How eyewear brand Revo is reinventing itself

0:06Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Modern Retail Podcast. I'm your host, Cale Guthrie-Weissman, the editor-in-chief here at Modern Retail. This week, I'm really excited. We have Cliff Robinson. He's the CEO of Revo, which makes Performance Eyewear. It's a company that's been around for quite a long time, but I know that Cliff and his family, along with some private investors, acquired it in 2019. And it's been sort of a resurgence ever since. They've been doing a lot of interesting partnerships. One interesting partnership that was just announced this year, I believe, is with the U.S. sailing team, if I'm not mistaken.

0:41Revo also just opened its very first store in, correct me if I'm wrong, is it Soho? Is that where the store is? It's our very first U.S. store. U.S. store. Because we do have a store in Barcelona, Spain, which we opened about a year ago. But this is our first U.S. flagship store in Soho in New York. Got it. Got it. Well, I want to dive in to all of that, the history of the company, how the last, I guess, five years now have gone. But Cliff, how are you doing? Doing great for a Monday. Yeah. Great to be here. Thank you. Absolutely. So first, let's start with you because, correct me if I'm wrong, but you come from a family that has been in the eyewear business for a while, right?

1:20Yeah. So the story goes that my grandfather started our company in 1926. It's a very classic New York immigrant story that he was literally, you know, think back to your, you know, movies or books that you read about the 1920s. He was literally selling stuff out of a pushcart on the Lower East Side. And that pushcart became a territory, that territory became a region, that region became national, national became an importer. And, you know, it grew to be a global company that both did licensing of designer brands, as well as importing of sunglasses and optical frames from the various manufacturing points around the world for eyewear, which is mainly China, Japan, and Italy.

2:07Got it. And was it something like when you were born, did you know that this would be where you would end up back in the grandfather's business? Yeah, Cale, we can discuss the real story over drinks one night. But the true story is I never really had any intention of going into the family business. My grandfather and my father who worked in the business really never pushed anything. And I was actually supposed to go into the music business after college. And through a twist of fate, that didn't happen, which is for another podcast or another story sometime. And in June of 1992, after I graduated college, my dad basically said, look, your summer plans fell through.

2:49you know, come work for the summer and then you'll start your career in September. And June 1992 is now July 2024. Wow. And so here we are. Here we are. So let's go into Revo because, or just can you talk a little about before the acquisition of Revo, had B. Robinson as a company acquired its own brand before or was this the first? Yeah, so B. Robinson had actually acquired one brand previously. Let's call it our test case. But we had, as I said, traditionally, we were really a licensee where we worked with a lot of other designers and established retailers and made product for them. we knew we needed to transition to owning our own destiny and controlling our own intellectual property, if you will.

3:39We tried it, didn't work as well as we would have thought. And then in 2018, you had said 2019, but actually in 2018, it's okay. We were able to acquire the Revo brand, which basically merged my family business with, as you said, a few small private investors. And together, we created this new entity for Revo, because we acquired the intellectual property from another company. Got it. So let's talk about Revo, because Revo has been around, I believe, since the 80s, though, correct me if I'm wrong, about 1985. And every quote that I've read in my research about this is that it was created with science, with NASA behind it, right?

4:21You are correct. What does that mean exactly? So there's sort of the two parts that you'll read about with the history of Revo. There's that it was created with science, which is the NASA technology. And I'll get to that in a second. And then the other thing you will read, hear or learn as you speak to more people who were fans of Revo back then is you'll hear the same thing. Oh, my God. Best sunglasses I ever owned. Best lenses on Earth. Coolest pair of shades I ever had. And so from the history back in 1985, the science piece that you alluded to is that there was no such thing as a premium performance sunglass back in the 1980s.

5:02There are a couple other companies who have done something similar, but there was no premium performance sunglass. And this guy, Dr. Mitch Ruta, comes around. And Dr. Mitch Ruta was a scientist working at NASA. and his task at NASA was to develop the protective coatings that went on satellites that were going up into space. And when these satellites were going up into space, they were getting damaged by the harmful UV rays of the sun. And so we all hear down here about UV rays. And we know that UV rays are bad for your eyes, bad for your skin. That's why we wear sunscreen. They were damaging these multimillion dollar NASA satellites.

