_Benjamin Barker spruces up for new WFH attire needs

Consumers are trading style and formality for comfort as work-from-home remains the default mode of working, changing the way people dress for work. Apparel brands have to adapt to this new normal as wear-to-work fashion gets upended. In response to growing demand for more comfortable wear, Benjamin Barker has rolled out a new line of casual home-wear catering to male customers working from home.

The Benjamin Barker Group’s chief operating officer Damien Tan, who oversees the daily operations and sales growth of the retail and F&B entities under the group, notes that there has been a shift in demand from formal wear to casual and comfort wear.

“In terms of our product mix, we’ve identified and anticipated that there will be a drop in demand for formal wear, so we’ve undertaken our research and developed an expanded range of casual wear activewear, home wear and inner wear,” he says. “We have designed and produced an entirely new category (casual/home wear) to cater for our customers who work from home.”

By the third quarter this year, customers can expect a new range of “technical activewear” at Benjamin Barker stores, on top of sustainable inner wear and loungewear.

“Going beyond what we put on our bodies, we are diving deeper into the fabrics at home. Our strengths lie in having direct access to the best mills in the world coupled with years of R&D on experimenting with fabrics and listening to our customers,” Mr Tan says. “Imagine waking up in the softest Benjamin Barker bed sheets, towelling in a plush Benjamin Barker towel and getting dressed in Benjamin Barker’s sartorial styling of technically advanced attires that brings them from a date to a golf session in the sun.”

Benjamin Barker, which was started by Singaporean Nelson Yap who lived in Australia, specialises in modern menswear with sartorial sensibilities. It now has 13 stores in Singapore, including its latest outlet in Takashimaya that has opened in August, as well as stores in Australia, Malaysia and Cambodia. It is still keen to expand its physical presence in South-east Asia, with Vietnam being the new market where it hopes to open two new stores by the end of this year.

Though the retail fashion industry is among the hardest-hit sectors amid dwindling shoppers’ footfall, reduced demand for new garments, and more consumers turning to e-commerce, Mr Tan explains why things are looking up for Benjamin Barker.

1. How has Covid-19 and the WFH phenomenon impacted your sales performance?
Demand for our apparels was good before Covid-19 hit and 2019 was our best year ever. Now, the Heightened Alert has affected almost every business except the supermarkets. Sales have dropped significantly during the Circuit Breaker period from pre-Circuit Breaker. Prior to Heightened Alert, we were recovering though sales revenue was not as good as the pre-Covid level. It took about three to six months for sales to pick up again. But sales have dropped to the Circuit Breaker levels again during the Heightened Alert. Our first-quarter results were positive, but with Heightened Alert, the second quarter was challenging. Hopefully, we will pick up in the third and fourth quarters. Throughout this time, we have not let go any of our staff and have managed to retain everyone.

The majority of our products were shirts and suits but with WFH, we are wearing more polo tees or casual jackets that are lightweight and comfortable. That is the trend that we are seeing. We have seen a shift among male customers from being more formal to more casual. By end of the year, we will have more complementary products like socks, inner wear, and other more “basics”.

In terms of our clientele, some 20 per cent of our customers are tourists and business travellers. This group is probably not coming back in the next two years. So, we have to make up for this 20 per cent shortfall. Our strategy in the next few years is to reach out to local customers and introduce them to our stores.

2. How have you pivoted your retail business amid changes to consumer preferences and challenge from e-commerce? How have these initiatives helped to mitigate the sales decline?
We are multi-channel or omni-channel to meet the needs of our customers and be present where they want us to be – whether it is the physical or the online store.

During the Circuit Breaker, we had to move our frontline team to assist the e-commerce team as online was the only way of transacting for our customers, so we marketed the online store aggressively to drive our customers to make their purchases. But online sales still make up a single-digit percentage share of our revenue. It seems to be the same for other apparel retailers – in that their online sales are not enough to cover their expenses. In another lockdown situation during which we were to redeploy all our staff to the online business, we would not be able to recover all our overhead costs.

