If Woolworths is the aristocracy of food retailers, then Woolworths clothing is something of the bourgeois, fighting for space.
It’s no secret that Woolworths clothing has faced a stellar decline over the recent years. The group’s fashion, home, and beauty divisions have “suffered many woes over the years” as BusinessInsider once wrote.
As a result, Woolworths has made some snips, and not in terms of cutting fabric.
As Moneyweb expresses, by June 2022, Woolies will have cut the floor space of its Fashion, Beauty, and Home (FBH) segment by 11%, or roughly 50 000m2.
This is in comparison to their floor space at the level it was at in 2019.
Not to mention, the space that clothing takes up will have been cut by 11% allowing beauty and home to attempt redemption.
Now, the number of FBH stores too is expected to take a dip in the swimming pool of salvation, predicted to drop at by 15%.
To put things into an even bigger perspective, during the past four years, the fashion business has not grown sales beyond 4%.
How did it get to this?
Woolworths clothing is admittedly not my go-to, writes Cape {town} Etc’s Ashleigh Nefdt, but if I do happen to peruse through the aisles, there are actually some gorgeous finds. It was quite surprising to see the current fashion dilemma x Woolworths as it stands. So, how’d Woolies get here?
During the past four years, as BusinessInsider notes, “fashion mistakes” were committed, which resulted in a loss of the grip of core customers.
Said mistakes pertain to efforts that were actually meant to fix their fashion featuring.
Some sources suggest that two strategic blunders were made, namely the infamous David Jones introduction to Australia, which Business of Fashion expressed as “a move turned sour.”
“A revaluation of the almost 200-year-old business led to a 2018 writedown of 712.5 million Australian dollars ($510 million). That contributed to the retailer’s first annual loss since at least 2002,” BoF records.
Charles Allen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence expressed that the decision was poor as “you can’t run a company like David Jones remotely from South Africa.”
The second strategic blunder was something of an attempt to be too fashionable, i.e.: forgetting the backbone of Woolworths clothing appeal in terms of basics and essentials.
To the future.
According to Roy Bagattini, captain of the Woolworths ship, the key to somewhat of a turnaround is a mashup between basics and the savvy shopper.
One values quality basics, the other values on-trend quality.
Woolies is calming down on doing too much, and have even decided to minimize their color palettes in a cut from 48 individual colour palettes per season to only six complementary palettes, said Bagattini.
“We are refining our product offering by reducing the proliferation in private label brands, colour, and styles. We’re also selectively introducing guest brands that authenticate specific categories, such as Sunglass Hut, Birkenstock, and Levi’s,” Bagattini expressed.
The key is less, and this seems to be the strategy both in terms of floor space and collection focus.
Picture: Instagram/ @woolworths_sa