If you really stop to think about your clothing and the prices you pay for it, you might find that you’re left with a few questions. For example, how can a t-shirt cost less than your morning cup of coffee? Surely the materials and labor involved in designing, making, and shipping a t-shirt are more costly than a few coffee beans and some milk.
That low-cost t-shirt is the result of the fast-fashion business model which has swept through the fashion industry. The result is that we may have more access to cheap clothes, but the quality is poor and the environmental and humanitarian cost could potentially be catastrophic. Zana Nanic is the Founder and CEO of Reclaim, a slow-fashion Ecommerce brand, and she is on a mission to change the way people buy clothes.
On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Zana explains how she started Reclaim after becoming fed up with the business casual, fast-fashion norms of Silicon Valley. Plus, she dives into what you have to learn from your customers during the initial launch of your business, and why she believes that an omnichannel approach is the best way to find success in the future.
Key Takeaways:
- First impressions matter. You have very little time to make a lasting impression when someone visits your page. Relaying the information that will get them to convert must be delivered in the first few seconds a potential customer visits your page.
- Returning customers is the holy grail metric for a small or start-up company, especially as it relates to the slow-fashion industry. When customers return to buy more, it tells you that they value you and your products and you can build a stronger relationship with them.
- You have to take big swings with your experiments. Don’t get hung up on micro-details like the color of your buttons or rewriting your copy. Instead, find big ways to make changes and then see how the outcomes stack up.
- Invest in pop-up shops and omnichannel strategies to help convey the quality of the clothing. These tactics yield a more valuable and loyal customer.
For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.
Key Quotes:
“When you have a website is when you start learning [about your customers] for real. It’s one thing when you have people face-to-face [telling you what they like] and another thing is seeing how people are interacting on my website. What products are they looking at? What are they purchasing? Which ones are asking questions? Which products are getting returned? I would say the real learning starts when you are putting something in front of people’s faces and you’re asking them, ‘Put your credit card information and buy.’”
“I wouldn’t say that commerce is you have an idea, you build it and they’ll come. It doesn’t really work like that. It’s about changing things every day and iterating as fast as possible.”
“We have lengthy copy, we go into the details, we give people the story. You don’t have to read it, but if you’re interested, there are pages into the story of the material. We provide all of that information out there and then we do big visuals. Visuals and images are what converts the best and what people are resonating with the most. We combine the text and the rich information with images, beautiful lifestyle images.”
“You can either have customers who are going to buy lots of pieces with you and you’re going to have a high lifetime value of that customer, but they might not like you that much. They might consider you as, ‘I bought it because it was cheap and it was on sale and I keep it in my wardrobe.’ But then the first Marie Kondo moment you have when you go through your wardrobe, that is the first item that doesn’t give you joy. Our model is very different. Our model is we’re going to do fewer much better pieces and a customer will wait for our collection to come because they know it’s going to be superior quality and it’s going to be a piece that they will buy and keep for years.”
“We don’t have enough margin to pay a store or retailer and have a big distribution. Therefore, the partnership that we use we see them more as an opportunity to have a marketing presence in L.A. or New York. If somebody wants to touch our products and learn more about them, they can actually go and have a physical retail presence but it’s more an exercise and a way to discover products rather than a sales channel for us. Our direct-to-consumer website is our number one channel for sure. It’s the place that we use because that is the only way we can pass on as much price saving to the customer as we can.”
Mentions:
Bio:
Zana Nanic was born in Croatia and was a child refugee in Italy where she helped her immigrant parents by selling retail door-to-door, translating documents and negotiating with vendors and customers. After working at McKinsey, Uber and Google, she started Reclaim — a retail company that makes business casual clothing for women. Their designs combine Italian style with Silicon Valley aesthetic, and are based on enclothed cognition (the science of how clothing makes you feel) in order to make women feel strong, powerful and beautiful.
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Transcript:
Stephanie:
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to up next in commerce. This is your host Stephanie Postles and today, we have… Let me get the name right. Today, we have Zana Nanic on the show, the CEO and founder of Reclaim. Zana, welcome to the show.