The online business for apparels is a very challenging space to be in because there is so much competition. And if you look at it closely, online sales are not generating sufficient revenue to make up for the brick and mortar sales. That is why many e-commerce players like Amazon eventually set up their own stores. Amazon started out as e-commerce player but they eventually needed physical stores to expand and grow their shopper base. There is a limit to online growth.

While many of our customers moved online to buy products during the Circuit Breaker, many flocked back to the stores after the lockdown. Due to the nature of our products and price point, our customers prefer to shop in-store rather than online. At the end of the day, male shoppers still prefer to buy in-store because they can try on the clothes and avoid the hassle of returning clothes that they buy online. The psyche of male shoppers is different from female shoppers. They tend to buy in bulk for six months to one year rather than piecemeal. We want things to be easy and convenient for male shoppers.

3. How are you looking to grow this year locally and overseas?
While sales and revenues are down, the pandemic has accelerated many of the plans we have for the future. Our product range has expanded from formal menswear to home wear and homeware. Every new product we introduce are with our customers in mind – what do men need and how can they have easy access to our products. Most men prefer to try on shirts and suits in our physical stores for sizing before purchase, but they will definitely be more open to buying casual tees and home essentials online, even without stepping into our stores.

With the new range of lifestyle products that we are releasing this year, we hope to be able to reach out to a wider customer base, not just in Singapore, but all over the world through our online store. In Singapore, we have launched a brand new flagship lifestyle store in Ngee Ann City in August this year.

At the same time, we are also venturing overseas. In the third and fourth quarters, we will open new stores in South-east Asian countries through our franchisees. We are currently in Cambodia and Malaysia within South-east Asia. Our targets would be markets of high growth potential and high-income spending. Our Cambodia business is doing very well with two stores and the group is considering opening a third one. The Malaysian market is, however, facing a challenging time.

Covid-19 put a halt to our plans to enter Indonesia last year. We are now looking at Thailand and Vietnam, with the hope of opening two stores in either of these markets by the end of this year.

4. Which of the government support measures have you found to be the most beneficial, and why?
The two-month rental rebate that the government supported, and the two-month rental rebate matched by the landlords were beneficial to us as it helped us to tide through the three months when our physical stores were closed.

The Jobs Support Scheme (JSS) was extremely beneficial too as we managed to keep all our people on board last year. We can’t expect the government to keep supporting us as we are after all a business, but the landlords could do more to share the burden.

5. Do you find landlords improving in terms of tenant engagement and seeking an effective partnership with tenants? Why or why not?
Many landlords are not sharing the burden but are taking a wait-and-see approach unless there are mandatory requirements from the government. For instance, there is no mandatory obligation for landlords to help us during the Heightened Alert phase from May 16 to June 13, unlike during the Circuit Breaker.

We have four leases up for renewal this year and each time the renewal numbers come back, we are seeing a 10-15 per cent increase in rental on a per square foot basis if we were to continue with the lease. But our sales in the stores are not growing by the same percentage increase, so this is something that beats me.

6. In your view, are the terms spelt out under the Fair Tenancy Framework sufficient to level the playing field between landlords and tenants? What is lacking and should be addressed further?
I believe the Code of Conduct for Leasing of Retail Premises (CoC) in Singapore is a good step forward and I hope all the landlords in Singapore will support this and adopt the CoC. This is a good start to ensure a win-win relationship between landlords and tenants and there are terms which will impact us, as tenants, financially and strategically. For now, we, as tenants have slightly more bandwidth for negotiation; previously, there was none at all on certain terms.

The task-group for the CoC has done a lot of work and that bodes well for us. On the fair tenancy framework, it still boils down to whether it is embraced by most landlords and whether they would comply in spirit, not just on paper. For instance, a rental structure that goes by a fixed rent per square foot or percentage of gross turnover, whichever is higher, is no longer allowed unless both the landlord and tenant agree to it and declare their agreement to a Fair Tenancy Industry Committee (FTIC) within 14 days of signing the lease. But landlords can get around this restriction by charging tenants higher base rent and in so doing, are not complying with the spirit of the code.