Working from home became the new normal for many of our consumers around the world as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread – and shopping habits quickly shifted to adapt to this new environment.
COVID-19 accelerated a consumer shift to prioritizing casual product categories. Our branded businesses tapped immediately into consumer and market insights to better understand how the pandemic was impacting buying decisions to inform key strategies during a period of uncertainty.
As a company, we continue to lean into hero products – the items in consumers’ closets that they cherish and can’t live without. We also continue to evolve our business towards the comfort and casual categories that are working with the consumer today, especially the younger generations. “Consumers have never had more choices,” said Stefan Larsson, PVH President and incoming Chief Executive Officer. “To break through, you need products that are relevant.”
Underwear as a category has been performing well through the pandemic. Specific hero product examples would be Calvin Klein’s Modern Cotton – specifically the bralette – and TOMMY HILFIGER’s sweatshirts, T-shirts and Regatta Yacht jackets are meeting immediate casual trends. Both brands are known for their iconic denim products.
Larsson added, “Our teams have been doing a great job in pivoting to optimizing our consumer offering to this very different kind of environment where supercharging digital and our omnichannel capabilities and leaning into our casual essential products led to our strongest-ever digital holiday sales results and an above-plan performance for the initial holiday period overall. Our strong execution reflects the hard work and flexibility of our talented teams around the world.”
The company’s most recent earnings results, which were for 3Q 2020, included these directional insights:
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We continue to supercharge the e-commerce channel through our owned and operated as well as third-party digital partners
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We continue to increase our focus on driving product relevance
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We continue to evaluate further measures to drive cost and inventory efficiencies across the company
As a company, we are committed in 2021 – and into the future – to stay connected to our consumers and meet them wherever they are.