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Cos, the H&M Group fashion label founded in 2007, is now hitting its growth stride.
The London-based brand has been expanding its international storefront, with new stores in Mexico City and Stockholm plus a new outpost in New Jersey in 2023. Today, the brand has a 248-store portfolio, spanning 48 physical markets, 38 online markets and selected wholesale partners. Wholesale is a recent venture for Cos, starting in 2022 with retail partners Nordstrom in the U.S., e-commerce business Yoox, and German-based Breuninger online. Katie Reeves, managing director of Cos North America, leads the North American growth initiatives. After starting her merchandising career at H&M Group in 2003, Reeves left in 2011 before rejoining in 2021 at Cos.
“The Cos brand itself has an amazing DNA, and I was excited to harness that and introduce the brand to many more consumers within the North American landscape,” she said on the latest episode of the Glossy podcast, recorded during the recent eTail West retail conference in Palm Springs, Calif.
A growing roster of storefronts is just the tip of the iceberg for Cos, as the brand has sought to build on its NYFW momentum via new marketing opportunities timed to the bi-annual event, plus new store technology that can facilitate stronger customer connections and service. Speaking with Glossy, Reeves detailed where Cos is focusing its efforts, who the Cos customer is and why she thinks there is a brick-and-mortar renaissance. Below are excerpts of the conversation, which has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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The Cos customer
“The Cos customer is united by style, cultural curiosity and a commitment to a conscious lifestyle. They’re typically professionals. They work or dabble in creative fields. They reside in metropolitan cities. They appreciate trends, but they’re not defined by them. Their wardrobe is also a collection of pieces they wear and return to now and forever. What I love about the Cos customer is that they transcend age.”
The 3 prongs of Cos’s store evolution
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“There are three main focuses or prongs of the role of the store. One is experience, especially post-pandemic. The customer is looking for a deep, engaging relationship. … As a brand, we focus a lot on experiences in our stores. … Our smart-store technology helps to improve and revolutionize the customer experience in our stores. The second prong is community. We try to embed the [local] communities where our stores are [located] … into our stores. We just entered the Mexico market, and there, we’ve integrated artwork that an amazing female artist custom-created for us. … The third prong of the store evolution is convenience. We have stores on the coasts, plus in Houston and Atlanta. But we also have an amazing online store open 24 hours a day. [People can] return their online order or potentially find their size in another store or our online shop.
The smart-store technology has two prongs to it: Prong No. 1 is RFID readers, which we’ve installed in our U.S. stores. And the second prong is our store associate app. The RFID readers are pinging data and insights every five seconds. And then we’re harnessing that data and visualizing it in this app for our teams to [use to] ultimately service [customers] in-store. It can communicate anything from stock availability in-store or online to where something is in our stores. And we have heat maps that alert our teams if [an item] is back of house or near the cash register. Ultimately, the underlying purpose of that is to spend more time building those [customer] relationships and being able to service the customer in a frictionless way.”
Runways as a marketing tactic
“From a marketing perspective, we have shown at New York Fashion Week for the last two years. We have two monumental campaigns each year — our spring-summer campaign and then our fall-winter campaign. Before that, we showed in London at London Fashion Week, as well. Our runway shows anchor our marketing efforts. But we also focus on varied marketing tactics. It’s important to test and innovate and see what’s working to acquire new customers and build brand awareness. One effort we tested last year was direct mail. We dropped our first direct mail piece in the fall of [2023] timed with our fashion show and fall campaign.”