Zana:
Thank you so much for having me.
Stephanie:
Yeah, I’m really excited. I’d love to hear a little bit about Reclaim.
Zana:
My story is not the typical story of she liked fashion and therefore she’s super creative and wanted to do fashion. I am originally Croatian and I moved to Italy because Croatia was in the middle of a civil war. I grew up in Italy as a refugee and my parents, I remember, they were trying to get a job and they couldn’t get any job because they didn’t speak fluent Italian. Somehow, it was the early ’90s them and fashion was the thing to do in Italy. Somehow, they started working in the fashion industry, very, very small and they were lucky enough to have a pretty successful run with it.
Zana:
But to me growing up, fashion was this amazing tool for empowerment. It was something that you could wear and forget a little bit of your identity. I had this very heavy label I was carrying with me, I’m a refugee, a foreigner, an immigrant, and as a child, sometime, it was pretty heavy. But when you had the right outfit and you look really nice, people just assume different things and admired you and were inspired by you.
Zana:
Fashion became a little bit my armor and then going into my adult life, it really became a tool I would leverage and use to present myself in a certain way. Giving you an example, when I was at Uber, I was one of the youngest people there and I was already managing. Having the appropriate dress code that made me look a little bit older than my age was essential for my confidence. Very much today as well.
Zana:
Reclaim really is this testament to how do I help women connect to themselves more and just open up opportunities so they don’t have to worry about their outfit, but worry about much bigger and much more important things in their life.
Zana:
Reclaim is a fashion brand we started eight months ago and we focus on a very limited collection, all the wardrobe staples that every woman needs. But what we try to do is combine Italian craftsmanship and artisans. I’m Italian and my family is in Italian manufacturing. I literally grew up and made in Italy fashion. We tried to combine that aspect of fashion where beautiful aesthetic and a beautiful detail with love for practicality and function.
Zana:
I currently live in San Francisco, very Silicon Valley. Everybody’s superefficient, super go getter. We try to incorporate those to [inaudible] and the clothes, and we have a very limited collection of things that are practical, functional but also extremely beautiful.
Stephanie:
Very cool. I was reading a little bit about your story of how you were in pencil skirts and heels and then you came to Silicon Valley and everyone was wearing hoodies and jeans and you’re like, “I want something a little better.”
Zana:
Yeah, that was a bit of a shocker because I grew up in Italy, where fashion is part of your identity, such a country that has a sensibility for beauty and art and culture, and fashion is a form of art. I was coming from a very corporate world. I wear pencil skirt, high heels, very formal wear was the day today.
Zana:
And then my first job at Silicon Valley was working for Google. I remember showing up there and everybody was wearing jeans and sneakers and T-shirts. I adapted to that lifestyle in the work outfit. But I also felt super underdressed. I’m like, “Ah, last time I wore this outfit, I was 15 and in high school.” Is there anything a little bit more elevated? I feel like an adult and a woman with a career but still appropriate for business casual, and this is a little bit where Reclaim came from was how can we define a business casual aesthetic that is elevated but still very approachable and affordable
Stephanie:
Yeah, I love that. It’s funny. I also worked at Google and if you would even get what would be considered maybe dressed up, they’d be like, “Oh, where are you going today? Do you have a date afterwards?” You’re like, “No, I just want to wear a dress today. I just want to wear something cute.”
Zana:
100%. It will be, “Are you interviewing for a different job?”
Stephanie:
Yes, I would get that too. You’re working at Google, what did your career look like before Reclaim at Google or some of the other corporations? Were you in eCommerce or was that a big shift for you?
Zana:
It was a little bit of a shift. I mentioned before my family’s in fashion so they have boutiques on the Italian coast stuff but very old school. They barely have a website and they do a lot of manufacturing and older clientele hasn’t been the same for 30 years. I grew up in commerce but not eCommerce, a different generation.
Zana:
When I graduated college, I didn’t think about fashion as a career option to be honest. I was like, “I want to do something that is different.” Everybody I knew was in fashion. I was like, “I want to do something completely different and break the path with what my family is doing.” I ended up in consulting. I ended up in management consulting and I didn’t work for some fashion clients, but mostly I did a lot of projects and hardcore heavy industry, and after that I worked at Uber.
