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Act Like a Brand, Think as a Retailer

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Per Gasseholm, CEO of Copenhagen’s uber-hip Wood Wood since May, talks broadening distribution, retail appeal and staying desirable.
How did you end up with Wood Wood?
After working abroad for 25 years [for Levi’s, Blue Marlin and Ashworth, among others], I came back to Denmark in late 2013, working as an advisor for a couple of companies. Obviously I had known about Wood Wood for years and then I met Michael, the largest investor in Wood Wood, and in January they hired me as a consultant to help them define strategies on how to take the brand to the next level. I took them through the first quarter and in the second quarter we decided that it was probably best that I help them with the implementation as well, so as of May I took on the role of CEO.
What did you find when joining the brand?
In the past 12 years, Wood Wood has done a fantastic job in positioning and getting the brand known and respected at a certain level, both through its distribution, the own stores as well as all of the collaborations they have done. But to get to a certain level and to get revenues AND profit, you got to have a little broader distribution. And in that process I have always said you have to act like a brand, but think as a retailer. Having your brand desired by consumers is great, but without the retailers, it’s useless. A brand has to generate traffic, but it has to provide earnings, too.
What does a “broader distribution” mean?
I mean, we have been so selective! We have worked with the five to ten best retailers in each country. But if you are in a large market like Germany or the UK of course you should have more than ten stores there! What’s the definition of a “good store” anyways?
I think that the brand can appeal to a much broader distribution instead of just going after the skate shops or just the street and denim stores or just the Libertys and Colettes in this world. Today they sit side by side.
But don’t you fear that with a broader distribution, the Colettes in this world might lose interest in the brand and it might lose some of its hype potential?
I don’t think that you lose hype or image because you serve retailers better. In the UK we just got into ten Urban Outfitters and we got into Liberty as well. If we get that balance right all the time, then it will work. Besides that, with the current setting we are far from
people asking, “Are you too broadly distributed?” How many accounts does Gucci serve? And they are certainly desireable. We are in this business to make money and create a return to the shareholders. By having 180 great customers around the world, which is what the brand had last year–and which is absolutely fantastic–the effort that went into creating the hype around the brand has also meant that it’s been a long-term investment. If you add another 20% or 30% of accounts, you suddenly might start to make a profit and you’ve got to do that.
Does that mean that Wood Wood is notmaking any profit?
It means that Wood Wood for 12 yearshas invested in the future.
So which is your growth plan for that future?
For spring, we get to 300 retailers. I believe that a brand like this can easily have 1,000 points of sale. We have set up targets on a three-year timeline (2014-16) with the goals formulated as in “we should believe we can be”. So the goal is that we should be able to be four times as big as we are now in general–in revenue, earnings, number of POS and own stores etc. I don’t believe in putting up unrealisitc plans and saying we want to have 5,000 POS or we want to be a €1 billion company, because people can’t grasp it– I certaily can’t. So we take it step by step.
And which first steps did you introduce when thinking as a retailer?
First of all, we changed our collection structure and how we deliver it. We defined two groups of product in our collection. On the one hand, we have what we call “street basics”: seasonal products with general life cylces of four to six months. And on the other hand we have contemporary fashion which we decided to deliver month by month. In the past we would use all our emanation at the two deliveriesdates in February and August   and it would kind of fizzle out during the season. By having monthly deliveries with controlled capsules, retailers get newness all the time and we know what will be on the floor and what to support and talk about.
How did the retailers react to that novelty?
It has been extremely well received. While we are a desireable brand, we have had some difficulties in delivering on time in the past. So when introducing this new, more structured way of logistics, the retailers have all said: “Wow, sounds good.” Of course we still have to execute and prove that now but again: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Are you differentiating which stores can buy into which product groups?

No. The way we look at it is that the premium, denim or streetwear stores will probably predominantly buy into the street basics and use the contemporary fashion as icing on the cake, whereas the high-end stores are going to buy mainly into the fashion and fill up with the street basics. Everyone is allowed to buy what they want.
Will there be any pricing changes?
No, we defined our price points and they really remain the same. At the opening price we set a mark which we don’t want to undercut. On the high end, we have no boundaries. If you want to do a €1,500 or €2,000 jacket, go for it. The guideline is that 80% of the product hasto sit within the framework, which is a definition of what the product should be, who it should appeal to and what the price points are. If we focus on that and at the same time give the designers the freedom to be creative outside that framework, that’s fine.
How will you expand with your own stores?
Just as we said we believe we can have 1,000 points of sale by 2016, we believe we should have 50 shop-inshops,10 global flagships in key cities and 50 smaller freestanding Wood Wood monolabel stores which I see as combination of online showroom and store. So either not showing the full collection or showing it but not fully stocking it and therefore have combined Web and brick-and-mortar stores.
Sounds like you’re investing in technologies…
We have just bought a new Web platform which wil be able to interact with our retail locations. The processes have been developed as we speak but we still need to finalize what the store layout will be like. No matter if it’s the brand website, the webstore, the office or the brick-and-mortar retail locations: everything should have the same feeling. I want that you can go on the Web and put ten products into your own personal showroom there and then click the button and go down around the corner and the ten products will hang there for you to try them on.
And which markets are you focusing on in the offline world?
We have defined our core markets to be Scandinavia, the UK, the German-speaking markets (Germany, Switzerland, Austria) and Benelux. That’s where we will put most of our focus in the near future.
You didn’t have a fashion show during Copenhagen Fashion Week this time– why?
We focused on getting our new London showroom up and running and instead of the traditional lookbook, we created a brand book that tells the industry who we are and how we operate. I think it was good for the brand to step back, take a breath and watch the landscape and then decide what our next move is regarding overall communication. The question is: Where do we get most value for the money?

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