How to woo an Australian Consumer: humour, authenticity and free shipping.
At our recent ‘From Australia With Love’ event, Flaunter founder Gaby Howard asked Prue Thomas [Oroton], Alyce Tran [In The Roundhouse, LTK], Lauren Sams [AFR] and Emma Read [stylist] to share how to build an International audience for a brand. We asked them what they thought made each of the audiences unique and similar for brands wanting to crack into overseas markets:
F: How are Australian consumers and Australian media different from the US?
Lauren Sams:
From my point of view, Australians in general are much more laid back, much more casual than particularly our European counterparts, but also North American. When you are pitching to Australian media or Australian customers, I think you have to understand that. We are much more relaxed, laid back, and we have a really good sense of humor. Australian customers are also very savvy. I think we have a great understanding of how brands work generally. Because of that, customers see through things really quickly, so you have to be genuine and have that authenticity. Australian customers see through things really, really quickly.
Alyce Tran:
Australian customers are more concerned with provenance than US customers. Brand story, authenticity, origin, where things are made, how things are made, are very important for the Australian consumer. Australians can also be really concerned with value for money, whereas with US customers it’s more about efficiency and how fast you can get it. Often when a customer would walk in a The Daily Edited store, it was not about how much something was, which is a really common question in the Australian market, but more how fast can you personalise this for me? With In The Roundhouse, we’re launching into Saks this month and I actually haven't had a single question from the buyers about the price of the product. They want to know how fast I can make the delivery instead of negotiating on margin.
Prue Thomas:
The Australian audience was a bit digitally immature. We’ve seen our customer become far more savvy and actually demanding in terms of the service she's receiving. The last year and a half has forced brands and retailers to really think through their digital offering, what their UX is like on their sites, what’s their offer, what tone of voice? We've had to change our tone of voice. We've had to be far more authentic and approachable, and demonstrate that brand story much more than we probably were before. From a consumer’s perspective, Australians know our brand, but our audience has broadened. We don't have to actually speak about our brand too much with the Australian customer, but we've had to adapt because our international audience has grown significantly over the last year. Launching into the US and the UK over the last 12 months has forced us to adopt a slightly more agnostic approach to what our tone of voice is, and also improve our service. US and UK customers expect things to arrive the same day, so it’s important to understand those practical differences.
Gaby Howard:
eCommerce is a very service oriented industry. In the US they've done that particularly well, and they've got the scale. I think now that we're seeing that scale in Australia, it’s helped us to lean into being better service deliverers.
Emma Read:
Australians definitely have a very relaxed, ease with how we dress, compared to perhaps our European counterparts or in North America. It comes back to that authenticity and the reality of getting dressed every day. We’re influenced by trends, but I don't think we live and die by them as much as the rest of the world. Particularly within an editorial environment, we'd always come back to “how would she wear it?”. Fashion plays into our everyday life. We value comfort, we value ease, and you see that reflected editorially when you're comparing American media to Australian media.
Want to watch the full interview? Head here.