Zana:
I was managing Uber Eats in Italy which is different than fashion but is related to commerce and how to get conversion and how to get people to purchase your products. Some of the themes were similar and then the Google role was a mix of the two. It’s a little bit of strategy and a little bit of execution and was focused on growing this smart home business.
Zana:
I would say that the career path I took was not a fashion career path and then this shift happened in business school. When I went to business school, I realized actually I do want to embrace my roots and there is a lot I know and I can offer and I spotted this niche in the market and this gap that was really needed. Honestly, it was my pain point. I was like, “I really don’t know where to shop and I want to wear beautiful clothes but I also don’t ever want to go dry clean them.” That was the perfect solution.
Stephanie:
Yeah, that’s super important. I remember one time I had dresses to dry clean only I’m like, “I’m going to throw that dress away. I’m not going to do that. I don’t do dry clean.”
Zana:
I also have a lot of beautiful cashmere sweaters and I wear them once per season because they end up in my pile of stuff I need to bring to dry cleaning and it takes me months to go.
Stephanie:
When you’re shifting into creating Reclaim, did you tap into your family say, “Hey, here’s what I’m doing,” and start brainstorming with them since they are the experts but not in eCommerce but maybe in the industry when it comes to high end retail?
Zana:
100%. They were my first consultants, advisors, investors. They heard it all. My family business was a little bit like the sounding board for Reclaim and I spend a lot of time with the people in my family business and my family contacts. Like our pattern maker, for example, that we use in Reclaim she’s a person that I met through my family. She’s based in Florence. She’s super, super talented and I designed with her most of the clothes that you see in the Reclaim collection because I would bring in the creative perspective and the vision, but then the nitty gritty manufacturing specs, somebody who’s an expert has to do them. A lot of the concepts come from my family background.
Stephanie:
That network that seems a great way to start a company when you have different connections that you can tap into like that and different lessons that you can bring with you. That’s awesome. What did the early days of Reclaim look like? Tell me a little bit about starting it up and building the website presence and how you were thinking about attracting your first few customers.
Zana:
The early days… We launched last summer. That was our first collection launch. I’d say the early day was a little bit like still discovery. I want to say that that lasted for the first few months. From launch to beginning of January was a discovery moment. You come in and you’ve done a lot… At least, when I launched the website, I talked with more than 2000 women at that point. I thought I know it all. I’ve talked to them. I understood what they want.
Zana:
I have a crystal clear picture what is needed, but then, when you have a website is when you start learning for real because one thing is the people that you have face to face what are they telling you and another thing is, “Oh, how are people interacting on my website? What products are they looking at? What are they purchasing? Which ones are asking questions? Which product are getting returned?”
Zana:
I would say the real learning starts when you are putting something in front of people’s faces and you’re asking them, “Put your credit card information and buy.” That’s when you’re learning. Do you have product market fit? Or is there something you need to change?
Zana:
The early days were very, very busy. A lot of documentation and a lot of learning. We really cared about nailing it. Our first 300 to 400 customers, I would personally give them a call and just ask them, “How come you purchased? What convinced you? What did you like?” And just spend a lot of time learning and writing all that knowledge down and taking that feedback in. At the end of the day, we’d be like, “What did we learn today?” And just the bad thing and improving what you’re doing.
Zana:
I wouldn’t say that commerce is you have an idea, you put it out there and build it and they’ll come. It doesn’t really work like that. It’s literally like take a lot of pride into changing things every day and iterating as fast as possible.
Stephanie:
I love that. You had a good point of a lot of people sometimes think build it and they’ll come. But oftentimes, that’s not the case even if you have an epic product or website or whatever it may be. How did you find your first couple of customers? How did they find your website? How did you get in front of people? Did you do some marketing?
