You Have to Design for Phone Screens” Self-made man

Johnnie Boden may have been a teacher, but he still remains willing to learn something new every day. In recent years, his company has undergone a period of change: from a catalogue business to an online retailer. The next step is wholesale. As a family entrepreneur, Boden believes he has both the courage to try new things and the ability to admit mistakes.

JOHNNIE BODEN

“YOU HAVE TO DESIGN FOR PHONE SCREENS”

Colourful, creative fashion for women, men, and children, always with a subtle British touch, is what has turned Boden into one of the most successful British brands. Johnnie Boden is looking forward to the year 2020. “I am keen on some good news and there hasn’t been much good news recently,” he says. Fiercer competition, the transition from catalogue retailer to e-commerce, and widespread market challenges are forcing family businesses to think and act differently. However, Boden is certain of one thing: there is no salvation in internationalisation and expansion – at least not when you haven’t done your homework properly. That’s why his motto places profit above turnover. Launch, operate, and then start adjusting the small and large screws meticulously. The Englishman is a boss with a hands-on approach.

Interview: Stephan Huber. Photos: Jennifer Endom Y ou were initially a teacher. Did

anything from your former career come in handy for your business venture?

Yes, I was a teacher. However, I had no real training when I started my business. I learned everything on the job. I think everything I have learned can be traced back deep into to my childhood.

Why did you choose the fashion business?

I used to travel to America regularly. I found their catalogue businesses like J. Crew or Lands’ End interesting, even though I never bought anything from the catalogues myself. I started thinking whether that could work in the UK. I was left some money by an uncle from whom I wasn’t expecting anything. It was enough to buy a flat and have a bit left over. I had been interested in clothes when I was a school boy. When I was eight, I used to take photos of my mother’s friends’ shoes. When I went to Eton, I used to come to London and buy tweed overcoats at Portobello. Then I’d visit a shop in Covent Garden called Flip, an American vintage store, to buy Converse high tops. I was always interested in fashion, but I only turned to it when I was so unsuccessful and unhappy in my other job.

So, you decided to design a pair of gloves?

Yes, that was one of the things… I had a father who was quite old-fashioned and I never got any praise for anything. He was quite tough. He was an amazing man in many ways, but he was quite difficult in others. One of the benefits of having a childhood like that is that you are quite good at taking advice. I had some confidence, but I was quite insecure in other ways. So, I was quite good at just asking around and getting advice. I spoke to a friend who had a friend who owns a factory. And one finds these connections quite quickly actually. I found producers, photographers, and PR advisors. Setting the business up was much easier than I imagined – the hard bit was making it succeed.

How essential is the “Britishness” of Boden?

It’s a very good question, because we think about that a lot. Initially, it was of course completely unconscious and we weren’t thinking international at all. It was only when we noticed that we had lots of American and German customers in our database that we thought, well, let’s promote the brand internationally. The Britishness plays its part, but I think our German and American customers are pretty sophisticated. They don’t buy a piece just because it has a red bus on it.

We continental Europeans can see the British touch…

What exactly does it mean to you?

It’s hard to explain. It’s the way you play with colours and patterns.

It’s a bit braver, isn’t it really?

Yeah, it’s a different look.

So, it’s not conscious. I think the moment you start having to really tie it up, I would be worried about that, you know. It needs to remain a quite subtle influence.

How does a British company prepare for Brexit?

We simply don’t know what’s going to happen. We have got some rough ideas. But I think I would rather spend the money then instead of spending it now and finding out that I have misspent it.

You once said: “Everybody needs to be an omni-channel retailer…”.

Yeah, I am not sure that’s right any more. I think customers need to have the opportunity to touch and feel your clothes, but I am no longer convinced that we are going to open hundreds of shops.

Besides running your own stores, are you also tempted by the wholesale business?

It’s quite interesting financially, but difficult to reconcile with my view of the brand. In the business, you can’t control the brand. You can’t have your own shop fittings.

On the other hand, you can already draw from the fact that you are a strong brand.

