Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) is British retail group known for its traditional knitwear. However, as well as the Edinburgh Woollen Mill brand, the retail group owns: Peacocks, Jane Norman, Ponden Home, the specialist golf clothing company ProQuip and kilt maker Hector Russell. Richie Jones joined EWM in mid-2014 in the new role of Group Head of E-commerce and is responsible for all of EWM’s brands online. With 670 stores and a turnover of around £600 million, EWM has now identified the international e-commerce market as its next area of expansion. We spoke to Ritchie to discover how EWM has gone from high-street brand to a global fashion force.
PayPal (PP): What have been your greatest successes?
Ritchie Jones (RJ): The development of a strong international e-commerce business is something we’ve worked very hard to achieve and are very proud of. EWM now sells in 78 countries globally, much of which is down to the focus we have placed on our digital platform. We’re still in an early stage of our international online strategy, but there are already clear signs that there is a real taste for British fashion globally. For example, the Jane Norman London brand is very popular in the Netherlands, while Edinburgh Woollen Mill is viewed as an authoritative brand among a young cashmere-loving segment in China. Building a significant e-commerce presence takes time and effort, but we are already beginning to see the benefits.
PP: When and how did you start selling abroad?
RJ: In early 2014 EWM took the decision to close our Jane Norman stores in the UK to make it (aside from department store concessions) a wholly online brand. This was one of the first major steps towards building the global e-commerce platform we have today. Traditionally, EWM has managed overseas sales through international franchises, but as we’ve grown our online presence we have increasingly taken control of the entire customer journey.
PP: What is the greatest challenge you faced in building up an international customer base and how did you overcome it?
RJ: Taking control of the whole customer journey means we now have to manage marketing, purchasing, payments, delivery and returns for each of our online international markets. To do this successfully, EWM has needed to develop a good understanding of local market expectations and habits to successfully reassure customers who may be unfamiliar with our brand. A good example of this is Germany, where customers typically order a larger number of items and return what they don’t want, and therefore meeting expectations on returns policy is particularly important.
PP: When did you start using PayPal?
RJ: When we took the decision to expand our online profile in 2014 we selected PayPal as our payments partner for all of our websites. Now, 10 per cent of the payments PayPal processes for the Edinburgh Woollen Mill brand are international, as are 8 per cent for Jane Norman.
PP: Has using PayPal helped you build an international business?
RJ: Absolutely. PayPal has a ready-made infrastructure for operating in international markets and provides instant credibility for our brand which is key for us when we enter new markets. PayPal’s ease of implementation has also been really important to us. It’s very easy to introduce and the support we get from the team at PayPal has been first rate. PayPal is robust, recognised and stable, and adding it as a payment option online has hugely benefitted our conversion rate. Finally, PayPal works particularly well for mobile as it removes the need for our customers to use their credit cards in public places, making the transaction not only easier but much safer.