Zana:
Marketing is a great way to attract people. Our first customers came from the Stanford network. I went to Stanford Business School. The first purchaser were people within my network. People that graduated from Stanford, Stanford alumni, or people that were affiliated with the university because we market it in the university network. And then following that, we had a lot of word of mouth. People who were wearing our products will tell their friends. We had a lot of referral. Our first batch of people that started using the product were referral, learned about us through referral, and then paid marketing.
Zana:
We did paid marketing on Instagram and Facebook. That is a channel that you use to raise awareness about your brand and your product. Our second wave was through paid marketing.
Stephanie:
Very cool. How often are you all launching products or new lines?
Zana:
We are a slow fashion company. Let’s say, Zara. Zara would launch 20 collections a year, something that is not like fast fashion but still a high fashion. They would launch 14 collections a year which is a huge number. We’re a slow fashion company so what we do we launch very, very few products, but we spent an enormous amount of time making sure that those products are amazing and they’re done with the best material and the construction and fit are very well done.
Zana:
In total so far, we have launched one collection last summer and then we’re coming up with our second one this coming August and it’s a fall and winter collection and we’re having just four products, four basic products, but they’re done so much better than what’s out in the market.
Stephanie:
Very cool. When you say four basic products, am I thinking like a T-shirt, a black dress like that kind of product?
Zana:
Yeah, I can tell you more. We’re going to have white button down and the special thing about this white button down is that the front layer is actually made out of two different layers of fabric. You can 100% be sure that your white button down is not going to be see through which is a common problem every woman faces. And then material is the tencel material which is only produced in Germany, is highly sustainable, and it’s one of the most ethically conscious materials.
Zana:
Another thing we’re launching is two-piece jumpsuit and it’s also made in tencel, so super nice fabric. We made it two-piece because, I don’t know if that happens to you but it always happens to me, when you’re wearing a jumpsuit and you’re feeling amazing and then you go to the bathroom and you have this humbling moment where you’re completely naked in your office bathroom. We’re like, “No, it has to be practical.” We made it look like it’s only one piece but it’s actually two pieces.
Stephanie:
That’s awesome. I think every woman who’s either tried on a jumpsuit or worn one you’re like, “Oh, this is kind of awkward.”
Zana:
Yeah, you look great and then the first moment where you actually have to live your life, you’re like, “Oh, this is going to be difficult.”
Zana:
And then the third product we’re launching are… Those were our bestsellers in our first collection so we made some tweaks to them, but it’s a pair of pants. They’re made out of a super stretchy fabric but basically you’re wearing a pair of black pants that look very nice and professional, but they’re absurdly comfortable because the fabric is a 4-way stretch. You’re feeling like you’re wearing yoga pants but you look like you’re wearing a really nice pair of black jeans.
Stephanie:
That’s good. I need that.
Zana:
Our customers love them. We’ve got the most responses on those because they’re such a good cheat. You’re super comfortable but not inappropriate.
Zana:
And then the fourth product we’re producing is going to be a camel coat. This one, the fabric is amazing. It’s 30% cashmere and the rest is merino wool. It’s super nice and soft. You literally want to sleep with the fabric, just the fabric price is $250 worth of fabric. It’s super expensive but going direct to consumer, we will be able to price this product at a 350. It’s one of the most affordable best quality materials that you’ll be able to find.
Stephanie:
That’s great. How are you conveying this quality and value to consumers or new customers when they’re coming on your website? It’s hard if you can’t feel the fabric or try something on or know the backstory behind it that it’s coming from Germany or Italy. How are you conveying that message on your website?
Zana:
That’s a great question. Honestly, that is one of the hardest things to do because in a store, it’s very easy. Somebody walks in, you touch it, you try it on, you talk with a store associate and you understand the message. In e commerce, you have roughly 10 seconds to make an impression. That’s how much time people spend on one page before they decide. “Will I shop here?” Or they’ll just bounce and go somewhere else.
Zana:
I think here is one of the areas where we did the most learning. Initially, we would have a lot of marketing language to be honest. The highlight or have some bullet points. Now, our learning is actually, no, like the women are coming on our website they really want to learn. We do exactly how I described them to you. We have lengthy copy, we go into the details, we give people the story. You don’t have to read it.
