Covid 12 months on with Ian Leslie from Industry West (episode 332)
iIan Leslie is the CMO at US homewares brands Industry West and Favor. It all started with Industry Westin 2010, and then Favor launched in 2019. Across the 2 brands in Q4 eCommerce sales were 70% up, driving full company 25% YoY growth, and in Q1 eCommerce was up 120%! So now eCommerce alone is over $10million a year.
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An Intense Year for Industry West
Ian says it has been a crazy 12 months where they’ve seen eCommerce explode and there’s incredible growth on their consumer end.
While trade has dropped because no one is buying for office space or hospitality, there’s been an uptick on the consumer side.
Product Development
To make up for the thousands of inventory normally distributed via trade that are now waiting to be bought, Industry West has been working on product development that includes looking at having a bath line.
On the other hand, they are still trying to figure out Favor to an extent and developing the story around the brand. The narrative though is mainly focused on Favor being a female-founded brand that is very interested in sustainability and maker culture.
Sustainability and Ethical Practices
Ian feels that the focus being given on not just having a sustainable company but growing a business that can create a major impact in the world is overplayed.
He says the issue could mean more to the media than the actual consumers, although he emphasizes that Industry West is a company that works with responsible factories and vendors, provides durable products, and is morally good.
More on Industry West and the Team
- Industry West runs on Magento Enterprise
- It has a very lean team composed of:
- An eCom director
- In-house photo and graphic designer
- Content people tasked with uploading products
- Outsourced are the following:
- Systems integrator or dev team
- Digital media buying team
- Some growth on the warehouse team since they’ve been busy, and Ian is proud to report that they are on a 99% shipment accuracy rate
On Ian’s Wish List
Something they still haven’t done that Ian wishes they already have is a Buy Now, Pay Later program.
For Favor, they just launched Afterpay.
What’s Coming Up Next
In February, Industry West launched a warehouse sale that ran on ScandiPWA.
They intend to clone this warehouse site and run ScandiPWA for a Canada subdomain, that is set to launch by July which Ian is pretty excited for.
On using ScandiPWA, Ian says the speed associated with it is what got him on board. And with the positive result of the warehouse sale site, the great revenue off of it, plus the value of being able to clone it more easily, using ScandiPWA for the Canada launch was an effortless decision.
eCommerce Book Top Tip
- How the Post Office Created America: A History by Winifred Gallagher
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- White label advertising
Tool Top Tip
- Refersion affiliate platform
Growth Top Tip
- Do the basics well
- Run sales events every once in a while
Interview Links
Related episodes
- Maintaining profits when the stores shut with Industry West CMO Ian Leslie
- Facebook Ads: Exploring the cutting edge Dark Posts strategy with John Hagan
- Discover more on KO affiliate month
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