This month, Leeds-based clothing retailer Joe Browns is celebrating its one-year bricks-and-mortar anniversary at British Land’s Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield.
The 4,000 sq ft shop represents something of a milestone for the menswear and womenswear brand. Until last November, it had operated as a mail-order (and later online) business for around 20 years.
EG spoke with Claire Barber, head of Meadowhall at British Land, and Simon Brown, managing director and founder of Joe Browns, to explore the fledgling relationship between the landlord and clicks-to-mortar retailer, and their key learnings.
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A signal boost
For Brown, operating a store was the natural next phase of becoming an omnichannel retailer.
“We also wanted another way of attracting new customers,” says Brown. “In sport, you don’t turn up and get changed for a Saturday game unless you want to make a difference, and we wanted to do that in retail.”
The advantages for doing so are clear. Having a store has enabled the retailer to capture 60% of its bricks-and-mortar shoppers for its customer database, which now totals more than 1.25m.
It has also significantly increased brand awareness. Customers within a 25-mile radius of Meadowhall – covering locations including Leeds, Derby and Nottingham – have spent 12% more than any other group of shoppers in the country.
“That’s [around] £250,000 extra business that we have got from those customers living within that radius,” says Brown.
The store has also enabled interaction between the retailer’s employees and its shoppers, which had previously been limited to focus groups.
Joe Browns sends out 48m catalogues a year, while online accounts for 89% of the business. At the moment, the store accounts for 4-5% of sales.
Demonstrating a store’s value
Retail leases at Meadowhall are turnover-based, highlighting British Land’s desire to measure how physical stores are boosting sales. However, knowing the amount of turnover the online business generates is also becoming essential.
“As a landlord, it is important for us to create the right spaces, and retail now is [about] online sales and stores,” says Barber. “For us to be able to demonstrate the value of a store is very important. It is only going to become more important as internet sales continue to increase.
“The impact a store can have on creating additional sales – and being able to measure that – is really critical for landlords. We are in the early stages of that as an industry, but it is a definite area of focus.”
She also emphasises the importance of understanding retailers’ business models – as well as educating retailers on footfall, shopper demographics and spending data.
“If [businesses] are embryonic and haven’t taken any stores before, there may be an education process. We try [to] engage at a very early stage,” says Barber.
“But to a degree we have to trust the retailers: that they know their businesses and what they are doing. It is for us to explain what we can do for them and the benefits of being on [a landlord’s] scheme.”
Staying small
The journey from online to bricks and mortar has been met with varying degrees of success across retail occupiers.
Online and mail-order group N Brown, which owns brands including Jacamo and JD Williams, has decided not to continue with its 20 physical stores, while Missguided’s store business, comprising two shops at Bluewater and Westfield Stratford, went into the red last year.
However, Brown argues that having one store means it can avoid a similar fate.
“When you have only one store it is very easy to focus on that,” he says. “We are a small business compared with, say, N Brown, and it means we are quite flexible as well.”
Barber adds that British Land tenants Hotel Chocolat and The White Company have also created stores that reflect the online shopping experience, contributing to their sales and profit growth.
Creativity pays
Crucially, the brand merges online with bricks and mortar by using a store design that would reflect a “double-page spread” in its catalogues.
In terms of issues landlords should be aware of when it comes to signing clicks-and-mortar tenants, Barber says it is about supporting them to be “as creative as you possibly can”.
“Some landlords are perhaps a little bit guilty of constraining retailers in what they want to do. I would rather have to rein them in than encourage them to be more creative.”
“[British Land] allowed us to make a difference,” says Brown. “Other [landlords] were not quite as enthusiastic – they didn’t seem to have the same appetite.”
He adds that Joe Browns was the first retailer to launch in Meadowhall with double-height glass frontage.
Barber says: “It is our job to help retailers be as creative as [they] possibly can be and create the best experience [they] possibly can.”
‘Gently, gently catchee monkey’
Physical expansion is “definitely” on the cards for Joe Browns, which has placed a location for a second shop under offer.
However, one key lesson from the Meadowhall launch is that similar sales performance could be achieved with a smaller space – which would allow the brand to save on property overheads.
“We have learned we can probably get a similar amount of sales from, say, 25% less space – from talking to other people, I don’t think we will need 4,000 sq ft to achieve the sales we will get. That will make it very profitable,” Brown comments.
“It’s all ‘gently, gently, catchee monkey’ – it has taken us 20 years to get our first store, I don’t think we will have 100 in the next five years.”
However, Brown is upbeat about the current unit at Meadowhall and the firm’s shift in strategy.
He says: “The great thing about the store is that we have learned so much. We understand mail-order – we have done it for 20 years – but retail is a different kettle of fish altogether.
“If we had our time again, we would do it exactly the same [way again]. But we are still learning a lot.”
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