This Legacy Brand’s Next 100 Years is Inspired by Its Past

0:00We see ourselves as custodians of something that is much bigger than ourselves. And we've approached this turnaround and rebrand of Belsaf in a very thoughtful and sensitive way. Hey, what's going on? I'm Shuang Esther Shan, and you're listening to Shopify Masters, your companion for starting and building a business. Are you building for longevity? Maybe one of your goals is to be a hundred year old company. The clothing brand Belsaf just hit that milestone recently, celebrating a century in business. Belsaf's design have stood the test of time, adapting to new fashion trends while staying true to its heritage and functionality.

0:42Today, we'll chat about how its branding and tech have been key to its staying power. First, we'll hear from Chief Brand Officer Jodi Harrison, and later, Naveed Jalow, the Director of Technology, will walk us through why this legacy brand switched to Shopify. Let's start with Jodi. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Very, very excited to chat. Can you describe to our listeners what Bellstaff's brand means to its community? Yeah, so Belsaf is synonymous with adventure, I think, first and foremost. One of the most compelling and identifiable elements of Belsaf is the icon that is positioned on the left-hand sleeve.

1:25It's called the Phoenix icon, and it represents rebirth and renewal and all of those good things. So I think when people see that icon worn by other people, they feel like they belong to something, and it feels like a bit of a club, and people that live a certain way kind of band together in the spirit of what Bellstaff represents, which is adventure and a sort of pioneering and get it done way of looking at the world. I love that. And I think when you mention rebirth, adventure, this is very fitting. You joined in 2021. What did you want to elevate or rebrand about Bellstaff? So I have been a long admirer of Belsaf.

2:07I've worked in the industry now for 20 years in menswear predominantly, starting my career at GQ and then at Mr. Porter. And I'd worked with Belsaf in certain ways over the years in brand partnerships, etc. And I'd always thought that it had a much richer story than what I'd seen out in the media to date. It was born in the middle north of England. So it was founded in Stoke-on-Trent. And it has all these really compelling and beautiful stories that light the heart of it. And I was quite keen to unearth those stories for the first time and I guess bring back that lens of Britishness that I think had been dissolved over the years through different ownerships.

2:45It had been owned by Jab Group, obviously German-owned before that, and before that by the Malinottis, who were Italian. So I felt like we had an opportunity to really get it back to its roots. And that was the prospect that really got me excited, and that's what we started doing pretty much from the word go. Was there ever a sense of tension between staying true and elevating the heritage and also showing the new and showcasing the new designs? How do you come to reconcile the two sides you were trying to balance? It's the trick, right? It's the most challenging thing to do in any brand, especially a legacy heritage brand, is to come in and appeal to a new customer base whilst not alienating and upsetting the loyalists who have been there the whole way along.

3:28So that was something that I was very clear about. we made sure that when we were reintroducing new products that they always had an attachment to our iconic products or our heritage or archival products. One of the big initiatives I set up was to really take hold of the archive and research and claim back the archive. So we have thousands of pieces now at our headquarters, some of them dating back to the early 1930s, the original motorcycle jackets, and really using those as jumping off points for anything new that we introduced. So it always had a reason and a why for why it existed. It wasn't just brought about for trend's sake.

4:07We're not a fashion brand. We're a functional menswear brand. And that's a really clear and very important distinction. I imagine the headquarters is like a beautiful museum and also workspace. So one of the big initiatives is celebrating 100 years in business. Talk to us about the campaign that is the 100 years of Bellstaff. Yeah, sure. So when I started at the brand in 2021 as a consultant initially and then went full time, because like most people that come to Bellstaff, you sort of fall in love with the brand quite quickly. So I fell in love and I took a full time job. That full time job, you know, one of my key goals was to plan and execute the 100 years strategy, which we're now in, which is amazing to think.

