Mark Tweed is Brand Director, at nightwear brand Cyberjammies and recently appeared on the UK’s Apprentice and one of Lord Sugar’s expert advisers. Today, he joins Caroline on the podcast to discuss the ‘dream technology’ which has fuelled the firm’s 372% YOY Growth.
Online nightwear brand CyberJammies, is a long-time Brightpearl customer which primarily reaches customers directly via its successful webstore but also via leading retailers including John Lewis, Next and Very. In the past year the company has seen its revenues triple and it was crowned ‘the fastest growing fashion brand in Britain’.
Show Notes | Series 1, Episode 5 | Cyberjammies
About our podcast
Brightpearl’s Lightning 50 E-Commerce Growth Hacking podcast, hosted by Caroline Baldwin, is a bitesize 15-minute podcast that gets under the hood of highly successful e-commerce brands to discover the key technologies they are using to power growth.
About our guest
Cyberjammies is a UK-based nightwear and loungewear retailer. Founded in the early 2000s as an e-commerce only brand, Cyberjammies now sells its high-quality, ethically-made garments in stores such as John Lewis, Next and Very, as well as via their successful Shopify Plus webstore and two sister websites. After a steady 50% growth period YOY, the retailer grew an immense 372% in 2019/20. For this podcast, we spoke to Mark Tweed, Brand Director at Cyberjammies.
Transcript highlights:
● “Cyberjammies is over 20 years old and that whole time we’ve been dedicated and fixated on making great nightwear - at first for ladies but now for the whole family - using sustainable fabrics and ethical manufacturing wherever we can. Quality is what we pride ourselves on.”
● “In the pandemic we were fortunate in that while many other retailers were having a tough time, our growth rate was astronomical as everyone’s work wardrobe became pyjamas and loungewear. ”
● “For any brand to grow significantly, automation is absolutely critical - when you go from hundreds to thousands of orders, you want as little interaction with those orders as possible. In that respect, Brightpearl has been instrumental for the growth of our business. Ten years ago our business was very spreadsheet-based, which was slow, painful and inefficient - ever since we’ve had Brightpearl and those processes are now automated, it’s allowed us to get on with what we’re good at.”
● “Brightpearl is the hub of our business - it links everything together. We’ve got two websites as well as Cyberjammies (both have seen similar growth as they’re also nightwear focused) - and we’re also synced with other retailers such as John Lewis and Next.”
● “We’ve migrated to a 3PL warehouse which has staff conducting scan in/scan-out processes - this made our lives a lot easier. We moved warehouses right before Covid, so it was a stressful period, but the warehouse very quickly received our stock and we were trading as normal within a couple of days. This had a huge impact on the business, both during Covid and through to now.”
● “Aside from automation, talk to your customers and constantly talk to them, in a way that they find appealing. Offer them small items like a scrunchie that goes with their new robe or a new pattern of a pyjama set they’ve already bought. Always offer more. We spend a good amount of money on Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads and we’re looking into TikTok - it’s not something I use myself! But from a business view, it’s something we need to stay on top of.”
● “Getting so high [top 10] in the Lightning 50 is such great recognition. We’ve added it to the bottom of our email signatures, that’s how important it is to us - we want people to see it and hear about it. It’s something we can use to celebrate our team; a point of external recognition, so we really appreciate it.”
Top takeaways
● Cyberjammies ranked in 10th place on the Brightpearl Lightning 50
● That followed a 372% YOY revenue increase in 2019/20
● The tech that’s driven their growth includes warehouse 3PL, Facebook Ads, Instagram, Google Ads, Brightpearl
● The pandemic turbocharged growth (previously steady at 50%) but thanks to Brightpearl and their new warehouse system, they could sustain the incredible spike in sales
● Brightpearl is the ‘hub’ of Cyberjammies, bringing all marketplaces and channels together both online and offline. The brand is moving to Shopify Plus to gain key analysis into customer behaviour and allow them to be more nuanced in their marketing efforts.