Like all other non-essential British retail businesses, spectacles company Cubitts had to close its doors on 23rd March due to the lockdown. In the hours and days that followed, the British challenger made a series of tough decisions that would see it pivot from being a business that generates 85% of its revenue through retail, to one that focuses solely on e-commerce. The strategy appears to be paying off with online sales up 130% since the closure of its ten London stores. Tom Broughton, the founder, talks to us from Stockholm about his initial response to the lockdown measures, how they’re adapting their business and marketing, and his thoughts and hopes for the future post-COVID.

What was your response to being told all your stores have to close and how has the business adapted?

There was a 24-hour period of realisation and panic where the enormity of it sank in. 80-85% of our revenue comes through our stores so suddenly our income disappears, and our cost base stays the same right? So it was pretty terrifying, and it still is pretty terrifying and uncertain. But you quickly realise there's not a huge amount you can do about it so our view was to try and do what we can. It meant reallocating our resources and rethinking the teams in a way that is most likely to get us through this period so we can come out the other side stronger. And it's tough because you think about the economics of it and the numbers. We're not a big company. We're not sitting on huge oodles of cash. So suddenly the enormity of it hits right? We realised that we had four weeks left of cash to keep the business going and four weeks is not a long time. So we had to do stuff. And we had to be quite incisive.

The strategy was to make changes quickly so it didn't drag on, and we weren't constantly reducing headcount or tinkering. We could get that out of the way, frankly, within the first week, so that we could quickly move on to the next stage. We called it internally ‘survive then thrive’. 'Survive' was making tough decisions, cutting costs, speaking to landlords and doing everything within our power to try and contain that within a week. We could then move on to the 'Thrive' bit which was accepting that we might be a loss-maker for a while, but let's now try and reuse the resources that we've got in a way that when we come out the other side, which we will do at some point, we can go all guns blazing. It's meant we've had to make a whole bunch of pivots internally about where to focus.

What changes have you made?

We’ve obviously focused on e-commerce — the one sales channel we have open! And we’re focusing on the things that we've been meaning to do for a while. We’re trying to improve the user experience, but also speak to our customers more. And that’s not really about ‘selling’ products. We launched a frame design competition where customers can send us a sketch, and we'll make a frame for them. And in a couple of weeks, we're doing a ‘make a frame at home’ competition where we'll tell people how to make a frame and then we'll send them a little kit so they can try and make a frame in the comfort of their own home and share that. So we're seeing an opportunity to engage with customers and our traffic and online sales are going up and it's really starting to work. But it’s a delicate thing because there's so much noise. There's a sense people feel they have to be doing something. Whether that’s doing something for the NHS or by making masks or by turning my brewery into making hand sanitiser, and I guess it's finding that balance. Because not doing something, is also doing something right? And we don't want to end up just being a bunch of noisy, busy fools. It's about trying to really unpick that to do stuff that actually is useful and makes a difference fo us as a company, our team of people and also for our customers.

We’ve also pivoted on the development of our technology. We’ve been working on head scanning technology for a while but we’ve decided to change the direction of that to now focus on launching our new app HERU at the start of June, which allows people with the latest generation of smartphones to take a head scan. It uses the true depth camera in the phone so it's accurate to fractions of a millimetre. It will help people select frames and should take away some of the fear of buying online. Ultimately, we want to build a machine learning-based algorithm so it can automate and help people choose the right frames. If we can find any way to improve the process and experience and simulating what it’s like to be in a store where customers have a sales assistant and multiple sizes, then that’s only a good thing. So we're reallocating our resources to try and do stuff that will make a difference.

Have you had to think differently about marketing and communications too?

Yeah, absolutely. Our view was, we have a bunch of stuff to say, but how we say it and when we say it is really important. We didn't just want to join this cacophony of noise because every brand feels they need to be doing something. It's about harnessing that energy to have an actual impact. So we didn't want to join in during the real pandemonium we tried to stay quieter. Whereas now, we want to just give people helpful information so they can go about their day. We're offering free video appointments with one of our optometrists so people can book in and ask questions about their eye health and their prescriptions. We're trying to be useful and help people go about their daily business during a very difficult time. It's about knowing when to make a noise and when not to and to be honest. I think that's good advice at the moment.

What are your hopes for how things might change, after COVID?

I'd like to think that we become more appreciative of the stuff that we've got; the simple pleasures in life like being able to stockpile toilet paper ; ) or buy a fresh loaf of bread. And that idea of rampant consumerism constantly funding this turnover of new products and new stuff might change. We might become more appreciative of the outdoors and all that kind of stuff. So I'd like to think on the human level that there will be some positive things that come out of it.

As a company, it would just be nice for us to get through and get back to normality really. It’s definitely made me think about the future and growth and what is the right level of growth and how big do we want to be? And the obligation that we have for the people we employ. You can get quite self-reflective but they're good questions, frankly. But how long this takes to manifest itself who knows really? People are resilient though. The first couple of weeks were definitely panic stations but it does feel like it’s settling now. I'm also of the view that if we always have the best product, a strong brand and offer a nice experience, then we should be fine.

Further info:

www.cubitts.com

Challenger Brands Locked Down is a new series of interviews with the leaders of some of our favourite SME challenger brands adapting to the current crisis. We talk to them about how their business is responding, how it’s impacting marketing and how they are beginning to plan and build for the future.