4:52obviously a few years ago, it felt like it was a really far away. And now we're here and we're in it and we're living and breathing it. And the first thing that was to come out was a book, which is launched in March, and launches in the US in May. And it's called Our First 100 Years. And it really charts, I think, the untold stories of Bellstaff and the raw and honest stories that lie at the heart of the brand. So the people that, you know, everything from the people that made the pieces in the factory, through to the people who collect the brand around the world. And there are our global collectors from Japan to sort of, you know, Nova Scotia, even we found collectors in those regions that really go out of their way to hunt and find old pieces of Bellstaff.

5:31And there's this whole trading narrative that we had no idea about that I really wanted to tell in the book. And then obviously, we launched the 100 Years campaign as well at the same time. And that focused on something which I thought was really important, which is focus on real people and the real stories of Bellstaff. So we didn't use models, we didn't use celebrities. We actually focused on nine people who have some connection to the brand. Everyone from Harry Grosberg's great grandson. He was one of the original founders. So we actually photographed his great grandson, who was only five, called Sonny, who was super cute.

6:04And then we even photographed Ollie, who is our current menswear designer. So he's actually designing the new products for the new audiences and the younger customers to make sure that there was a reason why everybody was there and that they all had an attachment and an affection and a story to tell. I believe this whole archiving project must have been so cool to uncover stories that you haven't heard before. Was there another story that really caught you by surprise that you didn't think you'll uncover throughout the process? Yeah, so I think the collectability of certain pieces I was quite shocked by, like mainly because of the cost of some of these pieces now.

6:43It's like a rare car when you find a barn find. You go into a barn and you find an old car that obviously nobody thought existed anymore and it's got the original, you know, number plate on it and all that kind of stuff. Belsaf has got a similarly sort of a hunt and find mindset around it. Like there's a lot of people globally looking for the earliest pieces. The earliest piece we've come across is an early 1930s coat that was originally designed for pure plain motorcycling back when motorcycles were huge and you needed to wear a very long, sort of very exuberant coat on the motorbike. Like we sadly don't actually own it.

7:16It's owned by one of our very good friends and collectors called Doug Gunn, who owns a beautiful showroom called The Vintage Showroom, who specializes in collectible fashions. And he found it purely by chance. Somebody was clearing out a bar in France and found it hanging in the window. And it was pretty perfectly preserved. It's the only one with the original label on it, which is spelt B-E-L-L-S-T-A-F-F. and no one else has ever found another jacket like that or with that label on it. So that's truly special. And it does become quite an addictive obsession that you're now, I'm now like on eBay, like checking out if anyone's like listing things randomly.

7:51But these people are doing it day in, day out. You know, you can't just dip in. It really comes from connections and speaking to people and meeting people and going out there and looking at things rather than just sitting on eBay. But yeah, I found that hunt and find thing really addictive and exhilarating actually to dig into. Yeah, that Bellstaff treasure hunt. another special part of the initiative of 100 years and also I think ongoing is the overhaul of retail to make sure that customers are getting the same experience wherever they shop. So talk to us about the changes to the stores as well.

8:26Yeah, so we've started to also roll out a new store design plan. We rather daringly started with our flagship on Regent Street, which isn't the norm in these sort of processes, but we wanted to get it right in Regent Street first. We have a huge loyal fan base in London. Obviously, we are from Stoke-on-Trent and we do also have a great loyal base in Manchester and in Scotland as well. So we are now rolling out that refit to our other stores, but Regent Street opened in October. The fit and the design of it is really contemporary and quite clean and quite different to where we've been before. And that's been quite purposely so.

9:02we wanted to give a really beautiful canvas for the clothing that didn't distract or didn't confuse or didn't conflict colour-wise etc so it is quite minimal it is quite stark and then we've used these beautiful stoke made tiles on the floor that this lovely kind of stoke blue colour and they are imprinted with certain phoenixes in certain places so we've made sure that we use materials that hark back to where we're from but at the same time make it very contemporary and very sort of future facing. It's a flexible space. So downstairs, we can remove all the furniture and have events in there. We actually did the book launch in there where we had a panel discussion.

