White Knight Projects

The baby clothing and accessories high street retailer Adams went into administration on New Year’s Eve 2008.  It had already been bought out of administration in February 2007 by successful entrepreneur, John Shannon, and now he’s done it again.  The way it stands, I think he’ll be buying it back from adminstrators in another year unless some key factors improve.

I have identified at least one key area that needs improving immediately if Adams wants to be around in another two years.  It is an improvement that would result in a gain in profits, brand strength and create the foundations for a much longer term strategy of sustainability.

The fact is that the High Street is dying.  Yes, there are lots of jobs still in there but just because the High Street is dying, it doesn’t mean companies need to lay off staff and close down high street stores – at least not if they broaden their strategy to include all avenues of selling.  Yes, you guessed it, you know where this is going, its heading online…

But Adams have got a website, you say.  Yes, they have, an old fashioned one.  In much the same way that older retail stores have been superceded by 7 new ‘concept’ stores in the last year – all now performing beyond expectations – the same principal must be applied to the company’s website. It needs a facelift, a remake, a new concept.

Without seeing exact sales figures its hard to say how successful the Adams website has been in its ucrrent form but isnt that somehwat irrelevant?  The company went into administration so something about the company wasn’t working right.  I believe one of those aspects was the online offering.  Lets look at it from the perspective of winning NEW customers.  Let’s face it, babies haven’t stopped being born and children haven’t stopped needing clothes have they? Recession or not, they’re still coming! The market is still there despite the change in climate but as well as that, the increasing convenience to consumers of researching and ordering products on the internet coupled with the decline in actual footfall in high street locations also have to be considered.

Adams arguably have one of the biggest names in the UK for baby and children’s clothing yet why is it that a brand as widely respected as Adams had to go into administration? Really, strip away the facts and the accusations relayed squarely at the recession and think about recent consumer trends.  Online sales increased by 50% in 2008, high street sales declined and will continue to decline.  So lets put things into perspective, if more shoppers are going online, and lets say a proportion of those shoppers were looking for childrens clothing, then why did they not buy from Adams?

Or, more appropriately, why did they not buy from Adams but instead bought from their competitors?

Reason 1: They couldn’t find Adams.

Their are a heap of studies about that state that when users shop on the internet, the first port of call is either their ‘pre-packed’ internet homepage or google.  The interesting thing about internet homepages is that unless your page loads up at the microsoft or yahoo pages, almost every other ’search’ feature on an internet homepage will use google to run the search.  What that means is that a good 80% of users looking for goods on the internet will end up starting their buying cycle (research stage) at google.

I stated in an article last week that retailers without an online presence were 30% more likely to go bust and I can’t help but feel like this was one of the major aspects of why Adams went in to administration a couple of months ago.

Here’s how it played out in practice. I’ve just ran a few quick searches for things I’d buy for my child (and I always shop online) on google and been thrown up a list of results.  I searched for ‘baby clothes‘, its pretty generic but its where I would start myself.  Ok, so the results popup and low and behold, on the page, if I count them all up, I can see 24 baby clothing shops (websites) and guess what? Adams isn’t one of them. Now imagine this as the hottest retail street in the UK and then imagine 24 other baby shops on that street and you’re not there.  Ok, so 24 other shops you might say, isn’t that a bit saturated? Why would I want to be in a high street with 24 other baby shops – their would be price wars and all sorts!  Ok, so this is a valid point but here’s the thing, of those 24 shops, only 4 are recognised brand names:
Mamas & Papas
Marks & Spencer
Next
Mothercare

Now I’d bet my house that if John Shannon, the new owner of Adams, took a look at that last paragraph and saw that I ran that search and saw 4 of his major competitors whilst he was nowhere in sight, he’d be on the phone to his marketing/web design team to say, ‘why are we not there?’   I’d also bet that if Adams was one of the websites that I saw in that list, I’d chance to visit the website because I trust Adams, I trust and respect its brand which has been a figure of my high streets all my life!  I trust it because of my age but what of the new generation that are beginning their product research on the internet?  They don’t really know Adams historically, and the worse thing is, Adams arent even there to make a point – they have no visibility and therefore won’t retain this brand trust unless they start to consider the internet as a serious medium for brand survival.

This is simply commercial suicide to not take this seriously.  The other 20 websites I was presented with were small in scale compared to the might of the Adams brand yet I bet 50% of them were generating more revenue from their website than Adams did from theirs.  And the thing of it is, there’s absolutely no reason why Adams can’t get in on this action…