Yes, but in terms of people who haven’t heard of you, I am not convinced you are putting your best foot forward.

Is it, in other words, a trial rather than a strategy?

Yes, exactly. The right thing to do is to test. If it doesn’t work, stop doing it. Wholesale is merely a very, very small part of our business. We are fundamentally always going to be a profile retailer through catalogue and web.

How difficult was it to transform a catalogue business into an online business?

People always imagine that it’s very easy. The vital benefit is that you already have warehouses and logistics in place. You’ve got a call centre and experience in warehousing is a huge asset. The difference when you’re producing a catalogue is that you’re effectively claiming that an item is in stock when people look at it in the kitchen. When people ring up and are told they can’t get it, they become cross. On the web, if it’s not in stock, you take it down. You can afford to buy in a very different way. You can buy a hundred units or something. For the catalogue, we have to buy a minimum to avoid disappointing customers. It’s a different psychology. We spend loads of money to ensure that the photography in the catalogue is beautiful, but the online business requires a different style of photography. Those fields hardly ever correspond.

Let’s return to your plans for your stationary presence in the German-speaking markets.

Yeah, we’d be in Germany for about probably ten years. We are now looking at wholesale and all that. We’re just dipping our toes into the water, so to speak.

Competition is much tougher today, especially online. Everyone has to find an answer to the question of whom we’ll sell what, where, and when in the future – and why. It’s impressive that you, as the owner who manages the business, are leading it into the future so successfully. What are your goals for the next few years?

We are optimistically ambitious. Yes, I wouldn’t be doing it if I wouldn’t think we could do a lot better. I do think that we need to try new things. I think we need to be more agile and sell more in a more country-specific manner. We need to, for instance, become more personalised in our selling to Germany and make sure we only sell things the specific market wants to buy. I think the interesting thing is that today’s customers are very international. If you have a bad season in the UK, the other markets no longer bail you out. On the other hand, success is transferred to other markets too. If you look at the top ten sellers in our markets, there’ll be five styles they all have in common.

Does globalisation create a kind of global taste?

If I am to generalise, there still are some significances. For example, the Americans are more formal. The Germans are more casual. The English are more trend aware.

A huge challenge for the beautiful buzzword personalisation.

Yes, which is very hard to do. If you over-emphasise it, you lose the benefits of communal scale. Manufacturing individually for every market has both advantages and disadvantages.

Exactly. I always thought it was a big misunderstanding to think that customers want to be designers. That’s not true. When I go out for dinner, I don’t want to cook. I want to be at a place where I know what to expect. That’s the whole point. What do you think is important in terms of personalisation?

I think it’s actually rather embarrassing that we still aren’t good at such quite simple things. It’s surprisingly hard to send a simple e-mail that is both relevant to customers and reflects their respective tastes. One thinks this stuff should be really easy, but it’s quite difficult for a business. This is a very good example to illustrate how growth makes you much better in some areas, but worse in others.

The main focus remains on the product?

That’s a very good question. Number one is the product, number two is the imagery. Outfitting is a close third. There are two aspects for both the website and the catalogue. The first is emotion – creating an emotional connection and making people go: “Wow, that’s lovely!” The second aspect is convenience. The size chart needs to be good. The phones have to work. It’s all there.

It’s very interesting that the smart phone is so essential in this field too…

If the brief is success on the web, it means you have to design for phone screens.

It’s so obvious and logical, yet nobody says it as clearly as you do. Do you conduct market research? Do you test whether customers desire certain elements, such as individualisation?

Well, first you always need to know who to ask and what question to ask. You might simply say: “Stephan, you bought a number of white shirts, as well as other types of shirts, from us last year. We suspect that you wear a white shirt for work. How about this blazer?” It’s all about inspiring people with relevant content.

So the real challenge is to transfer the knowledge and service offered by excellent salespeople in stationary stores to the online world?

