Podcast Ep 235: Evelyn Moynihan, CEO of Kilkenny Group, is driving a successful digital retail strategy that embraces the best of e-commerce innovation and bricks and mortar tradition.
There once was a time when people wondered if online shopping would replace the physical retail or bricks and mortar experience. Today, such an idea seems quaint or naïve as both online and offline are intertwined through digital strings.
For Kilkenny Group CEO Evelyn Moynihan, recently chosen as The Irish Times Business Person of the Month in association with Bank of Ireland, it is all about driving momentum and taking the best of both physical and online to give customers what they want.
“Our focus has been very much about moving from surviving to thriving, in a nutshell, and it’s definitely been a focus on the omnichannel experience for our customers”
The Irish fashion and design retailer, which is owned by the O’Gorman family, last year marked its 60th anniversary in business with a €400,000 investment in a new e-commerce platform while doubling down on the expansion of its physical footprint with new stores in Liffey Valley and at Kildare Village.
For Moynihan, who took the helm of Kilkenny Group during the Covid-19 pandemic, her strategy of combining online with physical is working and in 2023 the business returned to a strong operating profit and expects the same for 2024.
The business has also been busy developing its own-brand ranges, including the Lennon Courtney collaboration, all of which are driving footfall and improving margins for the business. In addition it has opened various overseas online stores and innovations even include virtual reality.
A tradition of innovation
As well as operating 18 bricks and mortar stores, Kilkenny Group serves as a case study for how an established retail brand can thrive online. The business operates separate online stores for the European, UK and US markets and is looking at double-digit growth from the online space this year.
Moynihan is a seasoned retail executive who worked for Blarney Woollen Mills in Cork while studying at UCC. After graduating she joined Diageo’s graduate programme. She honed her digital marketing skills while working with Musgraves, with an emphasis on customer relationship management and data science.
Kilkenny Group owes its origins to the belief of founder and then Córas Tráchtála (now Enterprise Ireland) CEO Wiliam Walsh that design could be a key factor in economic success. Walsh spearheaded the establishment of Kilkenny Design Workshops in 1963, the first state agency to be set up outside Dublin, and it operated from the converted Ormonde Stables in Kilkenny city.
The local crafts and gifts on display were hugely popular with visitors which in turn inspired the Government to open the first Kilkenny Design store in Kilkenny City in 1965. A second store followed on Nassau St, Dublin in 1976 which remains the group’s flagship store today.
In 1999, Kilkenny Design was taken over by Marian O’Gorman and her family. In 2021 Moynihan became the first non-family member to lead Kilkenny Design.
To join the business at the height of the Covid pandemic could be described as an interesting challenge, to say the least. For Moynihan it is all about giving physical store customers and digital store customers a quality experience.
“Our focus has been very much about moving from surviving to thriving, in a nutshell, and it’s definitely been a focus on the omnichannel experience for our customers. And more and more we’re finding our customers are doing their research online or shopping online. But equally, there’s a number of customers delighted to be back into physical retail, touching the product, feeling the product, trying on the product.
“So our focus has been in driving both sides of our business, both bricks and mortar and digital, and also doing a lot of initiatives to see how we can bring those two experiences even more closer together.”
An example of this is an innovation she describes as the “store to door” experience.
“If someone goes into one of our shops, in their local shopping centre, for example, and they don’t see the full range, they can buy from our full range through our website, and there’s a an iPad in store that facilitates that experience really simply for the customer. So it’s initiatives like that that are really kind of helping drive our business forward.
“I would say since Covid, it’s never been tougher in retail. It’s never been tougher in hospitality. So we know we have to keep innovating in order to stay ahead. And that’s definitely a key part of our agenda ongoing in Kilkenny; staying close to the customer, looking at what’s working, what’s not working, and keep innovating and improving our offer as we go.”
Taking on the digital giants with new thinking
Whether it is pressure from the advent of Amazon Prime locally or competition from Asian online retailers like Temu and Shein, or new developments like the TikTok Shop, Moynihan is not exaggerating when she says it is definitely tough in retail.
While the online giants can compete on quantity, her answer is to fight back with quality.
“We have more than 250 Irish designers and makers that we do business with, and we’re very passionate about driving Irish makers and designers.
“So it’s about having the best range, absolutely at the best quality, but being very keen on price as well.
“We started to develop our own product with Lennon Courtney as a design collaboration and that’s been doing really well for us as a Group, and bringing something really exclusive, but also brilliant quality, great prices. So again, that’s a big part of our agenda to kind of keep innovating, to stay competitive. Because the challenges that are up against retailers like us is the cost of doing business.
“It’s exceptionally challenging in Ireland with the increase in labour costs, the increase in energy costs. It’s really, really difficult to be competitive when you’re up against these big global players.
“Then on the other side of it, in bricks and mortar, obviously, we have the competitiveness challenges on the high street, but even more importantly, the city centres have had a really difficult 12 months with anti-social behaviour really affecting the footfall into our city centres in particular.”
Working constructively with Government to bring more policing to streets is part of the answer. “At the end of the day, we want our colleagues and we want our shoppers to feel safe.”
Reflecting on her leadership of Kilkenny Group since 2021, Moynihan says her style has been to keep driving forward.
“I suppose I never see the tradition of Kilkenny Design which celebrated 60 years last year as a weight. I see it as huge strength and heritage. And actually, more and more Irish people and consumers are looking for that heritage. They are looking for that the story behind different businesses and brands, and also to see a business like Kilkenny Design survive everything from foot and mouth to pandemics, you name it, wars, recessions, to emerge stronger, and to keep innovating and to take the challenges as they come and keep spearheading forward.
“I’m very lucky that our chairperson, Marie O’Gorman is in the business and is supporting me with all her experience of how the business has overcome that history and to make sure that we’re taking those learnings from the past.
“For me, championing Irish design and craft is a unique and fantastic place to be. We talk a lot about sustainability and how businesses can move forward with their sustainability strategies and agendas, but naturally, all our products are made to last. They’re quality. We’re supporting local jobs. We’re supporting local communities. So when you look at all the trends, from a heritage point of view, we’re positioned really strongly for the future. And then equally, it has to take innovation. It has to take new learning.”
At the heart of this is making sure the business has the right skill sets. “We have been investing a lot in digital, in areas like merchandising, in planning and to make sure that we’re equipped to take on the big giants and to really kind of cut through and shine.
“So I definitely see our heritage as a huge strength to springboard, but it absolutely takes innovation, new thinking. I mentioned about the development of our own brand ranges. So we’re now designing and developing products in house, which is hugely exciting for our business
“We’ve had years of listening to the customer and the supplier and the shopper and what works what doesn’t. And interestingly, we recently spent time with Enterprise Ireland in the US in a workshop around scaling our business into the US.
“How do we position our product in the right way? How do we tell our story in the right way, meeting loads of different experts.”
For Moynihan and her team, triumphing in the digital age is about embracing change.
“I’ve always had that hunger for growth, for new thinking. Every day is learning day. At Kilkenny we’re never shy about putting the hand up and saying we didn’t do things well enough, or we need to be stronger in different places.
“So for me, that hunger to learn and getting in front of the right experts and helping us kind of spearhead our growth forward has been a big drive from myself and the senior team here in Kilkenny.”
-
Bank of Ireland is welcoming new customers every day – funding investments, working capital and expansions across multiple sectors. To learn more, click here
-
Listen to the ThinkBusiness Podcast for business insights and inspiration. All episodes are here. You can also listen to the Podcast on:
-
Spotify
-
SoundCloud
-
Apple
