Pure London underway

So Pure London trade event February 2012 is underway; the atmosphere is as alive as ever at the Olympia venue. Notably there seems to be more than ever a growing international and European buying contingency at this season’s event.

New names particularly focused on attracting international interest include Valour and Valkyrie, a young womenswear label, launched in 2010. In only their second season, head of design, Jo Morton, is still learning about the buying side of the business as she goes along. “I would come again and am also interested in Bread and Butter,” she continues, “I’ve had a lot of interest from smaller retailers both in the UK and Europe but ideally would be so happy if Colette in Paris started stocking lower lines!”

Other names enjoying this season’s event include Irregular Choice, whom along with their established shoe line, have just launched a clothing line, which they are exhibiting for the first time at Pure. Ingenue, JC Collection and Sugarhill Boutique are also enjoying buying attention.

Whilst one of the most interesting talks of the day was entitled, Making the Jump to Multi-channel, a big topic as more and more traditional bricks and mortar retailers are turning to multichannel. In talks were Deryane Todd, owner of The Dressing Room, Paul Lewis from the Paul Lewis ecommerce agency, and Richard Hatfield, chief operating officer at Sarah Coggles.

Todd initially wanted to expand her small independent retail business so could either open more stores or an e-commerce site. She’s been online for 3 years now and has seen real growth from starting with a back office type structure to a full blown web team.

E-commerce is a challenging task, Todd goes onto explain, as unlike in a shop you can’t make excuses to customers about anything being messy. Easy to find products, good packaging, easy returns are key.

Hatfield thinks the whole industry will revolve around social networks, with Twitter and Facebook allowing one to engage with customers in different ways. Paul Lewis explains how one of his clients niche brand, Long Tall Sally, found itself a facebook community built around how to dress tall people.

They predict a 30% turnover in the next two years – more than the actual physical store.  6 months minimum is the time the panel agreed to launch an ecommerce site and break even.