Yes. Somebody once said that you should think of yourself as an old fashioned butcher. In the 1950s or 1960s , you’d go to your butcher and he’d say: “Hello Stephan, I know how much you like liver. I have some really nice liver for you. I know how much you like calf liver, but I have some really delicious chicken liver and it’s really inexpensive.” It’s the same principle: understanding your customer and giving them relevant alternatives.

Which alternative would be tempting for your business? Asia maybe?

We talked about Asia, but it is not one of our focus markets at the moment. It may sound like a bit of a cliché, but going from 7 to 9 in an existing market is much more profitable than going from 0 to 3 in a new market.

Profit or turnover?

If you make more profit, you can afford to try new things. It is, however, foolish to think that a new market will get you out of trouble when things aren’t going very well. I find it very interesting how many small improvements can make a major difference.

An example?

Slightly better colours, better prints, more flushing shades, better models, more uplifting photography, an improved homepage… All those things combined can make the difference between a really good dress and an okay dress – and the difference can be enormous. We sell 50,000 units of one dress in a season, while we only sell a few hundred units of another. It’s difficult to comprehend at first glance, but then you start thinking about it and it all becomes clear. Look at the length, the way it is shot. Look how it fits her. Look at the colours. These are all things you can influence quite easily. But if you start thinking about too many things… Well, let’s say focus is important.

Is it difficult to find the right people who understand this approach?

Very difficult. It’s a pioneering industry. Not many people have experience, unless they gained it directly. The problem is that people with this level of intelligence and understanding rarely tread this path, unless they’re already running their own businesses. Moreover, we have to compete for talent with bigger companies. We have some great people here, but it took a long time to find them.

Understandable. It’s also a tech-based business. In such fields, specialists tend to prefer working for Mercedes than for a fashion company, mainly because – at least here in Germany – they have a greater affinity to the automotive angle. Speaking of Germany and its quirks, how do you assess the high return rate in this particular country and in general?

You just accept it. Particularly in Germany, so many customers buy on credit. They try on lots of different sizes before sending more than half of the merchandise back.

How’s that situation in the UK?

People usually pay by credit card, meaning that the virtual shopping baskets aren’t as spectacularly full as in Germany.

How is that reflected in the return rate?

Germany has something like 60 percent. In the UK, it’s somewhere between 30 and 40 percent. At one point, our warehouse in Brompton was divided into two thirds for packing and one third for returns. Now it’s half and half.

Johnnie Boden hasn’t wasted a thought on retirement yet. He says he feels flattered by takeover offers, but simply can’t picture himself as a non-executive manager who only works half-days. He also has no intention of forcing his daughters (19, 22, and 24 years of age) into a specific role.

This topic has captivated me for a long time. I conducted an interview with Ron Herrmann roughly 12 years go. He said that a return rate of 50 percent or higher would suggest that the online retailer in question is doing a poor job. The comparison is misleading, as the return rate would have to be compared with the dressing room in a store. I take four trousers in, but I only buy one. That’s a return rate of 75 percent. Consequently, one just has to accept returns as part of online retailing. A new aspect is the discussion about the environmental impact of returns.

Well, this is an issue we could argue about forever. Unless you walk to the shops, driving to the shops isn’t great for the environment either. Stores consume lots of electricity too. I don’t think it’s as clean cut as that. I think the area where we are all guilty is plastic, because warehouses are dirty places and we protect the clothes with plastic. We are looking at alternatives and I think we’ll have a better solution within the next year.

Does the environmental discussion influence your choice of production locations? It may be necessary to prepare for potential customs duties or the taxation of long transport routes.

We are currently manufacturing in the Middle East, Far East, southern Europe, Turkey, and North Africa, but we are trying to produce more locally. That is possible up to a point. The debate about the environment is a good thing. For example, we are looking at schemes that allow customers to send their clothes back for repairs free of charge. We grant long guarantee periods. We want people to buy less and buy better. There are people guilty of a lot more environmental damage than we are. We use accredited factories and inspect them regularly. I am quite proud of it all, but what I don’t want to do is to make outlandish claims about how brilliant we are, because in some aspects we aren’t brilliant yet. Journalists tend to pounce on those aspects.