Richard collins fossil
Richard Collins, managing director of Fossil Group UK.

Fossil Group switches from brand-by-brand selling to focused retailer support

Fossil Group hosted its AW17 market month in June and introduced a corporate restructuring that puts retailers’ requirements at the heart of its sales, marketing and merchandising.

Retailers visiting the Milton Keynes headquarters were told that they will no longer need to speak to different executives representing each of Fossil’s watch brands. Instead, they were introduced to business development executives who will be their primary point of contact for buying, merchandising, training and marketing.

Fossil has retrained its brand-focused teams and divided them into business development teams for major accounts or on the road working with independent retailers in Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland and six regions of England.

Re-engaging with independents was a key theme at this month’s meetings with retailers. Many were invited to Milton Keynes to be presented with the AW17 watch collections alongside the major multiples.

“It is all about reducing complexity,” explains Richard Collins, managing director for Fossil Group UK.

After a challenging year for the group in 2016, Mr Collins says the restructuring was a light bulb moment when the organisation stopped the hard selling of brands into retail and focused on helping those retailers make the right decisions on collections that will sell through.

Even the watch collections have been simplified, with a typical 300 SKUs reduced to fewer than 150 models in the AW17 line up.

 

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