Love, Bonito: Empowering women through purpose-driven fashion

CEO Dione Song shares the brand’s three-fold strategy as it expands into new markets whilst strengthening the organisation and adoption of technology.

Love, Bonito, the largest direct-to-consumer women’s wear brand in the Asia-Pacific region, is making waves in the retail industry with its customer-centric approach and commitment to empowering women.

In a recent interview, Love, Bonito CEO Dione Song told Retail Asia about the brand’s unique strategy and its impact on the market.

“We provide very thoughtful products, and very thoughtful customer experiences, even as we expand globally,” Song said, noting that their business strategy revolves around three key pillars.

First, she said the brand is driven by a strong purpose, which is to empower the everyday Asian woman and inspire self-confidence.

“Our mission is to empower the everyday Asian woman and inspire self-confidence,” she said. “We're in the business ultimately of women, not just in the business of fashion."

She further explained the brand’s philosophy in the context that in today’s landscape, consumers seek authenticity, and Love, Bonito strives to deliver that authentic customer experience and products that resonate with their female community.

Song spelled out the second pillar of their strategy as product differentiation. At Love, Bonito, she said they ask themselves: “Can we provide a differentiated product design and assortment to our community, when it comes down to fit, when it comes to proportions, when it comes to even very thoughtful designs and elements?”

Recognising that “product is queen,” the brand focuses on delivering a unique product design and assortment that caters to its patron’s specific needs.

“Take for example, pet tops, right or pockets, right and dresses so that fashion is thoughtful and fashion is functional for our female community,” said the fashion company CEO.

For its third strategy pillar, Love, Bonito provides an omni-channel, holistic, and integrated customer experience for a seamless shopping journey online or offline across its 17 stores in the region.

“And this, for us, in terms of… business outlook, it translates really strong customer retention,” Song asserted. “One specific statistics… today, more than 30% of our customers that we’ve acquired over the last 12 years are, in fact, still active frequent shoppers with us right now.”

When it comes to expanding into new markets and strengthening its presence in existing ones, Song said Love, Bonito adopts an omni-channel approach, starting with building a strong digital community that leverages its online platform and key opinion leaders on social media.

Citing its expansion into markets like the Philippines, where offline retail experiences hold significant value, the brand conducts pop-up stores to better connect with its customers face-to-face, she said.

“This allows us… to really understand our customers, from an insights perspective to understand hey, what is our Filipino customer really like? What does she like dressing for? Or what categories does she prefer to buy? What are her favorite designs as well?” she explained.

“This has also been how we’ve expanded into markets like Malaysia, Indonesia, and most recently… Hong Kong,” she added.

Looking to the future, the Love, Bonito CEO said they recognise the importance of technology in driving expansion and growth and, as such, utilised customer relationship management (CRM) tools to build comprehensive customer profiles.

Leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, Love, Bonito provides personalised recommendations to its customers.

The brand also invests in technology to improve scalability and streamline operations, enabling more efficient geographical expansion and integration of its infrastructure and supply chain.

Underpinning Love, Bonito’s success is its positive company culture and commitment to fostering collaboration.

Song told Retail Asia that she believes in leading with transparency and context, ensuring information flows across all levels of the organisation.

“We really believe that information should not just be kept within certain teams. So we try to ensure that we’re always sharing context across the wider organisation, right information is cascaded down even across all of our levels,” she said.

“Number two… we try to encourage really deep collaboration across all of our teams,” she added.

Also, the CEO stressed that the brand values diversity and strives to build a workforce that represents the customers it serves. This diversity fosters empathy, customer-centricity, and innovation within the organisation, Song said.

For more business news, visit retailasia.com.