5:41And so Dr. Ruta had to create coatings to protect these satellites. He had literally the classic cartoon moment that you think about when you were a kid watching, you know, Bugs Bunny, the light bulb went off in his head. And he said to himself, huh, you know, I'm a NASA scientist here and I am fixing and protecting these satellites up in space. I'm an avid skier. I'm a fisherman. I'm an avid sportsman down here on earth. You'd think that I can take some of this knowledge and get myself a better pair of shades. And thus the Revo lens, really, but the Revo sunglass was born. And so we like to say, you know, he created a better mousetrap.

6:24He created something the market didn't even know they needed and wanted. But as soon as it was created, the market was like, oh my God, this is exactly what I've been looking for. And Revo quickly became this super iconic, amazing sunglass brand almost out of the gate. And to tie it back to the science and NASA, the original Revo ambassador, the original Revo advertising was featuring the third man to walk on the moon, Pete Conrad. So, you know, Revo has this super iconic imagery from the 1980s of this guy in a spacesuit. This guy happened to be Pete Conrad, who was the third man to walk on the moon.

7:04And so that's the science piece of Revo. The heritage piece is, you know, 30 something years later here, this is actually 39 years later. People still to this day, I, you know, meet people in our retail store. I talk to friends of mine who are contemporaries, you know, what year I graduated college. The exact same line I hear from everybody, man, you guys bought Revo, best pair of sunglasses I ever owned, you know, coolest pair of shades. Love that it's really making a resurgence in the market again. You know, I, for years, I never wore anything but Revo. I mean, that's, you know, the passion that we are trying to harness again and, you know, bring back to the market in a sense.

7:44So then let's go through the whatever, 34 years up until 2018. What made it so that it needed to have a brand resurrection? So, you know, I also want to be careful in my words because the brand never really went away. So resurrection is the easiest way to describe it, but it's also a little unfair because it's always been there. The brand was created by an independent group of people along with Dr. Mitch Ruddow, who I mentioned. And for a number of years, you know, it went, you know, think of a hockey stick, like it went straight up in terms of revenue, popularity, et cetera, et cetera. And when independent brands sort of shoot straight up like that, the big guys, as we like to say, get really interested.

8:29And so at some point, I want to say in the mid to late 1990s, it probably was a brand called Ray-Ban, which we've all heard of, which at the time was owned by a company called Bausch & Lomb, bought Reva. And so the thinking back then was that Ray-Ban was this core, super popular, popularly priced, iconic Ray-Ban. And Revo was going to be the premium brand that lived in that portfolio to make for a stronger sunglass presence and portfolio at this corporation called Bausch & Lung. Revo continued to grow and mature. And then another large conglomerate comes into the picture called Luxottica. and I'm sure you and a number of your listeners have heard of Luxottica.

9:15They are the largest company in our industry, very well respected, and they bought Ray-Ban. And along with Ray-Ban, they get Revo. And Revo is now going to be this great premium brand within the Luxottica portfolio. Subsequently, Luxottica also bought Sunglass Hut, which is the largest sunglass retailer in the world. And they bought LensCrafters, the largest optical retailer in the world, And oh, by the way, they also bought Oakley, which is, again, today, one of the largest, if not the largest, let's call it sports-oriented sunglass brand out there. and Revo, I don't want to say lost its way.

9:56I don't want to say, you know, really anything negative. It just was now a brand in a much larger portfolio. And, you know, it, I won't say languished, but it, it, it didn't have the same level of investment and the same level of support that it has had as an independent brand. And so over time, Revo didn't maintain its, you know, sort of premium nature, it's sort of place in the market, if you will. And so when we had the opportunity to buy it back in 2018, it was still prevalent in the market, but not at the same level of, you know, buzz or awareness that it had been a few years before. Some other brands had sort of come in under it and taken its place, if you will.

10:41And so we felt there was this really great opportunity to breathe some additional life, breathe some additional TLC, and really make Revo the independent brand that it had been previously. And so myself and our company, we really just want to be good stewards for a brand that has a lot of heritage, has a lot of great technology, has a lot of great bones and great DNA. And we just needed to sort of supercharge those efforts and give it a little more attention. The previous owners have done wonderful jobs, you know, making sure the brand stayed relevant. And we just want to make it more relevant, if you will.

