Adeela Hussain Johnson, President of BÉIS

Gabriella Bock:
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the RETHINK Retail Podcast. I’m your host, Gabriella Bock. And today, I’ll be speaking with my very special guest, Adeela Hussain Johnson. Adeela is the President of Beis, an on-the-go lifestyle brand for people in motion, delivering high-quality, functional travel essentials at an accessible price point. Founded in 2018 by actress and entrepreneur Shay Mitchell, Beis offers consumers thoughtfully designed accessories that will never ask you to compromise between form and function. Adeela’s 20 year career in finance, business, brand marketing, and merchandising ranges from large Fortune 50 companies like Target and Ameriprise Financial, to pre-revenue startups. Adeela, it’s so great to have you on the show today. Thank you for joining.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Thank you, Gabriella. I really appreciate that and the kind introduction.

Gabriella Bock:
Absolutely. And we’re super excited to have you on the show. Beis is, I think, definitely a kind of a rising star right now. And for anyone who might not have heard of Beis before, can you kind of kick us off a little bit about sharing who Beis is as a brand and kind of the story behind it?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Yeah, of course. One of the best parts of what I get to do is tell this story. So Beis, as you mentioned, was founded in 2018. Our parent company, Beach House Group is an incubator of brands, and one of the founders who’s relatively well connected had a personal relationship with Shay, and we were in the business of product, and we could do product really well, and specifically in the luggage bag and accessory marketplace, and Shay had already, at the time in her life, established herself as an expert in the travel space through her personal YouTube platform, Shaycation, and so the brains came together. It was such a natural synergy, so authentic to who she is, completely leveraged our expertise as an organization, and brought the two kind of brains together to create what is now Beis.
We’re celebrating our four year anniversary this year, and it’s kind of pinch worthy to look back and think about that first meeting in July of 2019 and think about what we were hoping and dreaming this brand would be. We always knew it would be a travel bag or an on-the-go bag and accessory brand, but it’s just become so much more. It’s a lifestyle brand. It’s a brand that people look to for inspiration. Shay is, again, so authentic in this space and really knows the market, knows the product, knows trend, and knows how to speak to the consumer in a way that has given us this remarkable platform.
So we are so excited because again, we’re coming into year four. We’ve weathered a lot of storms as I’m sure a lot of organizations have had to do over the course of the last couple years, but as we look forward, we see ourselves as wanting to be the on-the-go brand for people who are on-the-go. And that could mean going to the gym, that could mean going to work, that could mean taking your baby to the grocery store, but that could also mean getting on a plane. And we don’t feel like travel is limited to just kind of airplane travel because you’re traveling every time you’re moving, and so how do we as a company create solutions to help make that journey a little less stressful and a little bit more organized and a little bit more fashionable?

Gabriella Bock:
Excellent. Great description. And kind of from those early days, so were you and Shay kind of friends, or had you been colleagues before in the past? How did you guys come to working together?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Yeah. No, I did not know Shay outside of her public notoriety. I didn’t know her personally at all. Again, she was kind of connected through Shawn Neff, who is one of our founders. They were friends outside of the work environment. And I think when she presented… Though she’s an amazing actress, has always expressed an interest in being an entrepreneur and building a brand that is super meaningful to her, and now she’s got two. And so when they had had that conversation, and Sean talked about the company he founded and Shay talked about the things that she loved, it just made sense for the two of us to build a brand together.
And I was with the organization helping run several categories and brands that they had before. And this is an area that I had expertise in myself, and Shay and I hit it off right away. It was a very natural relationship. We get along really well and we work together incredibly well. And I think one of the reasons is we have very complimentary skill sets. I’m incredibly strong in the financial and accounting and ops side of the business, and she’s kind of the marketing and visionary guru. And so it comes together really well and we’re able to build both the brand and the team, who are really kind of the heroes of the story, to help drive this business forward over the last several years. It worked out really nicely because we got along, but we also had this amazing professional relationship that was able to nourish this great brand.

Gabriella Bock:
That’s fantastic. It sounds like the two of you really compliment each other well and both bring incredibly important different strengths to the table.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Absolutely.

Gabriella Bock:
So that’s fantastic. And you mentioned that Beis is a lifestyle brand for the on-the-go lifestyle, so who would say your core customers are?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Yeah. Our core customers are predominantly female, or female purchasing as far as we can see, close to 86% to 90%. That number has gone down over the course of the last year and a half, which is pretty indicative to me of the direction of our portfolio and our assortment, just having a little bit more broader gender appealing items and styles. 42% are age 25 to 34, so kind of those prime millennial years, and that is our core consumer. We are starting to see some pretty meaningful growth in the demographics on both ends of that spectrum… on the outside of the deviation. And to me, that’s again, very meaningful of the way we think about our brand.
Yes, I think we’re all used to kind of thinking about demographics in terms of this age to this age, but we really approach… The way we like to think about it from an internal perspective are, what are the psychographics? Because I’m outside of that age threshold, but I think a certain way, and I act a certain way, and I might purchase a certain way that would make me similar to people in that age demographic or interested in certain brands that exude certain lifestyles or certain interests or values. And as we do that, and as we look at that, we start to see kind of a melding of different age groups and different genders and different people, very much appealed to our brand and interested in the brand. And that’s a very exciting position for us to be in as we grow because that’s one of our core strategic priorities is to expand our audience and appeal to a wider group of people.

