ility to design their own made-to-measure garments online at an affordable price. Customer’s one-of-a-kind garments are created by InStitchu’s Savile Row-trained tailors to each customer’s specific measurements and design. InStitchu currently has seven showrooms worldwide with a view to expand further this year. Inside Retail Weekly: What were some of the highlights of 2017 for InStitchu? RM: We achieved a lot as a brand from an international standpoint – we opened in New York and we’re really happy with the way things are progressing. But we’re also continuing to expand in Australia and offer our customers a good showroom experience and bring on good staff, styles and improve our technology. JW: We completely rebuilt our entire stack – the front-end, back-end – everything. We found the limitations of other ecommerce platforms just weren’t right for our business. We’re not selling a product, we’re selling customisation lists, designs, fabrics and measurements and sending them off to the supplier. It was a big task and we brought all the tech in-house. We previously worked with developers externally. Now we’ve got a dedicated team of soon to be four developers in-house, which has been game-changing for us. It has allowed us to  directly integrate our system into our supplier system, so we can get real-time status updates, which we can relay back to our customers as well. The technology development we did ourselves has really translated into a better experience for our staff and customers through real-time live updates. RM: Because our website is also used in-store for us to transact with customers who are buying offline, a big focus focus for the year was getting it right and making sure our showrooms and tech were up to speed. JW: We also partnered with Woolmark, so now all of the suiting fabrics that we offer are 100 per cent Australian merino Woolmark-certified. I think the Australian customer understands the importance of fabrics. It allows us to have confidence in the quality that we provide for our customers. IRW: You’re in Australia and New Zealand and now the US. What was it like entering New York last year? RM: The US is a great market and we’re really trying to position ourselves as a unique Australian brand. The merino wool angle has been important for us, so we’ve been educating the US consumer about the benefits of wool. There have been challenges in the sense that you’re trying to start a brand from scratch again in a new market. There may be some recognition among your loyal followers, but it’s about trying to build your brand up from where we got it in Australia to where it is now. JW: New York is not a city where you can start spending money on advertising campaigns and expect to be heard – there’s a lot of noise, so we provide great service and product to customers and drive word-of-mouth through referrals and repeat purchases. We hold lots of events in our beautiful, old-world New York showrooms. We hold networking events, we introduce people to the brand. We have whiskey nights and we just partnered with Peroni over there. It’s a good way for us to get a bit of exposure. IRW: What are your thoughts on the menswear market in the US? RM: The suiting market is huge across the US, but we’re still competing with old-school players like Men’s Wearhouse and department stores like Macy’s. Those kinds of stores have been suffering, but that’s generally where guys would go for an awful off-the-rack suit. The retail side of things in New York is interesting, in terms of the amount of space that’s available in Soho. A lot of big brands have too many stores across the city, like 10 stores in one city, so for brands like us that are starting up, there are opportunities to get good deals on good sites if you’re smart. JW: Traditionally, the US male hasn’t paid too much attention to suiting and the right fit, but now they’re taking more of an interest and there is a growing number of men who care about how they look and they’re educating themselves on how a suit should fit, different styles and construction techniques, and that’s why they’re finding businesses like us or more European-style suiting brands. IRW: How would you describe the InStitchu physical store experience? JW: We’ve got six physical showrooms, then we experiment with micro showrooms, pop ups and trunk shows, where we visit cities in the US and Australia where we don’t have a presence yet. RM: Before we do pick a showroom location, we look at our data, we’ll see where our web traffic is coming from and then we’ll test that city with a pop-up or trunk show. Then if it gets good traction, we’ll add a physical presence. We’ve got a few different styles of showrooms as well. If you look at our Sydney CBD showroom, you walk in, there’s a big grand marble staircase, there’s a beautiful, old-world tailoring feel, but with modern touches of technology. When someone comes in, they’ll have a beer, wine or whiskey and sit with a style consultant. The consultant will get to know the client, find out what the occasion is, what they’re after, what sorts of shirts are in their wardrobe and work with them to design the perfect garment – suit, shirt or chinos – and go through the measurement process. Throughout this process, our consultants are actually doing the design at the front end of the site, so that way, the customer is getting exposure to the online experience – how to use the tools to design a garment, how to enter their measurements or adjust their measurements when they re-order. The idea is the showroom experience for the customer is their first experience [with us], then they can re-order online. Then again, some customers love the showroom experience, build rapport with our consultants and come back in – it’s a break from the city for them. RM: Some of our locations are destinations, where everything’s driven from bookings. Then we’ve got shopfronts, like our Canberra store, so we’re experimenting if someone will buy a custom, tailored suit an impulse decision and then our Greenwood Plaza store in North Sydney is the same – it’s got very high foot traffic, so we’re seeing if we can benefit from that in what we do, which is offering products you don’t walk out with then and there, but you get a different experience to a normal store. We’re opening a second Sydney CBD store on Clarence Street, which will be a mix of both – our traditional showroom experience with a nice, big shopfront as well. We’re always testing with locations. On NYC, you can get some great deals, Australia is going with some interesting changes with big retail brands going under or closing stores. So if you’re smart and as an emerging young brand, you can probably find some good deals. JW: The market has changed significantly over the past seven years. Brands that were once renting expensive street frontage retail spaces are now struggling and those same spaces, which were once far too expensive for InStitchu’s business model, are now available on much more favourable terms. We have been able to negotiate some impressive incentives which has opened up the option of street frontage retail spaces for InStitchu. RM: Agents will always try to sell you a space they want to lease, but if you’re smart, you’ll find locations that work better for you. We’re always of the belief to go where the customers are, which is why chose to base ourselves in midtown NYC, where a lot of corporate customers are, versus Soho, which we feel is where customers are more likely to shop on a weekend, when they’re thinking of casualwear. Those are the things we think about when looking at physical stores. [Pop-ups and trunk shows] are a great way to build some buzz with customers. You can even talk to them and say, ‘Hey, where would you recommend setting up a store?’ And customers are always happy to share those insights with you. ‘We’re thinking about opening in a few months, why don’t you tell your friends?’ It gets things going and it can really drive some sales before you’ve even opened. JW: Adelaide is a prime example. We looked at our data and we saw we definitely have demand there. We updated on our site that we’d do a pop-up there for a week in a month’s time. Within a week and a half, that week in Adelaide was booked out with back-to-back appointments. That proved our concept. Our next location after Clarence Street in Sydney will be in Adelaide, then Perth. Across the board, we’ll be doubling the number of our showrooms, so we have some aggressive growth plans. Then we’ll continue to grow our online business. We are really an online business. These showrooms are just an extension of our site for that first purchase, then customers re-order online. But when visiting a showroom isn’t convenient for a customer, they’ll go through the process online – they’ll complete the measurement process online, design the garment and place the order, knowing we have our ‘perfect fit’ guarantee. That means that if they give us incorrect measurements (which we normally pick up before it goes into production), it will be altered locally, free of charge, or we’ll give them their money back throughout the process. No questions asked. That’s to give the customer the confidence to give us a go. In the showrooms, there are elements of technology – bookings will be run through the laptop, but we’ll be introducing more tech through a few things we’ll be launching in the next few months. Watch this space. IRW: For a lot of customisation businesses, the big focus for them now is around speed of delivery and manufacturing. Is that the case for InStitchu? RM: The goal is to get our production time down to three days in the next two years and the most important part is working closely with our manufacturing facilities to ensure we’re helping each other achieve those targets, giving each other feedback, improving the tech and just communicating – t’s such an important piece delivery imre in the modern day of retailing. IRW: Do you consider yourselves pureplay or omnichannel? JW: We definitely are omnichannel, through the fact that customers are coming to our showroom getting measured and placing their order through the frontend of the website. The showroom experience combined with online does make us a true omnichannel business in a sense.  RM: At the end of the day, it’s all retail – it’s all blended together and you really have to be wherever your customer wants you to be, if they want to shop online or if they want to drop into the store. You have to be present wherever.  JW: That’s where technology is key. The customer who is coming into your store, doesn’t want all the interaction he’s already done online just thrown out the window. And the customer who is shopping online doesn’t want all that interaction he had in-store with the garments and choice of fabrics just thrown out, so you need technology to create that one experience.  When the customer comes in-store, our consultant can see where that lead originated from, whether it was a referral or an article or Facebook – they can see things like age, where they live and what kind of garments they’re looking at or designing. Our consultants can then leverage that information to create a better shopping experience for the customer.  IRW: How would you describe the customisation landscape in Australia? There are a few other online suiting players out there like InStitchu. JW:It’s still a niche industry. I think most guys in Australia are still buying their suits from traditional department stores and suit shops, then compromising on fit, style, price and getting that garment altered. Then if they want to buy a suit again, they have to go through that whole process again.  So really, we see anything that happens in the customisation space, especially suiting, as a benefit to create awareness of this niche industry, to get people away from traditional off-the-rack suiting shops and towards businesses like us where they just get a better experience.  IRW: What’s it like catering to a male customer? RM: If we take our wedding business as an example, most of the time, the groom just wants help. They’ve been tasked with one job. The fiancee has probably said ‘You take care of the suits for now, and we’ll sort out the rest. We provide them with a dedicated wedding stylist who can sit down with them, map out exactly what fabrics they want, what style they want, how many groomsmen there are, where they’re located and take a lot of the pressure off them. It’s what a lot of guys need.  But at the same time, it’s about making sure they’ve got a nice relaxing experience when they come into our showrooms or if they’re shopping online, letting them use Live Chat or giving us a call if they’ve got questions around fabrics or what colours work with what shoes. It’s about giving them extra guidance.  But then when guys find somewhere they like to shop, they’re often very lazy and they’re happy to just stick with that store. We try to go above and beyond, but once we’ve taken their measurements, they’ve got the ability to shop whenever they want, wherever they are.  A lot of guys will pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey, can I get a bunch more of those shirts, exactly the same fabrics and the same designs, because that’s what I need for work?’ They know the shirts them perfectly each time.  Sometimes guys know exactly what they want or they’ve seen a jacket that they want. A wedding customer once said to us, ‘I want the white jacket that Arnie wore in True Lies.’ So we said, ‘Yeah, done, here’s the fabric and options.’ We designed the jacket for him and he was happy.  Customisation means we can let people create exactly what they want. The challenge is you want the experience to be exciting, but you don’t want to overwhelm them, which can often be the case [for customisation businesses]. We show them our most popular fabrics, give lots of different price points and talk through certain parts of the process to help them out. Online, we show them ready made designs that they can customise, rather than starting from scratch, which can be overwhelming. It could be a linen jacket and the customer wants to change the pockets or just the lining. It just allows them to tweak things.