9:39So making sure that we are doing events in that space, bringing people into the store, not just to shop, but to engage with us and to build on that community spirit that we know is at the heart of the brand is really important with the redesigns. And then how are you carrying this spirit to international markets? Because I know there's also a focus to reach members in different places as well. We have a really fantastic global network of wholesale partners. Ourselves, we have a store in New York. We have mostly the stores in the UK and we are looking at new territories. But like I said, our wholesale partners in Spain, Italy, Germany is a huge market for us.

10:16So we are, you know, partnering with them to make sure that the vision that we have for BellSouth really comes to life. And working with our wholesale partners is critical because obviously we can reach new customers through their channels, through their audiences, through their fans, through their tourists, all of that kind of stuff is what's going to allow us to sort of really grow the brand in a way that we feel like it deserves. And then moving from international markets to the frontier that connects us all, which is online. And I feel like especially as someone who looks after branding, there's so many new elements with social media, content marketing, working with creators.

10:54How is Bellstaff handling the online sphere of it all? So we replatformed our website last year, which is a project that I work really closely with Navid on. Obviously, Shopify are our partners in that. It was a really key project to sort of ensure that when customers come to bellstaff.com, that they're getting the same feeling across all different touch points. So when they go into a store, they get the same level of attention and service. When they go online, they can find what they want. It's, you know, really easy to navigate. It's compelling. It's got really engaging sort of content modules that we all, you know, we built those bespoke.

11:29So that was for me a huge project that I absolutely loved working on. I love doing digital. Like, so obviously my background is print, but digital rules. And so I oversee all the different digital touch points, including social media, which is obviously a huge conduit into the website as well. And email, which remains a huge part of our business. Like 30 % of our business This comes from email still. So it's sizable. And we are continuing to evolve. We know that it's not one of those things where you design and you're done. A website is a continual growing beast, I suppose, that we're continually having to feed and evolve and update and tweak.

12:04So our roadmap is never ending in that regard. Yeah, very excited to chat with Naveed about the Reap platform. On your side for social media and creating content with creators, Has there been certain campaigns that you wanted to highlight for us that really showcases the 100-year campaign or just new initiatives that the team is excited about? Yeah, so one of the big things when I came in, I was really keen for us to not work with celebrity. As I mentioned, I think when you ask people on the street, what is Bellstuff and if they knew what Bellstuff is, because it is, you know, it's a small, it's quite niche in a beautiful way.

12:40They would say, oh, David Beckham. Oh, Ewan McGregor. and whilst they were fantastic ambassadors for us, I was just really keen for us to get back to what Belsaf product meant initially and what the narratives were that kind of got us to where we'd got to. And one of those narratives was, it was a campaign that we actually did early on in my tenure, which was called Old is Good. And Old is Good, you know, it was quite a simple idea in that it really focused on why age is a beautiful thing. To me, old is just a number. We live in a very ageist society where everyone has to look like Barbie. Life isn't easy.

13:20People are just afraid of being old. Age should be celebrated in this era of celebrating new and young and all of those things. Actually being able to buy a coat, wear it for 50 years and then pass it on to your son. It's actually a really lovely part of what makes Belslaff special. And this campaign focused on that. It focused on six people, all of whom were different ages. You know, the eldest participant was 81 and the youngest participant was 17. And they all spoke about what age meant to them whilst wearing archival pieces from our beautiful archive combined with new pieces. So it's really to showcase the fact that True Style doesn't have an expiration date.

14:02And that has now become a kind of growth pillar for us. Old is good is actually within our five-year plan. It's something that we're really focusing on. because it actually allows us to bundle up lots of things under it, such as sustainability. How are we preparing and how are we allowing customers to repair and renew their Belsaf items, etc.? So it's now become something that we're really focused on and that is really going to help us, I guess, set ourselves up for the next 100 years. And I think it's so fitting because I think social media is a lot more aware. A lot of people talking about cost per wear and investing in good vintage pieces.

14:39well to close off our conversation i will love to hear what you think is essential for a business to last another 100 years so i think people i think we see ourselves as custodians of something that's much bigger than ourselves and we've approached this turnaround and rebrand of belstaff in a very thoughtful and sensitive way if i'm being honest like that's that's number one why we get up in the morning and what we think about fran our ceo and myself we talk about it all the time. It's a huge responsibility to take ownership, even if it's just for a short while of a brand that's that old. Getting the right people, getting them to see the vision that we're trying to build, getting them on board with that vision, driving them to it and succeeding in it is really going to make sure that we lay the new foundations for the next 100 years for Bellstaff.

