Articles
Published September 1999
E-Success Stories: Just White Shirts
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Business: Just White Shirts & Black Socks
Owner: Leon Goren, Keith Beckley, and Doug Childerhose URL: justwhiteshirts.com Online since: January 1998 "JWS is a five-year old company that has built its reputation on the manufacturing and selling of high quality men's white cotton dress shirts and other wardrobe staples to businessmen and professionals in an easy and creative way. Shirts of high quality are reasonably priced and customers can order by toll free phone, fax, mail and, in the last 18 months, via the Internet" Projected 1999 gross Internet sales: $1.05 million |
When Just White Shirts and Black Socks (JWS) decided to make the move to Cyberspace 18 months ago, they had no idea what was 'in store' for them. Now, their e-commerce site is exploding – with a projected $1.5 million in sales for 1999 – beyond their expectations.
"Initially, we really did not have any larger goals than serving our customers better, allowing them to see the JWS product line anywhere at anytime, and learning about this new medium," said Leon Goren. "Our site is hosted in Canada but has now adapted for our 3 distribution facilities: Canada, United States and Australia."
But how is this Canadian company managing to pull in millions in profit when other businesses are struggling?
Getting Started
Like many businesses, Just White Shirts (JWS) was formed when Leon Goren, Keith Beckley, and Doug Childerhose turned a frustrating experience into an innovative business solution.
In 1994 the three white-collar executives – a chartered accountant, a physicist, and a banker – found themselves in a 'classic' dilemma. They were frustrated with trying to find the time to pay 'too much money' for white cotton dress shirts.
For the 3 soon-to-be entrepreneurs, the solution was simple. They would create a company that would make it easy for other professionals to purchase high quality wardrobe necessities - white shirts. For other men – traditionally stereotyped as shopping haters – not only would they save money, but they would never have to leave the office to place their order. And so JWS was born.
The Customer Advantage
Because JWS already had a large customer base, the launch of the website had some initial built in web traffic. From there, Goren cites word of mouth and promotion with their traditional, selective advertising methods as helping boost visits to the site. They have included the URL on all materials, ads and newsletters.
"The power of this is astounding," Goren said. "We ran an ad in the New York Times in May that included www.justwhiteshirts.com. In 2 days, we had 7 times the traffic on the site, and saw a 100% gain in orders over those 2 days versus similar ads without the URL."
JWS forecasts its active customer base will double to over 50,000 North American executives in the next 18 months. Over this same time period, the average customer order of $185 is expected to grow by at least 50%.
Internet Driving Sales
As the Internet never sleeps, Goren said that being online has helped to expand their business model through extended hours. The integration of Internet sales with JWS' traditional selling methods is shifting the way customers shop. There has been a drop in phone orders by 10%, and fax by 20% - the Internet is picking up the 30%. The website offers easy ordering methods, and has opened up new lines of communication with customers.
www.justwhiteshirts.com nets 15,000 visitors a month – and the company is projecting that to double between September and December of this year. Along with that, the website has expanded to include 2 new countries.
Fulfillment: Challenges and Solutions
Each country's site – Canada, US and Australia – is in their own currency, with no exchange rate involved – continuing with JWS' simplicity and ease of shopping. Dealing with the challenges of shipping overseas and in the US was cause enough for JWS to open local distribution centres in the States, and now in Australia.
"While shipping expense and calculating taxes require effort to monitor and collect/remit respectively, the border issues relating to textiles is the biggest challenge," Goren said. "NAFTA, quotas on textiles…the issues go on, which explains why we run a US Distribution facility."
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"Firewall: software that creates a barrier between a trusted and an untrusted network, allowing or forbidding data to cross the barrier based on a set of rules that an administrator has configured."
Click here to learn more about firewalls.
"Encryption: the process of turning readable text into cipher text."
Click here to learn more about encryption.
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One of JWS' biggest challenges is security. Since their ecommerce site takes so many orders online, keeping customer information private is a key concern and focus.
"We employ password, encryption, firewall and a number of other strategies to secure our site and detect any viruses," Goren said. "Security remains an ongoing effort."
Looking Forward
The company now expects 35% of total sales to be web-driven by the end of the year. This rate of growth, said Goren, has caused JWS to re-orient the business at a much faster pace than originally planned.
"With our level of success with e-commerce expanding so quickly, we are now nearing completion of a whole new look and feel for the site that incorporates a great deal of the feedback we have received from our customers," he said. "The site will take full advantage of new tools/programming that has been developed over the last 18 months to create additional functionality."
Strategy for Success
Overall, Goren says the company's strategy to obtain and keep the reorder numbers high consists of:
- niche media marketing
- strategic alliances
- loyalty to existing customers (not renting or selling confidential information)
- giveaways and referral programs.
Goren's Tips for Online Retailers
- Be prepared to manage this part (the web) of your marketing as a constant work-in-progress.
- Keep it simple
- Beta test with feedback from customers
- Consider supplier chains, if applicable – they may also cause you some grief if you can't fulfill.
- Watch your cashflow and start slowly.
JWS filled a niche in the market – selling the simple and ordinary to traditional non-shoppers. Add some creativity, low prices, and great spokesmen and you have an online/offline company that is breaking grounds in the Canadian e-commerce field.
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Goren recommends his favourite websites:
www.omahasteaks.com for their promotional quality
www.retailcanada.com for its great organization of data and utility
www.amazon.com as a leader in ecommerce.