11:20Got it. Yeah, it's kind of funny, because Estelar Luxottica a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was even last week, I've no span of time anymore, but they just bought Supreme. And I actually spent a fair amount of time on their website looking at the amount of brands that they own. And it is truly wild. It is a huge portfolio. And it just like keeps going. And so I can imagine if you when you're part of that portfolio, it is probably hard to stand out, especially if you're trying to be a more premium player. Yeah, I mean, I can't speak to the Luxonica strategy, but I really feel confident that as an independent brand, we can help Revo more than if it were still sitting in a much larger conglomerate, one of many, many brands in a portfolio.

12:04So what was what was your sort of strategy in 2018 when you bought it? What did what needed to be done? And I think I read this, correct me if I'm wrong, but you launched its first website. Is that correct? Or its own DTC website? Yes. So it was the first DTC website that the brand had had. So that was obviously sort of a no-brainer, if you will. The wholesale piece of the business had really not been focused on the way that I felt it could have or should have in the past. The majority of the revenue was being generated at the time through Luxottica-owned brands. So Sunglass Hut, LensCrafters, and other Luxottica adjacent retailers was really where the majority of the retail was coming from.

12:44And we felt that as an independent brand, you know, there was a much larger opportunity to really work with retailers, partners, online sites, et cetera, on a global basis to really give Revo a little bit more, you know, again, support. And one of those things, obviously, was there was no D2C website. So, you know, one of the first things we did was launch a direct-to-consumer website for Revo where we could both tell our story and also show the entire, you know, brand of Revo. One of the other things we did is that at the time that Revo was in the Luxottica portfolio, it was using technology and lenses that were within the Luxottica portfolio.

13:24And so when we took over the brand, we, you know, went back and really looked at the DNA and the technology of the original Revo lenses from back in the 80s. And so while technology has changed over the 30 years and things have improved in general, we really wanted to make sure that we put all of those bells and whistles, if you will, we want to put all of that amazing technology from the 1980s back into the product so that the core consumer that is a fan of Revo could really say, wow, these are the same Revo lenses I was buying back in the day. We then also looked at the market landscape and said, where can Revo be competitive that Revo is not competitive today?

14:01And we identified a couple of channels or niches, if you will, where Revo, we felt could be sold and could make a mark, but it was not being offered. And so we identified the golf space. We identified the winter market with goggles. So we launched a goggle business with Revo. We identified the water sports market as a place where Revo could really be relevant and play in the schoolyard. And that, along with the core optical store distribution, which is where Luxottica had been somewhat focused. really became the core of our strategy to reintroduce, if you will, the brand to the public. So D2C was, of course, a huge component, but then also really looking at the wholesale and retail landscape out there for, you know, where else can Revo be competitive?

14:48And then I'll assume you'll get to this question. I'm sure it's on your mind at some point is, you know, we always had Revo retail stores. in the back of our mind. We weren't ready in 2018, but we always knew it was something that we were going to do. And so we're really excited that in 2023, we were able to do that too. Got it. Well, I want to dive into all of that, but let's talk about the DTC and wholesale sort of overall piece of the pie. Have you been able to grow your DTC business substantially? I imagine the moment you open it, you'll have people go to it and that changes the percentage, as you say.

15:25And also, given that you were so dependent on the Luxottica wholesale offerings, how has it been rejiggered over the years? Are you finding more growth in certain areas? And what does it generally look like? Yeah. I mean, look, we're very lucky and humbled to be able to say that the growth has been coming from all of these different sectors that I just mentioned. So we're seeing growth in optical stores. We're seeing growth in the golf channel. We're seeing growth in the winter market with both goggles and sunglasses at resort areas. We're seeing growth from resorts and hospitality. And of course, we're seeing growth in the online channel, especially given the COVID years from 2020 to realistically 2022.

