gerie Company of Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of French lingerie label, Simone Perele, which operates the brand in Australia and New Zealand, said retail is a key focus for the business. “People want that direct connection with a brand, and for us we recognise the future is definitely retail,” Rosenfield told Inside Retail Weekly. “A challenge we’re currently facing is to ensure we’re ahead of the industry shift away from pure wholesaling and toward ‘own’ retailing.” Lingerie Company of Australia opened its first clearance outlet store eight years ago, a part of the business which has grown strongly at the same time wholesaling has become more challenging. Today the business operates 11 clearance outlets, one full priced flagship location in Hawthorn, Melbourne and plans to launch an e-commerce channel later this year. “I really would like the business to focus on being a true omnichannel retailer,” Rosenfield said. “If consumers are price-point oriented, they might go to a clearance outlet. If they like a really premium service, they might go to David Jones or a flagship.” From its warehouse in Victoria, Australia, the company supplies the Simone Perele brand to more than 120 wholesale accounts, as well as New Zealand department stores, Smith & Caughey’s, in Auckland, and Ballantynes, in Christchurch. In order to support the increasing operational complexity, Lingerie Company of Australia replaced its legacy systems with NetSuite’s OneWorld inventory management system to provide accurate stock visibility across its 20,000 SKUs. The new system allows Lingerie Company of Australia to more effectively analyse efficient versus inefficient stock. Each bra now has 15 to 20 different attributes that can be used to analyse sell-through and generate more efficient ordering. “With our old system we had stock, the SKU and that was it,” Rosenfield said. “I personally spent maybe four months and went through all the SKUs, understood them all and categorised them.” The business will use the data to make more informed buying decisions, as well as to aid sales associates to direct shoppers to products they may like based on their previous purchases. “I love data and I think one of the keys to being successful in our industry is to understand very clearly what’s going on in our business with the stock.” The next step for the company is developing a comprehensive loyalty program. Simone Perele currently has an existing loyalty club for its clearance customers but has engaged a consultancy firm to redesign a new loyalty scheme for the entire business. “As a business, we can now engage with our customers in a much more meaningful way, and this largely has to do with how we obtain, analyse and manage our data,” Rosenfield said. “Being able to offer our customers items based on their purchase history and engage with them in a way that makes them feel valued, is crucial to our business.” Access exclusive analysis, locked news and reports with Inside Retail Weekly. Subscribe today and get our premium print publication delivered to your door every week.