Point of View: J. Crew

This near-depression certainly taught us that the methods we were supposed to implement to grow a business profitably weren't effective. For instance, we learned that it is probably a bad idea to expand into retail and be saddled with huge levels of long-term debt when 20% of the economy falls out from under you ... turns out that fabled multi-channel customer that vendors and consultants told us to pursue couldn't cover the interest on the debt.

So for the next few weeks, we're going to take a peek at what companies are doing online to create a "point of view" ... what are companies doing online to differentiate themselves from the competition? I'm not saying any of this is going to "work" for you ... the goal of the series is to simply illustrate what other companies are doing.

Let's start with J. Crew. Take a look at their "Who's That Girl" feature (click here). Most specialty apparel retailers are essentially selling the same thing at the same price. J. Crew is taking a different approach, featuring a few of the creative folks, letting you get to know them and their point of view.

Humans make a difference, folks. In any Multichannel Forensics project or Online Marketing Simulation, I repeatedly find that long-term customer value increases significantly when a customer has an interaction with a real human being.

Here, J. Crew is introducing you to some of the human beings that work behind the scenes. If all things are equal, and you're buying the same item from Gap or J. Crew, maybe you buy it from J. Crew because you know a little bit more about the people behind the scenes, who knows?

It's certainly worth testing, isn't it?

J. Crew Results

If you want to review thoroughly enjoyable comments from J. Crew management, take a look at the most recent investor conference call. Management offers surprisingly candid views on folks who are copy-cat merchandisers. They also plan to reduce catalog circulation, following successful tests in Q4-2008 ... this is the irony of the multichannel model, folks. We were taught that we had to mail catalogs to drive sales --- except that the retailers testing this stuff are cutting back on catalogs or discontinuing them. Hmmmmm.

If you check to see if J. Crew has a Twitter presence, you'll see they have parked the J. Crew name.

But no need to worry --- other folks do the marketing for J. Crew. 1,119 folks follow the Jcrewaholics on Twitter, or follow via the Jcrewaholics blog. When I posted a comment about J. Crew on Twitter last night, Jcrewaholics pinged me back in about five minutes ... mind you, they probably never knew I existed prior to my comment on my Twitter page.

Imagine what all this stuff looks like in five years, should momentum really pick up. If this discipline can be done right (a huge "if"), how much marketing would really be needed?

J. Crew Traffic Up 64% On Tuesday

Michelle Obama appeared on The Tonight Show on Monday night, where she announced that her outfit was purchased at J. Crew.

According to CNBC and NY Daily News, traffic at http://jcrew.com increased by 64%, with traffic to the skirt that Ms. Obama wore increasing by 464%.

Here's a link to the outfit, courtesy of The Styleist.

J. Crew already had a paid search link up (no competition) on Google. The blogger willing to respond quickly also gets traffic.

It's a new, nimble world, a dynamic ecosystem rewarding folks who participate.

Your Company's Multichannel DNA

Here's what I did. I scanned the 2007 10-K statements of five publicly traded companies:

• Nordstrom (JWN).
• J.C. Penney (JCP).
• Williams Sonoma (WSM).
• J. Crew (JCG).
• Coldwater Creek (CWTR).

Within each document, I scanned terms, like STORES, RETAIL, MULTI-CHANNEL, CATALOG, ONLINE, INTERNET, WEB, MAIL ORDER, CUSTOMER, CONSUMER, E-COMMERCE, E-MAIL, and DATABASE.

After tabulating the results, I was able to rank each of the five brands on the basis of how often these terms were used. The terms reflect how the management team of each company views the world. Let's take a peek at the findings.


Stores / Retail: The results aren't surprising, with Nordstrom and J.C. Penney skewing heaviest to these terms. Clearly, these brands view themselves as retailers, not so much as direct marketers.

• Nordstrom = 68.1%
• J.C. Penney = 67.3%
• J. Crew = 56.4%
• Coldwater Creek = 53.3%
• Williams Sonoma = 51.5%

Catalog: Guess which companies used this term most often? Sure, the ones with a catalog heritage (though JCP shows how they changed over time).

• Williams Sonoma = 14.9%
• Coldwater Creek = 12.5%
• J. Crew = 10.6%
• J.C. Penney = 5.6%.
• Nordstrom = 4.7%.

Internet: This one is a bit murkier to interpret. I'll leave it up to you!