16:07Our online business really skyrocketed in ways that even we would not have imagined when people were home, bored, shopping during the day with a little extra money in their pockets. And so we've seen a really explosive growth of our website since we started in 2018 to where our direct-to-consumer channel now represents somewhere around 50 % of our total revenues, which is great. I'm not complaining. And we're really happy that we're able to talk to our consumer directly. But we also want to support our wholesale customers. And we, of course, want to have our own retail stores and have a true, the buzzword today is omni-channel.

16:46But we really do believe the omni-channel strategy is the right one because someone visiting our website may want to try the product on, they need to go visit a retail store. Someone who visits our retail store may then go home if they're traveling to New York and be like, wow, you know, I saw this great store in New York and now they're in Omaha, Nebraska. And they're like, you know, I think I'm going to go get some Revos from my local optician. So it really does, you know, the omni-channel piece really is a real thing. It's not just a buzzword. So let's talk about the stores then. So 2023 is when you opened the Spain store?

17:24It was probably, yes, it was the end of 2023. And why Spain? So a couple of reasons. One is one of my colleagues and business partners here in Rivo is based in Barcelona, and he has retail experience. And so we thought that that would be a great place to, frankly, test our first store. the Barcelona and Spanish market in general is lower rent it is lower wages and so it's a very risk-free way to start our retail experience and dip our toes in the water I mean Barcelona also is a wonderful international city where we could really see is this great international community that travels to Barcelona going to show interest in Revo but as I like to jokingly say it's also our off-Broadway test.

18:11It's this great, great market, but Spain is not our core market, nothing against the Spanish people. But if it didn't work and it closed, nobody really knows. If you open in Soho, New York, and it's a failure, you know, that doesn't look as good. So there was both the proactive reason to open in Barcelona, which is this, you know, it's this great gateway city with an international clientele. And it also happens to be a little less risky to test the waters there. Luckily, the test went well, and we felt comfortable that we could then open in New York. Got it. And so what was Soho, if, you know, as it did, the Barcelona thing worked out, you want to do more, you know, retail?

18:50Were you always like, it'll be a Soho, New York store? Or what was your vision about what retail in the U.S. would look like? So it's a great question. I probably answer that in two ways. My vision for retail in the U.S. and our vision as a company is, you know, there are some core markets both here in the U.S. as well as internationally, where Revo stores can and should exist. You know, that's New York, it's Southern Florida, it's Southern California. Maybe it's, you know, Dallas, Houston, Austin. We could look at some resort areas like Aspen or Vail or the Hamptons or Greenwich. It's where the people are.

19:23And the same thing goes in Europe, you know, whether that is in Barcelona or Costa Brava or some of the resort or major cities in Italy. We feel that, you know, because we have this global fan base, the Revo stores can exist in these places. You know, Sydney, Melbourne and Australia, those are some great markets. So that's sort of the vision. But then when we move backwards to why New York first, you know, the real reason why New York first is the company's based in New York. I'm the CEO and I live in New York City. I grew up in New York City. I grew up shopping in Soho, which is one of the top destinations for shopping, not just for New York, but really around the world.

20:03I mean, every tourist on earth wants to come to New York and every tourist wants to shop in Soho. So Soho is not a great local shopping destination, but it's really a true global destination. And because we're based in New York, we wanted this to be our first store because, you know, you can hop on over and make sure everything's working right. It's, you know, 15 minutes away from where we live and where we work. It's not as sunny in New York as it is in southern Florida all year round. So it may not be the natural starting place. But for us, New York made sense first. But it's certainly we, based on the success we're now having in New York, you know, we are looking at these other markets that I just mentioned, because we should have five to 10 locations in the US, five to 10, you know, locations globally, where, you know, local shopping meets international shopping.

20:53And so you said it's been successful in New York. Can you just talk about what you've seen over the last few months is, you know, and And what are your metrics for success? Is it four-wall profitability? Is it, you know, what are you thinking about? I'm thinking about profitability, of course. I'm thinking about exposure. I'm thinking about storytelling. And so they really are all related. I mean, at the end of the day, the store can't stay open if it's not making money. But the store also shouldn't stay open if you're not telling a good story and you're not generating interest and excitement around the brand.

