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The last two years in the Covid-19 pandemic forced lasting changes in the fashion industry. Brands and retailers had to adapt fast in order to survive - and DUST understands that better than most.
With its conventional business model and a deep-rooted culture built from years in the industry, the pandemic came as a shock to DUST. Like most brands in Indonesia, DUST had been operating offline since the beginning. Even with the emerging e-commerce market in Southeast Asia, many businesses had been slow to digitalise and make the shift online.
Once Covid-19 arrived in Indonesia, DUST lost its main sales channel due to lockdowns and physical stores closing down. Together with Omnilytics, DUST expanded its e-commerce channel to make up for lost offline sales - navigating the unfamiliar digital landscape to come out stronger on the other side.
In our recent webinar with DUST, the CEO Matthew Aldo Susabda took us through how his team used Omnilytics to optimise e-commerce growth.
Decades in Fashion
DUST is a women's fashion brand in Indonesia that operates under the patronage of PT Cipta Adhyabusana. Founded in 1989, DUST started out supplying clothing products to a small store.
By 1990, the company opened up independent outlets under the brand name DUST. Since then, DUST has expanded to become one of the leading womenswear brands in Indonesia, growing consistently and penetrating deeper into the market. DUST has 242 outlets throughout Indonesia in various department stores and showrooms.
With its vision of redefining fashion in Indonesia, DUST’s design concept revolves around simplicity and elegance - consistently delivering beautiful and trendy styles. DUST strives to provide its customers not just creativity but also credibility by only using quality materials in its designs.
Adapting to Market Changes
Unlike the digital natives taking over the fashion scene today, DUST has been in the industry since way before the e-commerce boom. According to Aldo, DUST has been operating conventionally and conservatively since he joined in 2012. The company was comfortable with the business model and culture developed over decades, which had been successful up until Covid-19.
Retailing at department stores all over Indonesia, DUST focused its efforts on maximising sales through acquiring more consignees. Aldo recalls the time he first joined, when DUST was full of salespeople, with hardly any marketing or branding executives. This is because previously, the company funnelled most of its budget towards sales and did not prioritise marketing or brand activation.
DUST was slow to digitalise, with minimal use of computers and technology. It was only from 2017 onwards that the company started to adopt digital solutions. Eventually, DUST started to sell online but it was not their main priority. Aldo revealed that less than 1% of DUST’s sales came from online.
The pandemic accelerated DUST’s digital transformation. Having engaged Omnilytics right before Covid-19 entered Indonesia in March 2020, DUST was able to respond quickly by shifting online. Omnilytics provided market insights and client success support to help DUST build and optimise its e-commerce strategy. Spearheaded by Aldo himself, both the DUST management and team worked together on researching and analysing the online market to craft a strategic plan.
A Data-Driven Mindset
When asked about the secret behind successful data adoption, Aldo underlined the leader’s bravery in raising awareness on data as well as a data-driven mindset. It’s clear that Aldo and the team at DUST is on the right track, as every decision they make now is backed by data.
“We don’t have a team specifically for data analysis. I prefer to have everyone learn - marketing or production so we’re all aligned.”
Aldo credits Omnilytics data with helping the DUST team understand demand and what the customers currently want, which guides inventory allocation. At the same time, DUST uses Omnilytics data to optimise its assortment. Understanding why a product sells or doesn’t, as well as the effects of new launches on sales, has been key.
“Omnilytics helps us validate the competitive landscape and trends. Previously, we only observed - in malls, for example - and made assumptions on what was selling and where customers are shopping. Omnilytics confirms these assumptions.”
DUST can look at their competitors’ top styles, colours, pricing, how much they are discounting and where they are selling their products - globally or locally.
DUST also uses data to confirm if what they observe offline, is trending online too. Having operated mostly offline in the past, this was a great way to determine if any of their previous strategies or ideas will translate online.
Key Milestones & Success Factors
With extensive market insights at their fingertips, DUST has been able to change their assortment, pricing, launch dates, discount dates and replenishment according to data on bestsellers. These changes made up DUST’s online marketing strategy, which they launched in May 2020.
Product innovation was one of the key milestones achieved by DUST with Omnilytics data. Designers used the insights on trade performance to tweak designs and build a commercial assortment. Aldo elaborated that local competitor data is useful for price matching, while data on international brands helps DUST spot emerging trends and new opportunities. Even the website has been tweaked using the Omnilytics visual merchandising module as a reference.
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The CEO’s leadership, the management’s support and strong collaborative effort by the team led to DUST increasing their online sales by 209% in 2021.
DUST was able to achieve these milestones by:
- Being adaptive and open to changes
- Having a data-driven and performance-based mindset
- Developing strategic planning and creating a framework that can be implemented
- Being effective & efficient by understanding the entire business process to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the brand and initiate change
Get Ahead with Fashion Market Insights
Even with minimal digital presence and adoption of data when Covid-19 hit, DUST was able to adapt quickly and overcome the hurdles in offline sales with a robust online marketing strategy backed by Omnilytics.
Want to optimise your online efforts too? Sign up for a 7-day free dashboard trial here to see Omnilytics in action.
