Fossil's Department Store Customers Sense 'Opportunity' in Wearables, CEO Says
Building Fossil’s presence in the “connected accessories” market is “a strategic priority that extends across our entire portfolio of brands and is top-of-mind for all of us at the moment,” CEO Kosta Kartsotis said on an earnings call. Technology “is…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
driving innovation in watches” and has become “the fashion trend of today,” because it adds “incremental functionality” to traditional watches, he said Tuesday. “Our ability to provide that functionality into great-looking accessories with various lifestyle brands that customers can identify with is clearly a strategic advantage for us.” Fossil is “uniquely positioned to lead the convergence of style and technology, given our design, production and global distribution capabilities,” he said. The additional “layering in” of the Misfit activity-tracker platform that Fossil acquired last year (see 1511130039) “provides an alternative to the customer, adding additional functionality that will make the category more relevant to consumers,” he said. Fossil's department stores have seen their traditional watch business decline, so the "stores are actually very excited" about wearables, he said in Q&A. That's because "there's so much consumer interest in wearables," and "it brings a younger customer in their store," he said. "There's a bunch of excitement around it. We think that there's an opportunity to change the entire watch department from a typical watch department to a wearable technology department."