When the lockdown started, we needed a secure way for our customers to complete orders through WeChat itself, so we worked with our payments partner, Adyen, to find a solution. Pay by Link was recommended and implemented in just two weeks.

Pay by Link allows you to set up a custom link within your payments dashboard that you can share with your customer, whether through SMS, message, email or web chat. The link opens a secure page with a range of popular payment methods. It was great for Incu because it meant our WeChat customers could select their preferred payment options like AliPay and WeChat Pay.

As we continue to manage this new normal, it means fewer physical touchpoints and more flexibility for customers who might still be wary of going out in public. For example, customers can make a purchase through a payment link from home and arrange delivery, or walk by our stores to collect their items. We can also use tools like WeChat, FaceTime or Zoom to guide people through our collections and then share a link to purchase – which offers a truly personalised experience. It’s also given us access to a broader market; we had put a stop to interstate phone orders because we saw increased fraud, but these orders are possible again thanks to the secure nature of the technology.

IRW: Where are you at in terms of reopening stores at the moment?

DL: We reopened our stores in late May, but we have since closed our Victorian stores.  

In March, we were forecasting to open in June/July, so it was nice to see we were able to open before that. I’m sure it’s been the same speaking to a lot of other retailers, but there’s a lot of uncertainty around what is the right thing to do at this time. We’ve just been trying to do our best with the staff and customers in mind. We’ve staged it in a way where we’ve done minimal hours. When we opened, we opened 11-4 and we’ve got sanitiser stations and other safety measures set up. Some of the stores have now started to open for longer hours and we’re easing back into things in a very gentle way. We’ve needed queues for customers to get in. With one person every four square metres, we’ve purposely undershot it because we didn’t want staff to feel overwhelmed. We’ve got some pretty big stores. Our Melbourne City store is 300sqm. You can do the math, but that’s a lot of people in there at one time. We’ve just tried to make sure that we’re doing it with safety in mind and trying to look after everyone.

IRW: No one knows what’s going to happen in a couple of weeks, we’re just trying to make informed decisions and stay flexible. It must be a hard thing to execute.

DL: It is. What’s heart-warming is the store staff have been amazing and they have done such a good job and been patient and flexible with us, so when we’ve had to change hours, they’ve been happy to accommodate. That’s been excellent. It’s been hard to anticipate, but we’ve been pleased with how things are tracking so far.

IRW: How would you describe how your customers have changed since the pandemic when it comes to shopping?

DL: At the peak of the pandemic, we were very digital-focused like everyone. A lot of the working-from-home products were just flying out the door. We’ve since had an intake of new product. Before, we had to delay product coming into the business because it wasn’t the right time and we were focusing on what we already had. But we’ve had an uplift. We can see our customers have been hankering for new stock and freshness. Everybody’s been seeing the same things over and over again so they’re just so excited about new freshness.

IRW: I know a big proportion of Incu’s customers are Chinese. What is it about your brand that has attracted them?

DL: We’ve just got the brands that they’re into and because we’ve got quite a wide demographic, we’ve got what we term as more entry price point products, all the way up to contemporary. There are other brands that are highly coveted internationally, which they know about. We’ve got a mix of non-luxury products, but we have customers who are on their way to luxury. From us, they want the products they see other people wear or they want to look a bit different and they want to stand out – that’s why it resonates with that clientele.

IRW: How do you cater to your Chinese demographic?

DL: It’s an interesting one. Last year, one of the store staff from Chadstone, Cassie, was very passionate about creating a WeChat channel for us and the way she did it was quite novel. She was taking photos of products on herself.

We have a process where when the buyers order for certain brands at the time of indenting the order, staff are also allowed to order product. We had a brand called Dress Up at the time. One staff member Yali saw the images of a pair of pants when they got sent around to the buyers. She said, ‘Ah, I’m not really into that,’ and when it came into our business, we had it shot on one of our models who’s really tall. Yali’s quite a short girl, so she looked at it and said, ‘It looks good, but it’s not for me.’

Then Cassie, who is a similar build to Yali, shot it on herself and styled it to suit a shorter, more petite body. Yali saw it and said, ‘I want those pants now!’

What Cassie’s able to do is cater to the market and show them styling advice. We have a lot of Chinese customers who find it hard to converse with the store staff because it’s their second language. When you’re talking about fit, it can get quite complex, so Cassie can talk to them via WeChat and answer their direct questions.

It’s really grown; in the stores she looks after, QVB and Chadstone, it’s about 15 per cent of the business and it’s only increasing.

With Adyen’s Pay by Link, it was great because we were part of the beta program, and it was introduced at just the right time when Covid hit. Cassie was able to go into stores, still do her job, post things on WeChat, talk to customers and if they wanted to purchase anything via WeChat, Alipay or even Visa, Amex and Mastercard, she was able to send them a link.

I’m not super tech-savvy, but I managed to teach Cassie on Zoom how to set them up, and she was flicking them out in the same day. She had a customer who had just contacted her and said, ‘I’ve just seen your posts, I’ve lost a whole ton of weight and I’m looking for a new outfit. Can I buy the outfits you just posted?’ and she managed to make a $4,000 sale remotely which is amazing for us. That really helps our day. When the stores were shut, we were scrambling for a couple hundred dollars of sales – we were cheering to get that through, so we could do whatever was needed to turn things over and clear stock. It’s been awesome to see and I think it’s something we’ll continue to use it for any of our interstate customers.