15:32It's going to be a very different world the next 100 years. People don't want to buy as much, absolutely correctly. They want to buy less, but they want to buy better. We are well suited to that. We are well positioned for that. You know, we really focus on quality and craftsmanship. When you buy a jacket from us, it's supposed to be handed off and handed down or collected or passed on. So, you know, we're really focusing on getting the right people in the right roles to sort of build and lay the future of Bellstaff. And that's what we're doing right now. Very exciting. I look forward to the next 100 years and next chapter for Bellstaff.

16:05Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for your insight, Jodi. We're going to chat all about Bellstaff's tech stack in a moment with Naveed. But first, I'd like to take a moment to thank you for tuning into the show. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to Shopify Masters and leave us a review with feedback for the show. Thank you so much. So I'm joined with Naveed Jillo, the director of technology at Bellstaff. Naveed, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. Very excited to chat with you because you are in charge of this giant re-platform process at Bellstaff.

16:46Talk to us about the first initial scene at Bellstaff back in 2021. How did the tech stack look like back then? So in 2021, Bellstaff was making a double digit loss. We had a nice expensive IT outsourcing model. The technical debt was building up and the architecture was a black box to us. So we didn't really know what was behind our requests and how complicated the systems were being built. So we kind of had to make a change in 2021. As part of that change, we had to replatform everything. Some of the sort of the issues we had were around the online website, our point of sale and our ERP system, which were really monolithic and complicated.

17:29And we had key man risks across the business. So, you know, basic tasks relied on key, key people to do because some of these systems were not intuitive for sort of the wider business to use. We had sort of inefficient IT and business operating models. So if you wanted to sort of make a change, it would take quite a long time to go through a process to make that happen. And the sort of the company structure was quite complicated for the size of the company. so there was a large number of steps to follow whenever you wanted to do something and the complexity increased because of Brexit as well so enter Mission Phoenix love the name it's so fitting and that was the sort of yeah the the thing that basically saved us so led by our CEO Fran Miller this project was about you know just changing ripping out the old coming in with the new It was a completely brand new greenfield project.

18:27So we had pretty much a clean slate to start from. And this meant we had to sort of relook at how we did things and try and improve them. And so we started this process in 21. This sort of looked at our point of sale proposition, our online websites, our ERP systems. We chose Shopify as our sort of point of sale and our e-commerce platform. Wow. I know that that last sentence is just a mere phrase, but I know that trying to convince a company or at least look at different options and pick one, that is such a tough process. And there's a lot of decision makers and red tape. Ironically, I used to be in tech support, believe it or not.

19:12So I know how tough it is to convince a large company to consider different vendors. So what were you looking for in a new platform and what did you find in Shopify? So IT transformation starts with data centralization. And we really found the proposition where you can combine your point of sale and your e-commerce platform under a single platform. Very appealing. We were also keen at the time to see the roadmap as well. So Shopify's roadmap. and we were convinced that there were releases coming up in the future that would make sure the product would be more compelling and easier to use and be even more feature-rich in the future.

19:55So we sort of looked at all of these different aspects and decided to go with Shopify. And if you sort of think about the problem where you have multiple systems doing different things and trying to integrate them all, but then the alternative being you've got a point-of-sale platform and an e-commerce platform which use the same kind of data model or they're on the same platform whatever that integrates with just has to speak that one language whereas if you had sort of a different point of sale system to your sort of e-commerce system you'd have to speak two different languages and translate those languages into your erp system or whatever system you're feeding that data into as well as the sort of the benefits also being that you can have a single view of stock And that's a massive prerequisite to going omni.

