Roger Hardy is infatuated by all things retail. More specifically, the Founder of Hardy Capital Partners is a retail guru of sorts who strives to entrench himself in businesses that have innovative strategies and strong growth potential.
Also the Founder and former CEO of Coastal Contacts Inc., Hardy helped breed the business, which turned into Canada’s largest e-Commerce company. In 2012, the company surpassed $1 billion in cumulative sales. Essilor International went on to acquire Coastal Contacts in August 2014.
Now, Hardy is focusing on his newest business, SHOEme, which is the parent company of SHOEme.ca and OnlineShoes.com. Under his guidance as CEO, SHOEme acquired Shoes.com, a Missouri-based eTailer in December 2014.
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“We’re focusing on consolidating our shoe businesses and looking at how we can better serve customers in the footwear world,” Hardy said in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. Based on his prior experiences with Coastal Contacts, Hardy honed in on the importance of omnichannel.
“Back in 2011, we started opening stores for Coastal and that’s when we hit a high with brand awareness,” Hardy explained. “We realized in that moment that there was a big segment of the market we weren’t serving. People were so familiar with the company and the values and the experiences of friends and family. But having the store allowed them to transact because they weren’t comfortable shopping online for some reason.”
With 16 stores, Coastal established an aggressive brick-and-mortar strategy that aimed to have 50 stores worldwide by the end of 2015. “Our stores were almost immediately profitable, which is basically unheard of,” Hardy reflected. This anecdote highlights the potential for online-only retailers when they decide to venture into brick-and-mortar territory.
“Every retailer today has to serve customers where they want to transact,” Hardy said. “That was the reason why Coastal Contacts got acquired in the end. In the beginning, everyone thought they had to be all in with e-Commerce. But now, they realize that you need to have a solid web offering, solid retail offering and even a marketplace offering so you can provide the best solution to customers.”
Although some eTailers are opening their own stores, Hardy noted that brick-and-mortar and omnichannel brands have an edge over their online-only counterparts.
“Traditional retailers have a clear advantage over online retailers just because their products are in close proximity to their customers,” Hardy said. “You’re seeing Amazon open distribution centers all over the country to try and get products closer to customers and provide same-day delivery. Frankly, that’s the advantage Walmart has over Amazon.”
Creating A Curated, Mobile-Friendly Experience
Beyond the new omnichannel imperative, Hardy underscored the growing importance of mobility.
“The companies that are doing mobile well are differentiating themselves and are moving away from the pack,” he said. “There’s clearly no silver bullet yet and I’m not sure if there ever will be. But Booking.com is one company that has stood out in the mobile space. Geico owns insurance in the mobile space and retailer Zulily has revealed that up to 40% of [its] transactions [are] happening on mobile devices.”
For SHOEme, a strong and successful mobile strategy hinges on curation. Specifically, the retailer wants to use mobile to learn about customer interests and preferences, and build deeper connections with them. Big Data will play an important role in this process.
“There is all sorts of Big Data being assembled about our customers,” Hardy said. “We want to use this data in an intelligent way and ensure we’re crafting the right collections for customers. We might not get all the way there in 2015, but that’s where we want to lead and differentiate.”
Hardy pointed to shoe fit as a key opportunity for SHOEme to stand out. Returns are unavoidable in the online shoe business, but by using Big Data, the retailer can track and analyze past purchases and track the shoe models customers return.
“We want to get people closer to finding the perfect fit,” he said. “If you purchased three or four pairs of shoes with us, we can determine which styles you’re going to love, which brands you gravitate to, and then we can curate the collection based on size.”