Zana:
But if you’re interested, there are pages into story of the material, what is the German fabric that is making this material. We provide all of that information out there and then we do big visual. Visuals and images is what converse the best and what people are resonating the most. We combine the text and the rich information with images, beautiful lifestyle images that people can see a zoomed in image of the fabric and reviews.
Zana:
We have also a lot of product reviews where every single customer that purchased with us we’ve reached back and asked them if they want to review the product if they loved it and oftentimes they do, which is great.
Stephanie:
That’s awesome. How are you encouraging those reviews when a customer buys?
Zana:
We have an entire review post purchase encouragement system. The first attempt is always just to ask and usually… We have an email where I just introduce myself and tell them the story of our brand and how valuable their reviews are and that’s where most of the people do their reviews. And then our second or third interaction is we provide them with a discount to a future purchase in exchange for a review.
Stephanie:
That’s cool. Is there any split testing you do there that you’ve seen that worked better? I know we were speaking, I think, a couple weeks ago to the founder of Hous and she was talking about how she puts an image of her and her husband on a pamphlet every time they send a box or a thank you or something like that and that helps convert. Have you seen any best practices around that?
Zana:
The reason why we use my personal email for the reviews and I introduced myself is because people do like the personal touch. I’m sure that the founder of Hous was putting an image of her and her husband… People form a connection. My customers have the feeling that they know me and they’re purchasing from an actual person. That is a real bond.
Zana:
I had one customer who bought a pair of pants from us and then she wore those pants on her family photo shoot with her newborn baby. She emailed me afterwards and she was like, “Oh, I want you to have the photos of our family photo shoot because I wore your pants and I look so great and the photos are beautiful.” And I was just shocked. I was like, “This is so nice. This is amazing.”
Zana:
I don’t think I’ve ever emailed a brand to share like, “Oh, I wore this for an important moment of my life.” I felt so attached. I remembered that made my day. The fact that something that I came up with and I designed and produced and spent time thinking up on, it’s something that made her photo shoot more special and she felt prettier and more confident was very meaningful to me.
Stephanie:
That’s really cool. That is a good customer to have. Hopefully, you can keep her long term.
Zana:
We have the craziest customer. We had one customer who purchased our perfect pants, the pants that are super comfy but they look professional. She purchased one pair. She loved them so much that she purchased 12 of the same size, the same… I remember seeing this order and I was like, “There must be a mistake.”
Zana:
We email her because we thought there was a mistake or a glitch in the system and she was like, “No, I really love your pants. I want to have one for everyday of the week and I always want to have one ready because those are the pants I wore the most, so I just purchased 12.” And I was just like, “I love you. You’re amazing. Where do I find more customers like you?”
Stephanie:
Yeah, really. If you know, you know. That’s great. Are you trying to also cross sell to a customer? I’m guessing when someone comes on your website and there’s not a huge product catalog, it’s probably beneficial to be able to say, “You’re looking at this sweater. You should try this pair of pants with it too.” How are you thinking about showing other products and are you personalizing at all?
Zana:
Yeah. The collection that we’re launching is only four pieces and you’re meant to have them all and they work as a capsule. All the colors are in the same color palette and they’re all made to be mixed and matched. The idea is that you do purchase the entire catalog, and we’re very mindful.
Zana:
The collection that we’re coming up now is very much in line with the one we had before just a different cuts and different styles, but all the ones we are going to do in the future we’re going to keep the same color palette and consistent materials so that people that decide to be Reclaim customers will have a trusted brand where they can have the entire wardrobe being a Reclaim wardrobe and it will always work for them because we’re not going to have crazy fashion forward pieces that you buy once and they don’t go with anything that you own. All the colors that we pick are very much neutral, creams, beige, black, and white. But it’s a palette made to be mixed and matched and to do cross selling.
Stephanie:
Got it. Do you see people normally do buy multiple products at once? Or is there a little bit of convincing afterwards? If someone’s like, “Oh, I’m just going to buy the button up and pants,” are you then saying, “You forgot the sweater. You forgot the jumpsuit.”
