Clarity that Pays: How The Foschini Group Leveraged IWD to Unlock Billions in Value

Clarity is more than a goal — it’s a business driver. At The Foschini Group (TFG), a leading South African retail group, achieving clarity in visual merchandising has translated into billions in value.

We spoke with JP Craucamp, Senior Visual Merchandising Manager for TFG’s Women’s Wear division, overseeing brands like The Fix, G-Star Raw, JD Sports, and BeautyBox, about the challenges of planning, testing, and executing store layouts and displays across multiple brands — and how IWD helped his team transform that process into a faster, more accurate, and data-driven operation.

Q: DO YOU MIND INTRODUCING YOURSELF? JUST WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU DO AT THE FOSCHINI GROUP? 

JP Craucamp: Sure, my name is JP Craucamp. I am the Senior Visual Merchandising Manager for what we call the Women’s Wear Stack. Women’s Wear Stack is our brand, like Foschini Group, which is a massive women’s wear retailer. 100 years old in South Africa. It includes The Fix, [which is] a fast fashion value retailer, really high, on-trend, very quick. And then it also includes all of our beauty stores. So a lot of work on beauty. I am the main component, or main person, that is in charge of the project to ensure that it rolls out successfully.

Q: PERFECT. AND CAN YOU JUST GIVE US A QUICK RUNDOWN OF HOW YOU WORKED BEFORE IWD AND WHAT YOU PROCESS WAS FOR YOUR JOB?

JP Craucamp: Before IWD, at that point, I only had The Fix as a brand and fast fashion. So fast fashion meant that we had to do things quickly. And what we had is physical stores that were built at our office, but you could only really put the current month that comes product in so it was very labor intensive. It was quite slow because we would have to completely spend two days merchandising this space and it’s only one of each item because it’s only one sample. So it was nice because you had a physical store but it wasn’t realistic. There was no scope.

You also had no history on it. So your history that’s sitting there in stores, 12 weeks and older, your 20 weeks and older, your 30 weeks and older sale, none of that is laid over. So you would have this perfect view of what products are going in…then we do on visits and we walk into stores and it’s a different story and it’s not really clear.

Q: SO IT SOUNDS LIKE THERE WAS A LOT OF ISSUES WITH GETTING THINGS DONE QUICKLY, COMMUNICATION. HOW HAS IWD HELPED WITH THOSE CHALLENGES SPECIALLY?

JP Craucamp: I had a head of business called Robin Winlock. She was like, ‘I’m going to give you what you want and what I want you to deliver for me is clarity.’ And that’s what we seeked. So we got Mockshop and I imported the data and I imported the information…and I pulled up the analysis and I said, ‘Right, guys, we’re going into July and July 1st is when we launch summer.”  We launch very early, still winter…we basically help the country defrost with our fashion. So we have different categories…and I opened up the analysis and there were 27 styles of dresses under test. That’s a lot of tests. How are we going to learn? Our store is only 250 square meters. In your head, you’re thinking, ‘I’m putting 27 tests into the store. But where does it all live? Where does it all go?” And we were able to make very quick decisions. We flowed the product over three months. We put specific categories together where we could get the same learnings, where the same results would mean we could flow and buy volume into that product for summer. And it was one of our most successful dress seasons in that year. 

Mockshop allowed the agility in need. When we need agility, it allowed the agility. And it was very quick in getting all the information through. So from review with merchants to the MD signing it off, to us sending it out to our teams understanding it, applying it, and then us getting feedback back. Mockshop was fundamental in that process to allow us to do that.

Q: THAT'S REALLY GOOD TO HEAR. IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO HEAR HOW WE CAN HELP QUICKEN UP THESE PROCESSES BECAUSE YOU CAN GET SO MUCH DONE, ESPECIALLY IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY WHERE THINGS CHANGE, AS YOU SAID, WITHIN SEASONS AND TRENDS. SO WITH THAT CAN YOU GIVE US THREE OR FOUR WORDS, OR JUST ONE WORD, TO DESCRIBE IWD AND YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH IT?

JP Craucamp: Supportive. Fast and Open to new ideas.

With IWD’s partnership, JP is able to continue to take The Foschini Group’s retail strategies to new heights. With a growth mindset the company is able to make faster, more accurate merchandising decisions without sacrificing performance.

Thank you, JP!

Click here to discover the full interview 👇

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