d Inside Retail Weekly that the updating of Flower’s online presence reflects the new emphasis placed on the site’s importance as an area of growth, especially with regards to national sales. “We’ve just built a completely new website,” Hoffman said. “We have all sorts of plans to focus more resources in developing the website even further and making sure that we are extremely competitive in the online world. We will be looking to double our online business within 12 months. We see that as a significant opportunity in terms of growing the business.” Complementing this is the growth in the database numbers. “We have a database of 35,000 and it’s growing by six to seven per cent a month; that’s growing quite quickly,” he enthused. Store warmth with colour Flower stores are concentrated in WA and Queensland – with 10 stores in each of those states – as they are Flower’s strongest markets. Hoffman puts much of this down to a climatic similarity and a synergy in lifestyle in the way that people dress in the two states. “They’re warmer,” he said, “and because of that there’s a different attitude to colour in WA and Queensland – particularly Perth, Brisbane and on the Gold Coast – than there might be to Sydney, for instance. People are more bold and adventurous, and wear more colour generally.” The stores are mostly 80sqm – 100sqm in size and located predominantly in major shopping centres. Interestingly, however, Flower Clothing’s best performing store – which is WA’s Garden City  – is not in a fashion mall. “I really wonder about that theory of needing to be with other similar retailers,” Hoffman mused. Hoffman stressed the importance of recognising where a customer’s eyes go, arguing that when you’re competing with a sea of other stores in a shopping centre, being visually attractive is tremendously important. “Their long vision only happens before they walk into the store; so what’s on the back wall of a store counts for a lot,” he explained. “Particularly what’s on the back wall above head height, because it’s actually a space that is very high up in the visual hierarchy in terms of what your eyes go to. And in a lot of stores, the upper section of the back wall is blank.” A number of stores are not well designed from that point, he opined, resulting in counters or columns, instead of product, being presented to the customer. “You should be looking at product, and thinking, ‘Wow, what’s that! I want to touch and feel that. I want to walk inside’,” Hoffman argued. This emphasis on visual hierarchy, which aligns with the popular retail credo of ensuring the product is the hero, sees counters in Flower stores often positioned to the side, while on the back walls, powerful images or items are placed. This harmonises with the latest store design, introduced about a year ago, which features a tongue and groove timber that’s a warm white, that sits behind the product along with timber floors. “What’s important is to always recognise that the product must be the star,” he said. “And therefore the walls or the fixture bays need to be complementary to that, in a way that doesn’t compete and therefore you essentially need neutral tones behind product.” Niche value When he created the brand, Hoffman recognised that there was a particular niche in the market – essentially for women in the 40 to 50 demographic who wanted to dress fashionably. The essence of the collection is therefore soft and feminine, featuring soft, easy-to-care-for fabrics with flowing, draping silhouettes to create a casual and stylish look. The Flower customer typically has a white-collar husband, is from an affluent suburb, has a slightly higher than average disposable income, school age kids, and works part-time or doesn’t work. “She wants to dress in a casual way because her social life is very much built around things like family gatherings and the school’s social community,” he said. “The brand really needed to reflect that and that was really the niche that I saw back then, that I think still exists now.” A recent and successful initiative with Flower’s market is its dress program. Launched in September, the mostly maxi dresses are pitched at the $99 price point, which Hoffman said has proved extremely attractive.” “There’s volume business in that particular product,” he said. In terms of marketing strategies, Flower Clothing has always used the medium of billboards in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. “We’ve always had some pretty serious billboard campaigns that operate around the place,” he said. “Being a colourful and visual medium to promote our brand, that’s been extremely effective.” Hoffman points to training in service and selling skills as a key area responsible for Flower Clothing’s continued success. “We have a much more developed attitude towards training and service and selling standards within the stores than exist in the majority of our competitors,” he said. “That has always been an incredibly important part of our culture and our commercial success.” New recruits receive two full days of training before they step on the floor, and then have a sales manager beside them for the first two shifts followed by 10 one-on-one, 20-minute sessions over the ensuing six weeks. “There is a full-time sales manager for every five stores – so they are spending a full day, potentially, in each store within their group every week, training, motivating, problem-solving, guiding – tremendously important,” he said. Homegrown brands facing off with internationals Hoffman said that the current trading conditions in women’s wear retail in Australia are “quite competitive”, noting that the increasingly frequent arrival of overseas competitors isn’t making the market any easier. But, he has some first-hand feedback for fellow Australian brands that are going up against international competition “What’s really important, given the influx of overseas retailers into the marketplace, is that homegrown Australian brands like us work on really identifying and marking out their space in the market,” he advised. “It really means that brands like us need to be careful, disciplined and strategic in terms of how they operate in the coming years.” Want more Inside Retail? Subscribe to Inside Retail Weekly now and get our premium print publication delivered to your door every week.