Zana:
Both. On average, people buy two products. That’s our website average. But oftentimes people who bought and liked the products come back to the website and either buy more or just like fill their carts to try new products. Both things are true. Average first order is at least two items and then we have a lot of returning customers.
Stephanie:
Cool. Is there analytics that you’re checking out to either see did they add something to their cart and removed it or were they hovering over something for a long time? Or is there any metrics that you look at behind the scenes to target those customers?
Zana:
100%. We have an abandoned cart flow. We call them flow. When we see somebody put something in their cart and then they ended up not checking out, basically an email follows them and ad follows them for a few days just to remind them that they still have this product in their cart and if they want to purchase it, then people who do purchase get an introduction to every product of the collection. They will receive emails to learn about the different products. If somebody, for example, bought the camel coat and then the following weekend then email about the pants. They can go back and purchase the pants.
Zana:
But there are some Holy Grail metrics that we look at as a startup. For us, returning customer is super important, even more than customer acquisition, even more than value of the basket size. Returning customer is what we really care about because that’s the metric that shows how do people like you and how do people trust you and how well do they like your product.
Stephanie:
How do you reengage a customer if you have your… I think you mentioned slow fashion is the industry that you’re in. How do you reengage someone when you might not have another product launch for six months or a year?
Zana:
You don’t. That is a little bit the tradeoff. You can either have customers who are going to buy lots of pieces with you and you’re going to have a high lifetime value of that customer, but they might not like you that much. They might consider you as us. “I bought it because it was cheap and it was on sale and I keep it in my wardrobe.” But then the first Marie Kondo moment you have and you go through your wardrobe that is the first item that doesn’t give you joy.
Zana:
Our model is very different. Our model is we’re going to do fewer much better pieces and a customer will wait for our collection to come because they know it’s going to be superior quality and it’s going to be a piece that they will buy and keep for years.
Stephanie:
That’s a good idea. Is there any education that you give your customers around why they should move away from the idea of the fast fashion industry or how to think about that? Any education behind the scenes that you’re also doing?
Zana:
We are vocal about it in our Instagram but we’re also considering starting a blog just to educate about what is this little fashion movement. But I would say that in 2020, a lot of the people that we interact with are extremely conscious consumers especially the younger generation. They know if a product is sustainable. They care if a product has an impact on the environment.
Zana:
I would say that it’s the age of information. If somebody wants to know how ethical a company is and how much they honored your commitment, it’s very easy to learn that. I don’t know. I remember 15 years ago when fashion companies were like, “Oh, everybody’s telling us we’re not green.” And they all started doing marketing campaigns in the middle of the forest. Get away with that. Literally, it’s a practice called greenwashing.
Stephanie:
I had never heard about that but I do remember seeing images of people in new outfits and whatnot marketing them while they were sitting on a tree branch or standing in a field.
Zana:
Yeah, literally. That is called greenwashing where you basically show some images that could make your customers think that you’re greener or more ethical than you actually are. I despise that. I don’t want to be that kind of company ever.
Zana:
For us, it’s very important just the customer that we have care and we do too. I’m okay if somebody who is not our ideal customer doesn’t want to shop with us. I’m okay with that. If our price point is too high or if being sustainable is too expensive, I’m happy to have a smaller market but be company that is worth having in this world, than compromising on my morals and having great profitability.
Stephanie:
Yeah, that makes sense. It seems like your consumers would be interested in the community aspect of… You have a great personal story. You have a good story behind your company, a fun process, probably if they wanted to see behind the scenes of who’s making what and how you’re thinking about your designs and coming up with ideas and balancing all that out. How do you think about building a community around your brand?
Zana:
Our social media is our most powerful channel to share. We always post stories of behind the scenes and what’s happening and what are we going through. That is the channel where the community is starting to mobilize. But in general, we do a lot of in person events. Not now because COVID changed that. But before COVID we would do brunch and browse, shop and sit. We would do events like this or and we target professional women in San Francisco because this is where we’re based. We were very active on Facebook groups for professional women.
Zana:
We would have events where women can just come together and talk about their challenges and how they’re advancing their career and simultaneously try on new great clothes. That is something that we help foster a lot.
