N Brown (LSE:BWNG) creates very distinct images for its brands, signalling to potential customers they are there to serve particular needs, e.g. very large men who prefer to buy online, or older women who do not buy online.
I’ll start with some statistics:
Revenue by brand, £m | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
J D Williams | 158 | 151 | 144 |
Simply Be | 114 | 104 | 90 |
Jacamo | 65 | 63 | 55 |
Traditional segment | 134 | 136 | 144 |
Secondary brands | 155 | 153 | 150 |
Product total | 627 | 607 | 583 |
Financial services | 261 | 260 | 254 |
Total continuing revenue | 888 | 866 | 837 |
Revenue by product type | |||
Ladies | 257 | 246 | 249 |
Men | 86 | 82 | 81 |
Footwear and accessories | 69 | 69 | 61 |
Home and Gift | 216 | 210 | 192 |
Perhaps the first thing to note is the steady, if rather pedestrian, growth of sales. The traditional (mostly still catalogue) based sales are falling, while the “Power Brands” of JD Williams, Simply Be and Jacamo are moving ahead at a respectable rate.
Clearly, the main customer is female, especially considering that much that is bought for men or the home will be bought by a woman.
J D Williams
The target customer is a fashion conscious woman aged over 50. A fairly high proportion of these customers prefer to use a paper catalogue (about half), but of new customers two-thirds are online shoppers. Sizes range from 12 to 32.
As well as women’s fashion it stocks menswear, children’s clothes, home wear and gifts. It sells a wide variety of other brands including Hush Puppies, Clarks, Nike, Apple and Samsung.
Simply Be
This niche is that of the larger, not necessarily older, woman, “bringing fashion to all, regardless of size…..we understand shape and create fashionable collections that fit”.
This is definitely a digital-first brand with 89% online and 97% of new customers online.
Carries dozens of other brands, e.g. Adidas, Armani, Ann Summers.
Simply Be tentatively launched in US in 2010, but results so far are disappointing with losses of £1.3m on turnover of £15.5m The US operation is run from the UK, “ensuring that our offering is consistent across geographies and that we remain efficient.” The aim is to grow US turnover to £100m .
The £116m+ IT project currently being built, will, when finished “enable mass internationalisation on a consistent web platform, opening up a huge raft of potential new geographies and markets to us.”
A Simply Be euro website has been launched.
Jacamo
Men only fashion, and large men at that – up to 5XL. All online.
Traditional segment
Typically more mature customers who tend to prefer paper-based marketing such as catalogues and direct mail, “This segment is an attractive and accessible market and is underserved by other retailers”.
The brands within this group are,……………..To read the rest of this article, and more like it, subscribe to my premium newsletter Deep Value Shares – click here http://newsletters.advfn.com/deepvalueshares/subscribe-1