Montreal-based Rudsak is expanding its retail footprint with three new stores.
The leather fashion retailer is opening its first Ottawa store this month at CF Rideau Centre. At the end of August, Rudsak will open its sixth GTA store with a site in Scarborough Town Centre. Later this fall, the retailer will open a boutique in Montreal’s upscale Westmount neighbourhood.
Since its founding in 1994, Rudsak has steadily grown its retail presence. The three new locations will bring its total Canadian store count to 35, 20 of which are in Quebec. Rudsak also has two stores in Vancouver and one in Calgary.
In an interview with Marketing, Rudsak CFO Lambros Piscopos said the pace of expansion had “accelerated dramatically.”
“Up to these three openings, we had opened 14 stores in 18 months, mainly in new markets, which was Ontario and Western Canada,” he said. “If we continue like this, we have another year-and-a-half to two years where our Canadian penetration will be complete and we already have international markets in our sights.” He said Rudsak’s “saturation number” for Canada is 45 stores.
“We’ve always been very strong in Quebec, but no doubt we are experiencing some really great numbers, certainly in Ontario, but even in Western Canada,” said Piscopos. “We kind of took a measured pace to enter those markets, but once we started to see results, we were very comfortable accelerating the pace of expansion.”
While Canadian apparel retailers face a tough environment, Rudsak has managed to maintain its niche over the years. The brand has a “rebellious spirit” positioning and targets two key audiences: “cool and connected” urban 25-34 year olds; and “forever young and always free,” 35-45 year olds who skew more suburban, appreciate luxury and have a “forever young” mindset.
“The spirit of the brand and the product line hasn’t really deviated too much,” said Barbara Epstein, VP of marketing at Rudsak. “We stayed true to our roots and to our heritage and we keep fueling that in everything that we do. [Consumers perceive] the brand as being authentic and they appreciate the heritage and some of the timeless features of the product.”
Epstein said the store design also reflected the heritage of the brand. “There’s a mix of vintage and industrial charm,” she said. For example, there’s vintage hardware and vintage mannequins, mixed in with more refined materials like steel, marble and granite.
Rudsak is promoting the new store openings with a mix of digital and traditional advertising (such as direct mail pieces), as well as store-opening events. Epstein said influencers would be at the store openings to drive buzz, and the brand would also leverage its social channels, e-newsletter and website.
Rudsak is also readying its fall campaign, which is set to launch later this week. The fall collection and campaign is centred on the theme “savage spirit,” which takes its inspiration from the Vikings and the Highlands, said Epstein.
“Whenever there’s a concept being developed seasonally, there’s always an overarching inspiration to the collection that’s being designed,” she said. “When we get those briefs from the design side of the business, it pushes us from a marketing standpoint to craft stories and it influences how we’re going to shoot the campaign, the language we’re going to use, and the content we’re developing across all the different channels.”
The fall campaign, developed in-house, includes a campaign video, behind-the-scenes videos, in-store images, contesting and online elements.
Rudsak is also launching a new website in about two weeks. “We’ve been working diligently to really capitalize on the new features [of the new platform] and the elevated consumer experience online that we’d like to generate, from site responsiveness to much better management in terms of the backend, and a much more efficient checkout process,” said Epstein.
NKPR handles PR for Rudsak.