Stephanie:
That’s fun. I want to do one of the brunch and browses. That sounds awesome. Were you doing popup shops? Or how were people were they browsing? Online while in person or how do you think about the in person experience and retail locations?
Zana:
We have a partnership with a company like… We have multiple partnerships with companies that only have stores. We were in a Re:store in downtown San Francisco. They had our products on for six months. Now, they’re close but they’re reopening soon. And then we’re opening our location in L.A. and one in New York with [inaudible 00:28:27]. We have partnerships with companies that basically bring URL brands and products in real life events.
Stephanie:
That’s cool. How do you think about creating those partnerships and finding the right person, the right store? How would if someone was brand new go about finding a partnership like that?
Zana:
You have to make sure that is the right path you want to go on. I say that because retail distribution at this moment is not something that we could afford because we are a direct to consumer brand. We use premium materials and we make sure that our materials are done in an ethical and sustainable way. Our product cost is pretty high. We still keep prices as affordable as we can. Therefore, we don’t have enough margin to pay a store or retailer and have a big distribution. Therefore, the partnership that we use we see them more as an opportunity to have a marketing presence in L.A. or New York.
Zana:
If somebody wants to touch our products and learn more about them, they can actually go and have a physical retail presence but it’s more an exercise and a way to discover products rather than a sales channel for us. Our direct to consumer website is our number one channel for sure. It’s the place that we use because that is the only way we can pass on as much price saving to the customer as we can.
Stephanie:
Yep. That makes sense. How have you seen conversions when it comes to people seeing something in person and then buying it online? Were you tracking that? Have you seen success in that model?
Zana:
What we noticed is that people who discover us in person are very loyal. The people who have had the chance to try on pieces and have had the chance to touch all the materials, they are the ones who end up buying. Most of the products have the highest basket size and they’re the ones coming back just because they had the opportunity to discover everything and literally touch it with their own hands rather than seeing it on a website. There was definitely a benefit to that.
Zana:
But as I said, we are thinking about a model where in the future you can have a store where you discovered a product and touch and feel it but the growth will still come from eCommerce rather than opening stores across America. That’s not something that we’re thinking about at all.
Stephanie:
Got it. Maybe having like guide shops style where people can go in and look at it and then still go online and order to keep your margins down where you guys have now or close to it, I guess, not where they’re at. Exactly. Very cool. To shift into more general eCommerce questions, what kind of trends are you most excited about over the next year or two around e commerce? Because a lot of things are shaking up right now, so I’m sure there’s a lot on your mind.
Zana:
Yeah. Oh my God. eCommerce has been exploding. COVID definitely helped the eCommerce grow, but we’re seeing multiple trends. One trend was definitely… Apparel did suffer a little bit.
Zana:
When COVID started in March, we saw an impact on our sales because everybody was scared. Most people are working from home. Our pieces are investment pieces to make you look great when you go to work or when you’re out and about. It’s not at leisure. And suddenly, the world is shopping for pajamas. We saw there was an impact to our sales. But the trend is quickly changing. Already in April, we saw a bump in sales and we think it’s stimulus check giving an impetus to, “Let’s buy nice beautiful clothes.” We’re seeing different trends.
Zana:
In terms of things I’m excited about, I’m very excited about sustainability. I’m very excited about slow fashion, the fact that consumers really care and want to purchase companies that our ethical.
Zana:
I’m most excited that customers are seeing that fast fashion and buying on sale and buying seasonal pieces is not something that they want to keep on doing. It’s something that it’s okay for your early 20s when you’re broke and you want to be on trend, but the moment you’re in your 30s or 40s, you want to have a more of a… They call it like a French lady aesthetic. Few pieces, very well done, super high quality, but not always make you look very chic rather than a bunch of things that do not make sense together.
Stephanie:
There’s this one company that always targets me on Instagram and they drop new products, I think, it’s every week and it got to a point where it’s like, “Is this even quality? How can you drop new product lines every single week?” I started looking into it and you’re like, “The reviews are pretty bad.” “Oh, it’s not…” Like you said there’s no good ethical practices that are happening behind the scenes, but they’re just very good at marketing.