• Williams Sonoma = 11.6%
• J. Crew = 11.5%
• Nordstrom = 9.7%
• J.C. Penney = 8.1%
• Coldwater Creek = 7.8%

E-Mail: Do these companies care about e-mail marketing enough to say something about it? Nope. E-Mail marketers appear to have work to do to prove the viability of this channel to Sr. Management.

• Coldwater Creek = 3.0%.
• J. Crew = 0.9%
• Nordstrom = 0.0%
• J.C. Penney = 0.0%
• Williams Sonoma = 0.0%

Multichannel: We hear the buzzword over and over and over from the vendor community. Do the management of these brands talk about it publicly? Not really.

• Nordstrom = 2.9%
• Coldwater Creek = 1.8%
• Williams Sonoma = 0.4%
• J.C. Penney = 0.3%
• J. Crew = 0.3%

Customer: Often mentioned in context with the direct channel, this illustrates how often these brands talk about serving customers, vs. managing stores. Notice the inverse relationship with retail focus.

• Williams Sonoma = 21.4%
• Coldwater Creek = 20.3%
• J. Crew = 19.8%
• J.C. Penney = 18.8%
• Nordstrom = 14.7%

Database: Does anybody mention metrics from the customer or e-mail database? Nope! A tip of the hat to Coldwater Creek for at least having a bit of database information available.

• Coldwater Creek = 1.3%
• J. Crew = 0.6%
• Nordstrom = 0.0%
• J.C. Penney = 0.0%
• Williams Sonoma = 0.0%

Does Any Of This Mean Anything? Yes!

The management teams of each company speak publicly, in an official manner, once a year. When they speak, they signal to the public what they care about.

Nordstrom and J.C. Penney care about retail, though Nordstrom talks more about being multichannel than anybody else. Clearly, Nordstrom wants to use the direct channel to inspire retail growth, given that they don't talk about their catalog or online channels much.

Williams Sonoma management discussions are skewed toward catalog. Williams Sonoma speaks about the online channel more than anybody else as well. The DNA of this company is all about direct marketing. Even though this company has a veritable plethora of retail locations compared with somebody like Nordstrom, the way this company views the world is fundamentally different.

J. Crew has a direct marketing skew, though the skew is focused online. The web means something more to J. Crew management than to the companies that have a catalog focus.

Coldwater Creek has the most unusual DNA of the companies listed. Management appears to view channels from a marketing standpoint, mentioning catalog marketing, e-mail marketing, and the customer database more often than the rest.


The data qualitatively illustrate that the management teams, and in all likelihood the culture of each company, have a DNA that determines "who they are".

This view of "who they are" may determine how each company approaches the future. Companies with a catalog heritage will believe in catalog marketing as a solution. Companies that view the web as an integral tool will use it to drive future business. Companies that view stores as the core part of the business might use direct marketing to improve comps.

What is the DNA of the company you work for? How does your DNA shape how your company views the future?

Annual Report Update: J. Crew

A few tidbits from the J. Crew annual report:

• Since 2002, catalog sales dropped from $108.5 million to $90.0 million in 2006. Since 2006, online sales increased from $139.5 million in 2002 to $218.7 million in 2006.

• Catalog circulation is making the slow descent that is common with other brands. In 2002, 66,000,000 catalogs were circulated. In 2006, 50,000,000 catalogs were circulated.
  

• Multichannel Information: "As of February 3, 2007, our customer database contained approximately 22.8 million individual customer names, of which 2.5 million were households that had placed a catalog or Internet order with us or made a store purchase from us within the previous twelve months, and 3.0 million email addresses of customers who had agreed to receive promotional emails from us."

• Targeted E-Mails are sent to Mens, Womens, Kids and Sale customers.

• 30% of online customers report receiving a catalog prior to their online purchase. To me, this seems like a reasonable rate for a business with a retail channel, though industry experts might feel that this percentage is way too low.

• There are no more liquidation catalogs --- liquidation is done online. Interesting!

• 22 in-home dates, a total circulation of 50 million, 5.4 billion pages circulated.

• 71 million website visits in 2006, verses 64 million website visits in 2005.

• 80% of merchandise is sourced in Asia.

• Comp store sales have increased by at least 13% for each of the past three seasons. Folks who think marketing drives a business need to look at these figures --- the merchandise assortment is driving this business. Customers buy merchandise they like.