The holiday shopping season is like its own fiscal quarter, said Justin Baer, the founder of apparel brand Collars & Co., which primarily sells through its ecommerce site.
He calls it the fifth quarter. And the Cyber 5 — the five-day period from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday — is a big part of it. The company, which he founded in 2021, doubled its Cyber 5 sales from year two to year three. Although he expects to continue that holiday-season growth, he expects it to be at a slower rate because the company’s size has increased.
“It’s chaos, man,” Baer told Digital Commerce 360. “Just when you think you’ve got it under control, the amount of orders, the amount of volume. From an operation standpoint, we’re really trying this year to kind of hone in, be ready, make sure our customer service is trained up, ready to roll. We’ve got extra hands on deck.”
“Early results are pointing to positive” for Collars & Co.’s Cyber 5 2024 sales, he said.
Collars & Co. promotes discounts leading up to the Cyber 5.
Collars & Co. taps Meta, TikTok for marketing
When Baer first started his company’s ecommerce website, he had his daughter take pictures of him to show his brand’s initial product, a polo with a dress collar that was stretchy, soft and could be worn in business settings. She then urged him to make a TikTok video.
“That night, we sat down, I posted it and somebody bought it, and that was the start,” Baer said. “And that first month, we did $40,000 in sales. Sold out.”
He said he had to write apology letters to customers saying that products would be back in stock in three weeks. Since then, he has been on the television show Shark Tank twice, and Collars & Co. now has two sharks as investors.
Collars & Co. now offers 300 styles, including a knitwear line, sweaters and pants. The brand is diversifying its product mix, he said, to include items with higher average order values (AOV).
This year, Collars & Co. has already increased its holiday marketing spending by 25% to help push sales. And 90% of the retailer’s marketing spend goes to Meta, with TikTok taking a chunk of the remainder.
In November, it launched its first television ad for one of its blazers. Baer said the brand also advertised on X (formerly called Twitter) last year, but it didn’t provide the return on ad spend that other channels did.
“Everyone’s constantly trying to figure it out,” Baer said about marketing. “You would think it would be easy after all this testing. Someone said, hey, this is the structure you do and this is the kind of ads you create. It’s changing constantly. No one can really put their finger on it. And what works this month or works this week is gonna change to next week.”
Collars & Co.’s advice on preparing for the Cyber 5
To prepare for “quarter five,” Baer said, everything starts with inventory. Retailers have to make sure they have the right inventory, enough of it, and that they have it in time to prepare for sales.
“There’s nothing like quarter five,” he said. “It’s the Super Bowl. Nothing is like the holiday season at all. Sure, Father’s Day is big, but it’s a week, you know? But quarter five is four weeks.”
When it comes to marketing, part of Collars & Co.’s approach is to get consumers to sign up for lists confirming their interest in Black Friday promotions. Collars & Co. even launched its Black Friday promotions two days earlier this year than in 2023. It also did a special presale before starting its Black Friday promotions, offering deals to the retailer’s top customers.
Additionally, the Cyber 5 this year dips into December, with Cyber Monday 2024 falling Dec. 2. As a result, he said, Collars & Co. December sales numbers will be higher this year.
Fulfillment challenges and changes
With marketing comes customer service and fulfillment. Baer said Collars & Co. grows its customer service team for the holidays. It does the same for the fulfillment team in its warehouse.
Collars & Co. has had to move warehouses since Baer founded it, he said. It first used a third-party logistics (3PL) provider to fulfill orders, but the retailer outgrew them in its first couple of years.
“We’ve had to move three times, which is the biggest pain in the neck ever moving merchandise while you have a store open 24 hours a day doing orders,” Baer said. “So I don’t want to move again, but I think we might have to in the next year or so.”
The retailer has three physical stores, and they each use its website when items aren’t in stock, offering in-store customers free shipping on those items.
Collars & Co.’s stores are in Chicago, Illinois; Boca Raton, Florida; and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. It also sells wholesale to boutiques and country club shops.
Baer said ecommerce is the brand’s base, but it’s “definitely trying to be omnichannel and come up with other distribution channels.” Currently, ecommerce accounts for about 98% of Collars & Co. sales, he told Digital Commerce 360.
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