21:21And so I think, you know, if I had to give you the best reason for the store opening and the definition of success. And this is no joke. I did not make this up. I was standing outside the store a couple of weeks ago. It was a nice sunny day in New York. And I happened to see a family, you know, man, woman, husband and wife and two kids walking down the street. It's on West Broadway in Soho. And to the guys of a certain age, I'm like, he's probably our customer. And so I'm hoping that, you know, he's going to walk into the store, drive his kids crazy because he wants to come see Revo, but do a little shopping for himself and maybe for his wife.

21:59And as they're walking by the store, I definitely see they are not making the right turn to come on into the store, but I can hear them talking. And the dad says to his kids and his wife, hey guys, check this out. That's a Revo store. Revo is the coolest sunglass brand out there. I haven't worn them in a couple of years, but like, I love this brand. And they walked on by. And that to me is the reason that we opened the store. That is the reason we bought this brand. And it's to get that guy and eventually his kids and his wife to both re-engage and engage for the first time with Revo. And, you know, that's the reason for opening the store.

22:35We've done a number of activations at the store since we opened. So we've had some of our ambassadors come host shopping nights. We've done some charitable initiatives at the store where we've done, as I like to call them, shop and give evenings, because we do also want to be a good steward in the community as well as a good steward for the brand. And so, you know, the store can serve multiple purposes. Sure, we need to do revenue, but it's also really about storytelling, brand telling. I also happen to have a potential business partner for some other maybe future ambassador work in the store the other day.

23:09and we're talking about maybe we can work with some athletes and we can work with some different celebrities to outfit them in Revo. And his feeling before he came to the store, which he admitted to be in the store, was, you know, I've always kind of known Revo, but I didn't really get it. I'd been on the website. I could kind of sort of figure out, you know, what I liked about the brand. I had ordered some frames online and I've really fallen in love with the lenses, but I never really had a true appreciation for the brand. And then I walked into the store and I was able to see the breadth of the product.

23:44I was able to touch and feel and try on, you know, 20, 30 different frames, different face shape, you know, different styles, different lens colors. And he's like, now I get why you opened a store because you can really tell the breadth of the brand story in one place. And it's hard to do that with, you know, traditional third-party retailers who put 24 or 48 SKUs on a wall. And then you hope that that makes a good enough presentation. And even online, as much as we love the online business, there's no substitute for being in a retail environment where you have the entire collection in front of you, almost like a showroom.

24:21And so it's working well. And customers are really happy to see everything under one roof. Did it take a while to figure out what the store layout would be? Because it sounds like you work, You know, and with eyeglasses, a lot of the time it is very showroom-esque where it's like showing the best in a certain way. Is that the general format you're taking or does it look a little bit different? So we, you know, the store design itself hasn't changed from when we opened. We opened in March. We've definitely re-merchandised a few times to, you know, adjust to how our customers are shopping and where they're looking.

24:58so like you know when we first opened the store we had all the women's product in one place we had all of like the men's lifestyle product in one place we had all the men's sport product in another place and that seems like a natural way to do things we've actually started to intersperse some of the products in a different way to just tell the story a little bit differently because you know women might want to look at sport frames that are in the men's section um and you know lifestyle frames may want to be in a different place from where they are. So we've, we've changed some of the merchandising around.

25:31What's been really interesting and surprising in the store in New York is that it's not only a very different consumer, but it's a very different sort of bestseller list, if you will, versus our D2C business or our wholesale business. In the New York store, we've had a lot more interest in our limited edition product, which is naturally our more expensive product and our most fashion forward product. In the store, that does really well. In the store, we've had a lot more interest in women's frames than we do sometimes in a traditional third party brick and mortar environment, because we sometimes get get lumped in the men's section of some retailers out there.

26:09So it's been really nice that women can really explore product that they might not see everywhere under one roof. and so it's just been really nice and we tweak it and you know we change the merchandising around but the the general layout of the store stays the same i want to get into other things but i just have to ask because the limited edition thing is really interesting where you're finding more people buying more expensive products are they are these are you finding that they are people who because it's a more considered purchase are going in to try it on themselves and that's the reason they're more popular in store or is it just because they seem nicer in store and people are are more willing to spend that premium at a retail experience?