20:42So instead of having a separate system to have this single view of stock that your different point of sale and website platform talk to, to be able to present that sort of stock out there into the customers to see, you can do that all within Shopify. And it makes the sort of the omni channel integration process much easier. So a big hurdle for corporations is the fact that even though the system is broken, it's a system that we know. So learning a new one seems really time consuming and also requires a big financial investment. How did you convince your teammates that Shopify was worthy of a switch?

21:23What I found quite interesting was a lot of the tasks you can do in Shopify are quite intuitive. so the user interface you know sticks out on me quite quite a lot you know when I looked at it I was like okay I can actually probably pick this up really quickly but also if there was things you were not sure about there's a lot of you know helpful articles out there that you could read and quickly sort of attuned to how Shopify worked so in any you know IT transformation program you've got new technology you've got new applications that you're trying to roll out to the business and sometimes you get a level of resistance.

21:56So it's great that doing an IT transformation project where actually one of the applications is quite easy to use and quite intuitive because that sort of breaks down the barriers of change and so therefore makes the project delivery process much easier and sort of brings everyone else on board on the journey. Amazing to hear. So the project Phoenix started in 2021. Talk to us about the timeline. When was the switchover official with Shopify? So Mission Phoenix, we went live with Shopify in October 2021. But it was more than just sort of the e-commerce and the point of sale platform. We had a new ERP platform.

22:37We had new middleware as well. So it was a sort of a big bang go live. And we have been sort of developing and building on top of that since then, Whether that's customizing our website further to make it more compelling to our customers and improving the customer journey, or whether that is sort of improving our ERP system or our integrations to sort of allow more functionality to the business. We've just been sort of working on multiple phases year on year to make our IT infrastructure more agile and sort of easier to use and more feature rich, really. What does the Bell Staff shopping experience look like now?

23:17Oh, it's so different now. The website is very compelling. It's got an excellent sort of customer experience journey. Our technology stack that supports that is great and easy to use. We really have been able to sort of turn around, you know, the position that we were in before and get rid of some of the really expensive costs we had, but also be more agile at the same time. Amazing to hear. And I love that Bellstaff is using both e-commerce and also the retail hardware point of sale system. Talks us about just getting more data points and the ability to understand customer profiles when they shop in person, online.

23:57How has that been able to help the Bellstaff team understand its customers better too? Yeah, so going back to IT transformation is really about data centralization. the one platform view plays to that. So if you've got a customer shopping in the store and the same customer is purchasing something online, you're able to sort of have that single customer view and then sort of see their purchases. And that helps us build that customer profile up rather than having sort of these bits missing in our data where we have sort of anonymous customers come into the stores and not being able to sort of share that data with any of our systems.

24:37So it's sort of helped with that. We've also integrated other systems with Shopify. Those systems rely on that full complete picture of customer data to help with our email marketing campaigns, for example. So yeah, it's been really helpful. Yeah, exactly. Especially that Jody has mentioned over 30 % of customers come from email. So really helps you to understand the different customers. Of course, you're customizing and building on different features that BellSaf team will like. Has there been any apps or tools available within the Shopify ecosystem that you've really enjoyed implementing? Yeah, some of the sort of the out of the box features I quite like to use.

25:25So the omni channel features, for example, have been really helpful. You know, you can have a an architecture where you have an order management system sitting in between your e-commerce platform and your ERP platform. and that sort of order management system is responsible for doing the order routing. So whether, you know, the order needs to be sent to the warehouse or the store, it also has one stock for you, so on and so forth. That's kind of one way of doing it. The other way is actually using Shopify to kind of do some of that for you. So Shopify does have some out-of-the-box features which are really useful, such as order routing or making sure that when a customer places an order, you split that order as least as possible.

26:06So you want one location to fulfill that order rather than splitting that across multiple locations, because that would then mean more overhead, more costs, so on and so forth. So some of the sort of out of the box features like that I've enjoyed using in Shopify. But I'd also like to sort of call out that we were a headless setup, our website and the presentation layer is separate to the e-commerce layer. and worked with an agency called Soon, who have been brilliant in helping us develop a really compelling website. And of course, to do that as well, we need good API documentation because, you know, when third parties want to integrate with your e-commerce platform, there needs to be good API documentation out there, which Shopify has.