World Retail Congress: the power of community and loyalty for big names and small

Fashion Network

19-05-2025

Several key sessions at the World Retail Congress this week focused on the connected subjects of community and loyalty and speakers from global megastar retailers as well as relatively small businesses had a similar message: nurture your customers and those who inspire you.
One of the most crowded sessions included Selfridges COO Leonie Foster and Jennifer Woo, chair and CEO of Lane Crawford Joyce Group.
Foster highlighted how the Selfridges Unlocked loyalty scheme taps into the retailer's impressive history (its founder had given VIP customers a key to the store) and also encourages customer interaction as it rewards dwell time and involvement in experiences as well as just sales.
'From the start we've regarded ourselves as more than just a shop,' she said. 'Experience is very much a part of what we do for our customers. We're a social destination. We have an enormous programme for our customers throughout the year.
'We resisted the more traditional format of loyalty schemes. The time element is about collecting keys, whether you visit a restaurant, or you use the skate bowl, you go to the cinema, or visit an event. And it's entirely possible to progress the whole way to being a VSP, a very Selfridges person, without spending any money at all.'
Jennifer Woo explained Lane Crawford's approach: 'We design our stores to be very intimate with a smaller format deliberately because we are a relationship business, not a transaction business. We are an own-bought business so we don't have concessions and we are able to control the whole process of the products that we sell to our customers from the beginning to the end. We can curate experiences and the store environment for the customer. We want our customers to feel like they have their own personal fashion and lifestyle assistant.'
And the approach is to encourage staff to develop strong customer relationships with its 30,000 top customers. 'Don't get involved' certainly isn't its mantra. For instance, Woo cited a staff member who on her own initiative arranged to take two big trucks from across its categories around to a time-stressed customer's home and he bought the lot — apart from two items (an ashtray as he doesn't smoke and whisky glasses as he doesn't drink).
Meanwhile, a panel discussion with Indian beauty retailer Nykaa 's co-founder Adwaita Nayar, plus Eshita Kabra who's founder of peer-to-peer rental platform By Rotation, and Laura Youngston who founded female-focused football boots brand Ida Sports zeroed in on how the nurturing process is important from the early stages of a business onwards.
Nykaa is now a major success story with sales of $2 billion and 200 stores, although 90% of its business is done online. Given that fact, it goes to great lengths to connect with its community as much as it did at the start.
The company has about 14 million customers and Nayra explained that 'beauty and fashion are very rooted in community… People are always asking each other for recommendations, for advice. We place a lot of focus on community and making these 14 million women feel integrated. And at any given point we're working with 10,000 influencers.'
Events are key, with Nayar saying its runs over 100 annually. A flagship example of this is what she called the 'Coachella for beauty', Nykaaland. Launched in 2023, it's a two-day beauty festival where consumers can interact with brands, try products and learn how best to use them.
Next, By Rotation's founder stressed how the platform isn't just connecting with its community it is a community. 'We're a social network where you can lend and rent premium lifestyle goods with each other thereby saving the planet, becoming friends, making money and saving money all at the same time,' she said.
'One of our top lenders has made so much money that she's not only paid for her IVF but for her surrogacy so there's so much more that we're doing. Our business is a community, we designed it as a social network. Our renters often become lenders and when we talk about community, we don't just do it from a brand or marketing perspective, for us it's very much just our business model.'
And just as Nykaa's community is both about its customers and the influencers and By Rotation's is both its lenders and its renters, Ida Sports has a double-headed community too.
There are its customers, but there are the athletes as well with whom it interacts closely.
Youngston explained that 'when we started out people said 'aargh, you're going up against Nike!' But she didn't feel at a disadvantage on that front because the business model is to work very closely with the people who will wear the boots, both professionals and amateurs.
'One of the things we do is we ask women what they want when we design — a crazy innovation! We're really listening to players and athletes. We launched our first rugby boot this spring and we really listened to the players about everything they want from colourways to the flexibility of the outsoles.
'I have a programme called 'happy customer. sad customer'. We look at the top five 'happies' and top five 'sads' and we look at what makes someone so loyal that they'll buy 12 pairs of shoes a year and what's making someone so frustrated [that they won't]. They talk about things like wanting a wider shoe — a lot of them are saying that now.' All that feeds quickly into the product development process.
Anyone who wants to see Ida sports in action can do as it has taken advantage of another 'community' — the community of emerging retailers nurtured by Westminster City Council in London. Ida Sports will this summer occupy a pop-up on Regent Street.
It's that same community project that By Rotation made the most of last year when it moved into a five-storey townhouse in Mayfair rent-free. It was so successful it's been extended to the end of June this year.
Let's give the last word to Jennifer Woo who really summed up the importance of community. She acknowledged that today's big obsession — data — is hugely important, but believes there's more to running successful business than that: 'We're in the retail business. Our store is basically the data lake. All you have to do is go to the store and listen to our customers. Even the management team. You have to be present, you can't be behind a screen and just looking at data.'