As Cotton Traders recently recorded its “most successful financial year to date”, boss Nick Hamblin spoke to Retail Week about the brand’s evolution, its new average customer age of 56 and the importance of womenswear within the product offering
The British heritage fashion retailer, founded in 1987 by former rugby stars Fran Cotton and Steve Smith, is an entirely different brand today to what it once was, but its “proud roots in rugby” continue with rugby and polo shirts still some of its bestselling products.
From what was once a traditional mail-order catalogue business to a digitally savvy retailer, Cotton Traders considers its journey to be a “great British success story”.
As it embarks on what it hopes to be another year of glory, chief executive Nick Hamblin sat down with Retail Week to discuss what’s next for the brand.
How has the business evolved since it was founded?
“Today, although we do still sell our classic rugby shirts and we are still making them in exactly the same way as we always did, the brand has evolved into a casual clothing brand. The customers that were shopping with us back then stayed with us but, of course, they’ve got older as the brand has got older.
“From a traditional, mail-order, paper-made catalogue business, which is where we were, we are now absolutely a predominately digitally led casual clothing brand.
“Our average customer age now is 56 years old whereas, prior to that drive to digital, we were looking at our classic customer who was at least mid-60s and older.
“We’ve always said that if we want to appeal to the younger customer, we must do it without losing our existing classic customers because they’re really important to us.
“The pandemic really accelerated our customers shopping online, so even our older customers realised they could shop safely online and we saw the switch.
“We don’t see ourselves as a fashion brand – we wouldn’t suggest that for a second – but our customers like to be aware of fashion. We will try to reflect the trends as best we can.”
Which product categories are currently your bestsellers?
“If you go back to the 1990s, you will see mailing campaigns of ours where we were selling fleece jackets to men and women – and women were also wearing rugby shirts, too – but I would say the real focus on developing womenswear as a real statement on its own was at the end of the 90s and into the early 2000s.
“It has been, without doubt, our biggest growth area since –40% of our sales are womenswear exclusively now, while menswear sales account for 23% and footwear is 9%.”
Where does your store estate fit into the offering?
“I was thinking today on the train that, during the pandemic, I honestly wondered if we would have a store estate afterwards. You couldn’t see past it.
“During the pandemic, we closed a number of stores that we could see were going to struggle to get back to where they had been before – and we were absolutely not on our own in doing that. We’ve got 77 stores currently and we are in the position where every single one is profitable.
“Once we realised that we did have a viable store estate, we realised we needed to seriously invest in the stores and the majority have now been refitted.
“I think we are a very strong brand in how we present ourselves digitally; we have our own creative studio now and we have state-of-the-art digital screens in stores so that we change what we are showing our customers.
“We offer a free deliver-to-store service, so that encourages repeat visits, and we also encourage customers to bring returns to store and that is working really well for us.”
Who do you consider to be your biggest competitor?
“That is a really interesting question. It is really hard because, while there are other direct-response brands out there whose model is similar to ours, they are not competitor brands because they are not aiming at the same age.
“I think the brand our customers absolutely tend to compare us to in the sense of price and value is M&S.
“Which other brands are going for the 50-plus customer? We think we are in a good place in terms of the market we are going at; the mid-50s customer wants to feel that their fashion reflects what is happening out there and we have done all the things that they want.”
What is next for Cotton Traders?
“We would love now to really extend the retail estate and, in terms of our direct business, we are looking at new products. In the last 18 months, we have launched an enhanced swimwear, lingerie and loungewear range for the first time and we will definitely be looking to expand that offer this autumn.
“We’re developing products in our home area as we find the customers purchase from home as an additional purchase. We also want to develop footwear and, of course, continue to recruit as many new customers as we possibly can.
“This year, the first quarter was tough and we weren’t quite where we wanted to be, but in the second half we saw a dramatic switch. May and June were excellent across all channels.
“Over the last few weeks, it has dipped again – we saw quite a marked effect from the latest government announcement on interest rates – but we are excited about the future.
“With us, it is all about sustainable, managed growth. We are not and never have been risk-takers.”
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