“Arc’teryx is a very unique, premium brand, with clear point of differences and it has been a pleasure to lead the brand expansion”, says Vincent Wauters, General Manager and President of Arc'teryx.'
Before joining Arc’teryx, Wauters was a member of the Amer Sports Executive Board in charge of Supply Chain and Information Technology. Since day one, he has been confident that Arc’teryx’s competitive advantage is its strong, unique positioning and the brand heritage.
Right people in place
“When I came here I saw that people have that special “fire” in their eyes and I still believe it is the people that drive the success of the business. Each product has a” family” which takes care of the product from the very beginning: the designer, the pattern maker and the sewer. We also do the product testing ourselves, and produce the most premium products here in Vancouver”.
As Arc’teryx has big plans for the future, ensuring that the right people are in place is highly important. “Obviously the brand’s success appeals to people, but I also feel that having a clear purpose and the way we work here makes people interested to work for us; we have a clear goal for what we are doing. It’s all about our obsessive design, timeless craftsmanship working to create high performance products. My leader secret is to employ people who are stronger than you, because they will perform at the highest level and also attract the very best to work with them, from there the average level only goes up”.
“Our goal is to release the full potential of Arc’teryx, and to reach out to more customers.The building blocks are ready for this growth. Growth comes from consumer centric product excellence, in store excellence, distribution coverage expansion and investing in brand awareness”, Wauters sums up.
Staying true to oneself
Expansion must take into account what the brand stands for.
“We must stay true to ourselves and to invest in product development and innovation – these are the best assets that we have. And, we must continue to respond to our core consumer target groups’ needs, the outdoor experts, because they are the ones that drive innovation”, Wauters reminds.
Arc’teryx has three central consumer groups: the Outdoor Expert, the Urban Astute and the Aspirational Adventurer.
“Now we have different collections for the different consumer target groups. We have separate collections for the outdoor expert, whether it is our Ascent, Whiteline or Traverse collections, whilst our Veilance collection attracts people living in the city demanding high quality, technical, premium life style apparel. The collection builds on techniques developed for the outdoors and extends them to the city products. Launched in 2009, we have doubled the sales in the last 12 months.
A further important expansion is footwear, which will be released in spring 2015.
“We have much support from the Amer Sports footwear category and the group’s capabilities will certainly drive synergy and scales in the project”, Vincent says.
Increasing the number of doors
The second goal is to increase the number of doors.
“Growing from just one brand store opened in year 2006, in 2013 we added four new stores: Shanghai, London, Seattle and Vancouver and six additional own brand stores are planned to be opened this year. The first results from the four stores opened last year are very encouraging - they are already among the best performing ones of all Amer Sports stores. Opening brand stores aims to showcase the brand and helps to tell the Arc’teryx story”, Vincent says.
“We have increased the number of doors by several hundred in the last 1.5 years. Many of the recently launched shop-in-shops have contributed to a high uplift in sales.”
In order to succeed, Arc’teryx has defined concepts and strategies, finding the right store locations and working closely together with the Amer Sports’ B2C team to manage the operations.
Goal number three on the path is to increase the brand awareness. That is done not only by flagship stores and understanding the brand’s key mission, but also through e-commerce, which has been heavily invested in.
“In e-commerce, we have grown from covering two countries and one language to 10 countries and five languages in less than 12 months. We pursue the EU expansion in January 2014 with five new EU countries including Switzerland and Finland. I strongly believe in the future of e-commerce, which was something I learned whilst working for Amazon in the early 2000. As a part of this strategy, we are constantly improving our website and our conversion rates”.
A truly global brand
Many people do not know that Arc’teryx is a genuinely global brand selling more than 500 products in more than 40 countries at over 3,000 store fronts over the world. APAC and EMEA regions are growing rapidly and it is estimated that EMEA sales will be the size of USA next year.
“We still have a lot of growth potential in the US and Canada. There are also great opportunities in China, Japan and European countries close to the Alps. One country where sales are doing really well is Norway; there it seems like every household owns an Arc’teryx item”.
“When I reflect back to the last 18 months, I can say that we have achieved a lot, but I also know that we have not yet unleashed the brand’s full potential. We are not afraid of big goals”, Wauters confirms.
With the confidence that Wauters tells about Arc’teryx’ future plans, it is not hard to believe that the brand, named after archaeopteryx lithographica, the first reptile to develop the feather for flight, will be soon be ready for its first take off.
www.arcteryx.com
Source Arcteryx
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