Since its humble beginnings more than two decades ago, Australian-owned and operated brand, LSKD, has become an exception to retail’s many landmines. Succeeding in gaining brand recognition, reaching critical mass, and creating retail resilience through purpose, community, and product strategy is no small feat — so, what’s their secret?
From the LSKD X Style Arcade webinar featuring LSKD Senior Womenswear Buyer & Planner, Eloise Weightman, and Style Arcade’s Chief Operating Officer, Christine Reed and Buying & Planning Strategy Specialist, Morgan Polinelli, we’ve compiled your cheat sheet to everything you need to know about the LSKD growth strategy alongside expert advice for building retail resilience.
LSKD began in 2002 as Loose Kid Industries, the high school nickname of BMX-riding founder, Jason Daniel. In 2007, the brand evolved into LKI and up until 2010, the e-commerce activewear store was still operating out of Jason's parent’s house. It wasn’t until 2018 that the LSKD name found its home. From there, the team’s mission and values came together, helping them focus on their why: “1% better every day”. A mission that has led LSKD to open 12 stores in the last two years.
Growth strategy 1: Company alignment
As LSKD began to grow and change, one of its central focuses remained on building team culture. There is a higher chance of reaching business goals if all teams are aligned with the vision and are clear on what they're responsible for to get there.
- Building core values as a team: LSKD created a strong foundation within the team for each member to continue to grow from and align with. The brand uses its values as a sense-check to ensure its staff and core operations stay aligned and focused.
- Living mission and values: LSKD knew they had to embody being 1% better every day, before expecting their community to go on that journey. One part of that is a strong focus on personal development, with LSKD investing in every team member’s personal growth. A culture of investing collaboratively naturally creates intrinsically motivated teams because people's opinions are valued.
- Books: LSKD has nine core books in its library, a library in each store, and a book club. These books help create a common language and a unique shared experience among the staff and the customers.
- Constantly learning from failing: Key to LSKD’s internal growth has been being open to feedback from their team and our community to allow them to be 1% better every day.
- The democratization of targets: Each team member should know the expectations on their deliverables, and feel set up for success. Knowing perceived or real risks and challenges and talking through those with data together, means everyone can understand and align on the story, and what to take forward.
Growth strategy 2: Transitioning from marketing-led to product-led
After LSKD’s initial rapid growth, the team took the opportunity to delve into understanding their customer better by listening to their feedback about the product itself. This included what customers loved about the product, what could be improved, and what they felt was missing from the range.
“This helped us to intensify our focus on product development and innovation and give the community the products they want,” said Eloise Weightman. “It's something we continue to do to this day to make sure we're serving our community through product testing and reading customer reviews.”
LSKD also does what their community does—sweat. “We're an activewear brand. So getting out into the communities they're a part of, seeing what's going on and even reaching out to them directly post-purchase to find out what their experience was like.”
Growth strategy 3: Profit as an outcome, not a purpose
LSKD keeps profitability front of mind as it allows them to reinvest back into the business and their community — but it's not their sole purpose. Here’s how the team use their core values to holistically boost their bottom line.
- Create a cycle of profitability: The more they listen, the more they understand their community, and the more they understand, the better they can all innovate and create products that their community resonates with. This has led to organic customer retention and increased lifetime value.
- Profitability as part of the brand journey: LSKD does not see profitability as a strategy in itself. Profitability has to be woven into your decision-making process, and that applies to assessing ranges, but also everything that you do in business.
- Find the revenue opportunities: When margins are tight, teams should look into the data and understand where the opportunity is. This can guide you on where you should actually invest your time and energy to make sure that you're seeing a return.
- Invest in your product range: When you get to a point of profitability, you're able to invest back into your product ranges in a holistic way through the buying and product cycles. That investment in developing a range that has newness or product innovation, and has your customer in mind, is going to grow your business, market share and profitability.
Growth strategy 4: Removing the reliance on sale days to drive dollars
When it comes to Black Friday, the LSKD team embraces the sales day as a celebration for their brand. Having a higher value and quality product, the team and their community get to express themselves, have fun, and showcase their product to a wider audience at a lower price point.
“We also see it as an incredible opportunity for new people to discover our brand in huge numbers. And it gives us an opportunity to create lifelong community members,” said Eloise.
Though Black Friday day is a special event, the team remains laser-focused on making the best product at the best price, year-round. “Pricing inventory right is key to avoid marking down the product. Listening to our community and our team to get feedback and being reactive in-season when we haven't priced the stock at the right level is incredibly important,” said Eloise.
How LSKD repriced a product in-season
“We noticed one of our hoodies was just not priced at the right level. So we reacted in season and adjusted the price down to offer better value. Because the product was live online and we're an omnichannel retailer, there were some community members who already purchased the product at a higher price.
When we do something like that, we have to really understand how that impacts the customer who's already purchased. How are they going to feel now that it's being adjusted down?
We worked with our wonderful CX team to pull a list of orders that had been impacted by the price change. And we actually reached out to them to refund them the difference. It really wasn't their fault that we got the pricing wrong. This helps us build genuine trust within our community.”
Growth strategy 5: Generating retention through product newness
Being an activewear brand, LSKD focuses on fit, fabric, and function. However, in a silhouette-driven category, and with newness so important to customer retention in fashion - how can an activewear brand constantly cater to customers?
“Our products need to be built for purpose. So, we want to use our community feedback to improve our product and whilst also solving problems, which is the real surprise and delight,” said Eloise.
“It’s a fantastic way to drive innovation in a silhouette-driven business. For example, pockets in the right placements, watch holes, products with multi-purpose functions. When our customers see this, they're so excited. If it solves a problem, it gives the community a reason to buy and if you show you're listening to your community and improving your products based on their feedback — it makes it a lot easier for the community to buy into new products because they know that the trust is there.”
Growth strategy 6: Building brand community through inclusivity
As an activewear brand, LSKD thrives by genuinely inspiring people through sports, fitness and adventure. A natural offshoot of this is being as inclusive as possible to the consumers they’re aiming to serve.
Currently, the brand ranges its sizes from 2XS to 3XL, and are always looking at ways of expanding fringe sizes when they see there is demand.
“Not all sizes sell the same, and not all products sell the same, so it can be tricky to warrant the demand, or warrant the budget if the demand isn't showing through in the numbers,” said Eloise.
Eloise discovered LSKD sell 2XS, their smallest size, better in-store due to mothers shopping with their children, and the ability to try things on to make sure of the right fit. Online, their larger sizes tend to sell better which comes down to either a) the community that's buying those products feel more comfortable buying online with an online size chart, or b) they’re unaware the LSKD carries these extended sizes in store.
If your brand is listening to your community through data and feedback, and you’re hearing that there's demand for more inclusive products, you should be considering:
- How is it coming through in your marketing? Does this community know that we're selling their size? How are we showing them? Are our campaigns diverse enough that customers see themselves in them?
- What do your mannequins look like in store? Customers should be able to see and navigate products and sizes that are clearly displayed to make them feel safe and welcome to shop in the store.
- Do online size guides and return policies offer confidence? Customers should be able to gauge their right size from product page functions, and in the scenario they have the wrong size, they have a clear understanding of the returns policy.
LSKD’s last word
“Data is a huge part of what we do,” said Eloise. “It's just really about adding that context back to the data to see the full picture and tell the whole story, so that you can improve your range and your product and grow your customer base.”
“All of that context comes from being open to feedback from all channels and teams in your community.”
Image credit: LSKD
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