• And this is bigger than bankruptcy court: Between $2 billion and $4 billion of all U.S. gift cards each year are never spent, per Mercator Advisory Group data.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Foot Locker will allow voter registration at 2,000+ stores.
• Walmart released a new private label clothing brand.
• Pottery Barn started a recycling program for select returns. 
• Google added new search filters to prioritize local shopping.
• Lululemon will launch a footwear line within 12-18 months.

SPONSORED BY ORACLE NETSUITE

Winter’s coming and so is a new holiday rush. Holiday Season 2020 is coming, and it’ll look different than ever before. Needless to say, being adaptable to changes in consumer behavior will be super important. Oracle NetSuite wrote up a white paper to get your brand ready. From perfecting online channels to optimizing emails, get the vital info here.

RSVP

Clothing sales declined 20.4% in August per the U.S. Commerce Department, but activewear brands are attracting new customers and opening new stores. Is the sweatpants economy here to stay?

Let’s talk about it

I’m sitting down with Sucharita Kodali, VP and principal analyst at Forrester Research, and Nate Checketts, co-founder and CEO of Rhone, for Retail Brew's next event. We’ll discuss pandemic era apparel trends—and if there’s more to athleisure’s resilience than the rise of the home gym. 

• When: Monday, September 28, at 12pm Eastern 
• Where: Your computer screen 

Get your questions for our panelists ready and register here.

SWAPPING SKUS

What’s the difference between a cheesy #ad selfie and a symbiotic brand-influencer partnership? Today’s two reads on retailers’ influencer programs have suggestions. 

• Fabletics only expanded into men’s styles this year, but co-CEO Adam Goldenberg expects Fabletics Men will reach at least $75 million in annual sales next year. Securing Kevin Hart as the line’s first ambassador could make the difference. (TechCrunch)
• From Nirvana in the 1990s to vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris last week, Converse has found organic brand ambassadors nearly everywhere. Now, the brand’s turning its focus to planned creator partnerships. (Fast Company)

ICYMI

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed. 

• Fast Fashion’s Recovery Beat Analysts’ Expectations
• DTC Pet Brands Are Having a Moment
• Two Tractor Supply Strategies Every Retailer Should Copy