IRW: Now that customers have seen your clothes on a different body shape like Cassie’s, what are your thoughts about continuing that?

DL: I think it’s something we should be focused on and to be honest, we could be doing a better job of it. When Brian and Vincent Wu first opened Incu, one of the reasons was because there weren’t a lot of multi-brand retailers opened at the time. Brian and Vincent – they still look and dress the same as they did back then, but when they went shopping at a lot of boutiques, they felt uncomfortable because they felt like people were eyeing them up and down, or that they didn’t belong in the store.

So what they tried to create at Incu was kind of the antithesis of that, where people could come in and it didn’t matter where they’re from or what they’re into, whether you could afford the product, or if you just wanted to look at it, it shouldn’t make a difference. It should be a warm and welcoming place. It’s something we’re always trying to improve. I think we could do a lot better with things, but it is really important.

It’s why we purposely go for a high-low mix of product and we don’t necessarily push to one niche. We don’t want everyone to walk out of our store looking exactly the same. It comes down to different diversities, bodies, genders. At the moment, we have a lot of female customers shopping in our menswear stores. We’d like Incu to be a pick and mix, where customers can come in, you can have a great experience but you’re not being dictated on what you should look like.

IRW: Because you’re a multi-brand store and you stock international product, has Covid made things tricky for the business?

DL: It was a tricky thing for us and it continues to be in terms of juggling units into the business. At the peak of Covid, we had to reach out to all our suppliers and put the brakes on getting stock into the business because we had to deal with what we currently had. All of them were happy to work with us, which was great to see. For most of them, we tried to do the right thing by not cancelling orders, but delaying them.  

The trickiest thing was and has been getting stock into the country. We’ve seen that shipping has gone up by 300 or 400 per cent. There’s a menswear brand we’ve got called Stone Island which sells out quickly and is based in Italy. We spent a month trying to get it onto a plane to Australia, but it kept getting bumped, until we finally put it on a ship, so we received it three months later than originally scheduled.

Because the Australian dollar crashed over that period it was also tricky in terms of payments. It’s since recovered somewhat.

IRW: You guys have had more than 10 years’ experience refining the edit at Incu. Can you tell me about that process? What does the ideal mix look like?

DL: We understand the numbers, but we don’t play to them too much. I think at the end of the day, we are a boutique. You’ve got to go with your gut instinct. Sometimes you’ll make mistakes, but you want to minimise them. You need to take risks with things as well. We’ve been lucky in some regards. We’ve put ourselves in the position where we’ve been able to speak to other brands because we’ve had introductions from different brands, but we’ve got good buyers who stay on top of things. I’d love to say there’s a magic formula that we put into a machine and it spits out, but it’s making sure the mix is interesting and you’re continuing to search for the next thing and looking at what’s coming up.

IRW: What are your thoughts on the current fashion retail landscape?

DL: Digital is going to stick around. For us, one thing that we’re very cognisant of is we’ve taken the first steps and done ship-from-store. We need to work on the omnichannel experience. We’re looking at click-and-collect in a different way for us, where people need it as a transactional and convenient experience, but there’s also click-and-collect if you want your item in a changeroom to try on in-store – maybe we can introduce a pair of pants with that top and maybe in a dream circumstance, we can offer a glass of champagne or a bottle of sparkling water to really elevate the experience, so we can make it less transactional.  

The other thing is endless aisle. Once we can start to work towards those things, we can have a compelling offer. If you look at the market that we sit in, we’ve got stores along the East Coast of Australia, which means we can have touchpoints along there and marry them up.

IRW: What other plans do you have for the future of the business?

DL: I feel like a broken record, but we obviously want to focus on digital and continue to grow, but the biggest thing we need to do is get the fundamentals right – like fulfilment, customer service – so we can nail the basics.

We’ve just opened up our new outlet store in Rosebery, Sydney. Then the most exciting thing for us is that in the Galeries, we’ve signed up a new lease with a store downstairs. We’re turning it into a 300sqm menswear store down there. Upstairs, the existing mens- and womenswear stores will be turned into both womenswear, so it will be a true flagship. We planned it before Covid hit, and it’s part of our long-term strategy. It’s really exciting. If you go into our stores at the moment, it is quite crammed in terms of the product. We want to introduce some slightly higher priced product and we want to present it properly. It’ll be 330sqm of womenswear upstairs. The current womenswear store will be a similar mix to what we’ve got, bar a few brands and some of the more designer brands will go into the other more luxurious womenswear store nearby. Then menswear will be downstairs.

We’re a bit nervous at the same time, but it’s interesting. On one hand, we’re talking about how stores will have a smaller footprint and if we were to open in other areas, it would be fulfilment, smaller and a tight edit. But if a lot of people are doing that, you do need other stores to offer an experience that makes people fall in love with your brand.

IRW: Go hard or go home!

DL: Exactly.

IRW: I like this faith in retail. I think there needs to be an even clearer distinction between physical and digital now.

DL: It’s just one of those things, it’s still a risk, but it does make a lot of sense and if we want to sit on a global level, we need to present things in such a way that people will appreciate them more. From there, that will help us get new brands. Especially in the menswear space, some of the brands are just happy to be in one store in Australia – but it’s not to do with which retailer will buy the most, it’s about what other brands they’ll be positioned next to. It’s about ‘How are you going to position me as being really cool in your region?’

This story appears in the August 5, 2020, issue of Inside Retail Weekly.