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Home goods brand Coyuchi has been around for 30 years and has seen the industry transform.<\/p>\n
Its core focus is on providing organic cotton products. It\u2019s perhaps most well known for its bedsheets, but has expanded into other areas like loungewear and napkins. But the focus has always been to grow keeping its promise of organic products that speak to its target consumer in mind \u2014 which it considers its competitive advantage against the ever-growing DTC home goods space.<\/p>\n
CEO Eileen Mockus joined this week\u2019s Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about Coyuchi\u2019s growth and strategy. The company first launched before DTC was a buzzword \u2014 and as such grew via wholesale. \u201cIt was a lot of small retailers,\u201d she said. But over the years, the company invested more and more online \u2014 and its e-commerce presence is now its largest sales channel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big shift,\u201d Mockus said.<\/p>\n
Mockus said that one of the ways Coyuchi was able to grow its online presence so much was by establishing its brand via these retail partners. Through that, the company was able to let customers know about its focus on sustainability.<\/p>\n
The marketing behind its organic focus has also shifted. Sustainability-focused marketing a decade ago, she said, was \u201calmost a scare tactic.\u201d That is, telling a customer about all the perils of using non-organic products. But now, the brand has realized it\u2019s better to use this focus as a way to explain why the product is enhanced. \u201cWe were really able to shift the conversation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But Coyuchi isn\u2019t the only brand having such a conversation. Search for DTC bedding on Google, and you\u2019ll be presented with dozens of different options. But Mockus said that Coyuchi being an early arrival \u2014 as well as its focus away from the target millennial demographic most DTC brands go after \u2014 has helped it stand out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has definitely been a crowded space in the bedding market,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have always had a view to who our customer was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.<\/p>\n
How sustainability marketing has evolved<\/strong> On the crowded DTC home goods space<\/strong> Coyuchi\u2019s focus on profitability<\/strong>
\u201c[Sustainability marketing] was sort of almost a scare tactic. It was about: there\u2019s so many pesticides used on cotton and organic is an opportunity to remove those pesticides. And while all of that is true, it doesn\u2019t resonate with the customer the same way. And so I think over the years, it\u2019s really shifted. We\u2019re using GOTS certified organic cotton, that GOT certification is how you\u2019re allowed to call it an organic sheet set, as opposed to just sheets made of organic cotton\u2026 And so for us, that\u2019s low-impact dyestuffs. And there are requirements around what you\u2019re able to put on your finished product. And, we\u2019ve turned that into a way to differentiate our product. We think it gives a certain feel to the product. Cotton is just perfect for for home textiles \u2014 bedding and towels in particular. And so we were really able to shift the conversation from the scare tactic to \u2018why does this add value to your home?’\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is definitely been a crowded space in the bedding market. We have always had a view to who our customer was. I think the benefit that we had is we did have that B-to-B business \u2014 we also had one retail store\u2026 And so we had a little more indication of who the customer was and what would resonate with them. And so we were using kind of the multi-channel opportunity from a much earlier stage because it\u2019s what we had to work with. But if I think about [how] as other brands came into the market \u2014 I don\u2019t want to say we didn\u2019t see the overlap, we certainly could tell where we would overlap with another brand. But at the same time, we always knew that if we continued to focus on who we saw as the customer, which was a little bit different from who our competitors were targeting, we would also be able to see continued growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that Coyuchi has always focused on is profitability, which I think is a little bit different than some of the other brands that just came in from a DTC standpoint. We were always encouraged to focus on profitability. And so that\u2019s been a component of what we\u2019ve always looked at as part of our growth trajectory.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n