Zana:
Ask yourself. If you see a T-shirt that is being priced six, $7, think about it. If the cost of Starbucks coffee is four or $5 and making your coffee is much easier than making a T-shirt that requires fabric, people sewing it, machines, transportation, it just makes you think. Somewhere in the supply chain, they must be taking some shortcuts.
Stephanie:
Yeah, I completely agree. It definitely is a good time too around apparel for a lot of people to rethink, like you said, what they’re wearing, what’s important because right now everyone’s been in workout clothes and now even myself, it’s like, “What do I really want to invest in going forward?” Because up until now, I’ve only had to worry about my top half and just have a nice looking shirt on maybe.
Stephanie:
But once it starts going back to work and going out into the world, I do think there will be a big shift in the consumers mind around, “What do I actually want to wear going forward and not just, like you said, for a season or a few weeks and then be done with it and clog up your closet space?”
Zana:
Exactly. That’s definitely a trend that we want to participate in where if you already have a limited disposable income because the world is an uncertain place right now rather than spending it on things that are not going to last or that are questionable, spend a little bit more on fewer things which ends up being the same amount of money at the end of the day. But you’re 100% happier with the premium pieces.
Stephanie:
All right. Let’s move on to the lightning round brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. It’s where I send a question your way and you have one minute or less to answer. Are you ready?
Zana:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
What’s up next on your reading list?
Zana:
The Wheel of Time. It’s a fantasy book.
Stephanie:
I haven’t heard of it. I have to check it out. What’s up next on your Netflix or Hulu queue?
Zana:
Oh my God, don’t judge me for this but I think it’s going to be The Bold Type or Selling Sunset. Don’t hate me for this. I watch everything that was watchable on Netflix. Now I’m starting to trash watching.
Stephanie:
I actually can’t judge you. It’s funny because I was just watching Selling Sunset last night. I’m like, “This is so embarrassing but I’m going to keep watching it because it’s really funny and I ran out of things to watch.” No judgment coming from my side.
Stephanie:
Next on your travel destinations when you’re able to travel again?
Zana:
I want to go to Italy. I know it’s cheating but because I’m international in America, the recent visa immigration policies have been really difficult. I haven’t seen my family in a year now and the moment this is all over, I’m going to Italy. I’m going to vacation for a month and I’m going to make all my friends jealous on Instagram. I don’t care but I deserve it.
Stephanie:
I think I’m just going to come with you. You don’t even have to worry about me. I’ll just get behind the scenes. I’ll be like, “Hey, mom and dad, where’s my pasta?”
Zana:
We can go to Italy and watch Selling Sunset. I think we have a plan.
Stephanie:
Yeah, there we go. It’ll be a perfect girls’ trip.
Stephanie:
What’s up next on your shopping list?
Zana:
I actually want to buy a nice desk. I’m eyeing this beautiful wood desk on AllModern. I think that’s going to be my next purchase.
Stephanie:
Oh, that sounds great. If you were able to pick anyone to go to brunch with, other than me because that’d be a blast, who would you pick? It can be a celebrity or whoever you want.
Zana:
Oprah. I’ll definitely go to brunch with Oprah or AOC, one of the two. I have a big girl crush on both of them so I should decide which one.
Stephanie:
You can bring them both. That sounds fun. And the last harder one, what one thing do you think will have the biggest impact on eCommerce in the next year?
Zana:
Next year?
Stephanie:
In the next year, yep.
Zana:
This one is a hard one. I don’t know if under one minute it’s answerable, but I think different forms of creative so Tik Tok is exploding. How to leverage different platforms like Tik Tok or just different forms of creating than the usual that we’ve been accustomed to see.
Stephanie:
Cool, great answer. It’s been super fun having you on here. Where can people find out more about you and Reclaim?
Zana:
They can always shop and this is reclaim.com and follow us on our Instagram @thisisreclaim.
Stephanie:
Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show. It was really fun and we’ll have to have you back in the future.
Zana:
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me.
