entire company, guiding decisions across the business.  As Australia and New Zealand’s leading online fashion and lifestyle platforms, we have a mountain of customer data, including basket size, shopping frequency, churn rate and more. Those figures map what people do, and they are invaluable. However, they don’t explain ‘the why’. To design products, services and experiences people want, you need to move from data to dialogue, and that’s what we set out to do.  Launching the Inner Circle  Over the last two years, we’ve rebuilt how we listen, not as a one-off survey, but as an ongoing conversation. In 2023, we ran a 3000-person research study as a customer pulse check to go deep with our customers and surface real friction points and feedback. From their opinions on our delivery options and why they return so much, to how they rated our size guides and product discoverability, plus their clear desire for a loyalty program.  Those insights didn’t just sit in a report, instead they sparked a question: What would happen if we built a structured, scalable forum where customers could shape our roadmap in real time? The answer was The Inner Circle. We invited 600,000 of our active customers to be part of the program and within 24 hours of launching, 30,000 customers had opted in. If that response is anything to go by, it validates that we have an extremely eager-to-be-heard customer base who feel strongly about The Iconic – an invaluable resource.  Put simply, the goal of The Inner Circle is to listen and act. We run twice-monthly research pulses including qualitative and quantitative surveys, remote and face-to-face focus groups and UX testing. Our participants reflect our customer’s diversity across age, location, household income and shopping behaviour. We incentivise them with vouchers, product testing, early access and, of course, there’s a themed cupcake or two.  From hearing our customers to launching loyalty that listens Our customers had been asking us for a loyalty program for a while, but The Inner Circle validated that this was what they really wanted. We’ve had more than 100 people across the business support the launch of our loyalty program, The Iconic Front Row, but the critical first step of shaping the foundations came from speaking to 50,000 customers over multiple touch points.  Their feedback has helped shape everything from naming the currency ‘ICONS’, through to the user experience, rewards and loyalty roadmap. By co-designing with our customers, we’ve turned speculation into certainty, building a product around real customer behaviours and feedback.  A clear theme that emerged from early research was a desire to be rewarded for shopping consciously. Customers told us they wanted to be recognised for their circular fashion habits, whether buying from our pre-loved ranges or returning items more selectively. These elements and more are built into the 2026 plans.  This is only the beginning. Over the next 12 months, The Iconic Front Row will evolve with continuous customer input. By taking the time to co-design the program with our customers, we are ensuring it delivers real value on the things that matter most to them, seamlessly integrated into how they already shop with us.  Rolling out Re-ICONIC  Along with launching The Iconic Front Row, we turned to the Inner Circle to help shape our next big step in circular fashion: Rescued, a new shoppable category featuring both repaired and upcycled pieces. We learned 43 per cent of our customers buy pre-loved items, 53 per cent are interested in purchasing rescued items and 92 per cent reported they would use one or more of our RE-ICONIC services. Those figures validated the idea and explained how our customers think about circular shopping, what motivates a purchase and how we need to make the process simple and trustworthy. Impressively, the launch of Rescued saw a nearly 40 per cent sell-through of the first drop of repaired items within the first week, sparking important conversation across social platforms and media.  Driving our delivery to be faster and even more convenient  Delivery and returns are a common friction point for online retailers and our customers trust The Iconic for the reliability and flexibility of delivery options we provide. Customer input has shaped enhancements to our market-leading delivery proposition over the last 12 months.  For example, our research revealed half of Melbourne customers want weekend delivery and 1 in 3 Sydney customers want to select a delivery time slot, leading to the roll out of same-day delivery into Melbourne and Brisbane and the introduction of 24/7 Parcel Lockers in partnership with Australia Post. By being consistently curious and asking the right questions, we are able to give our customers a better shopping experience. We know that by offering fast and convenient delivery and seamless returns, we are creating lasting customer trust and loyalty.  The power of continuous feedback We are only one year in, but The Inner Circle already sits at the heart of how The Iconic makes decisions. Via our twice-monthly research pulses across a broad range of business questions, from UX to delivery and sustainability, teams can validate ideas and move from insight to execution backed by real customer insight. The response rate speaks for itself, we are consistently above industry benchmarks, getting the guidance we need within 24 hours.  A feedback platform of this scale is a powerful strategic asset. Retail marketing is about three things: getting customers into the funnel, keeping them coming back and building real brand trust and love. The Inner Circle helps us do all three but also reduces guesswork, accelerating the right experiments and prioritising the changes that matter most to people.  We’ve spent the last 14 years earning customer’s trust and The Inner Circle ensures we continue to earn it. There is no such thing as bad customer feedback, it is how great products and services are built and our job is simple: Listen without ego, act with speed, and keep designing a better way to shop. Joanna Robinson is The Iconic’s chief marketing officer.