Gabriella Bock:
As you are studying your customers and what their wants and their desires are right now, are you seeing… any big trends that you are kind of keeping top of mind?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Ha-ha, that’s such a funny question because I feel like every week it’s something new. So I think the only trend is it’s an ever changing trend. Consumer behavior hasn’t changed dramatically in terms of things that they’re interested in and things that they want out of companies. I think we’ve been hearing a lot of the things for some time now about people are looking to brands that replicate values that they hold. And I think that still is true.
I think the way people are receiving information is very different now than… I came from Target previously, which is very traditional brick and mortar and that wasn’t that long ago, and purchasing behavior, modes of purchasing, the way people purchase is so dramatically different. Just the juxtaposition of being in such a heavy brick and mortar company to being a 95% DTC organization kind of is indicative of that in the way people want to be able to experience and purchase and interact with the brands that they love through every channel that they interact in. And that means you have to invest in those channels and understand them.
Social media tends to be, I think, the way we receive a lot of that information. One, through just the one-on-one relationship with our consumer. Our consumer is incredibly engaged, which is wonderful because we get so much information from what she tells us she wants. And we can take that information and either create product or create strategies or kind of tweak things that we’re already doing because she’s super vocal with us and we love that, but we also see it in the way people are behaving and the things that she’s responding to and how the commentary on products go or what does well and what doesn’t.
And so, yes, I think in short, trends are incredibly short-lived these days, so you have to be super astute to what’s happening just in the marketplace to be able to speak in the language that our consumer is speaking, which changes just as frequently, but the things that they care about and things that I think the core consumer cares about are pretty fundamental and in sync with who we are as a brand. And so that doesn’t change every day. It’s just kind of the way we might communicate it out.

Gabriella Bock:
Yeah, absolutely. And great points on trends. And the trend cycles are so incredibly short right now.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
So short.

Gabriella Bock:
And you did mention people are looking to brands that share the same values that they hold. So what would you say are some of the core values of Beis?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Yeah. It’s very interesting you ask this because I think the world of company, life, brand have just kind of all mingled together where there was such clear lines between what companies say and don’t say, what you say and don’t say at work, what you do and don’t say in your friend group, and I think if it’s COVID or if it’s just life or just kind of the marketplace and the way people, again, are receiving and exuding information, I’m not sure which one or if it’s a compilation of all of them, but it definitely feels like the lines have blurred and people do expect companies to have a voice and do expect companies to speak up on matters that traditionally they wouldn’t have or taken positions on in traditional things that companies wouldn’t speak about with their employees.
We’ve always been very authentic and transparent from the start. I think one of the first videos we ever released was kind of a behind the scenes of how we make product and how we developed ourselves as a brand. And that was always very important to us as a company for many reasons. One, I think Shay and I are both just innately like that as people. Shay’s very much like that even on her own social platform, so people have come to expect that from her. But I also think it’s incredibly important because that’s what consumers are expecting. They want to know about those values. And so for us, it’s authenticity, transparency. And really in terms of value, it’s showing consumers ways that you can have it all in so many ways. You don’t have to compromise. You can have it all. And I think that is the way we kind of approach some of our messaging.
We also don’t like to take ourselves too seriously. We’re in a world of a product that isn’t… it’s not going to change the world, right? It’s not curing cancer. So yes, we do something very serious and we love what we do and we absolutely love our brand, but we can also poke fun of ourselves. And we can also just be a little hearty and cheerful and a little cheeky, often more cheeky than people would expect from a brand, but that’s our voice and that’s kind of, I think again, one of the reasons our consumers interact so much with us is because we are always kind of showcasing that style and those values in different ways.
When the transparency around the makeup of employees, I think it was called the pull-up trend, we responded and we shared. And when it came to COVID, we repurposed resources to create masks and we spoke about it. And when it came to the challenges that we were facing as a world, and we are still facing today on racial injustices and civil injustices, we speak up. And so I think as a company, again, traditionally, you probably wouldn’t have done that, but in the world that we live in today, I think people… We have to, and I think people have come to expect it.

Gabriella Bock:
Yeah, absolutely. Great points. And especially with, not only kind of outwardly and publicly sharing the same values, but then to your point about really kind of walking the walk, not just talking the talk, but really being authentic and transparent, it’s so important right now, especially now that the everyday person really has a platform to kind of amplify their voice and so we’re really seeing-

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Absolutely.

Gabriella Bock:
… yeah, just so many brands are kind of on the public chopping block right now. So yeah-

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
[Inaudible]

Gabriella Bock:
… you’re really being authentic.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
As a leader of a brand, sometimes that makes you so nervous because you’re like, “Oh my God [inaudible]. Everything that comes out, you have to think, “What if this was just splashed on the front of every social media?” But I think if you hire the right people and the right team that understand your values, exude your values, and speak your values, your brand stands for what it is and you have that authenticity that’s innately and intrinsically weaved through everything you do, there isn’t really anything to hide from. And I think that is the beauty of, one, being a startup and, one, joining an organization kind of at the bottom right when it starts. You can help build that and shape that. And I think that’s been the really exciting thing for both Shay and I is that we’ve been able to kind of help shape that, and that the consumer does a lot of it for us as well, but we kind of just built a brand based on what we think was right. And I think that people appreciate that.

Gabriella Bock:
I love it. And it sounds like you guys have a great team. And speaking of teams, I did want to hear a little bit about your creative team and kinda what your creative team looks like, and then also, how you are kind of working to make sure that you’re not only offering consumers a unique product, but then marketing it in ways that stand out from the competition.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Yeah. Our creative team is remarkable, indicative through… there’s just the amazing content that we’re always creating. But it is all done in house. So everything in the creative department is headed by our visionary, Shay. She helms… She’s the head of that department and everyone kind of works with her incredibly closely. And then Liz Money, who’s the VP of our brand and creative. She’s a genius, and she can take Shay’s vision and create mood boards like you’ve never seen before and execute a photo shoot that brings the entire thing to life seamlessly.
But part of what I think is super important to us as a brand is that our content is always forward. It’s always pushing the needle a little bit. And we want to be a brand that… Again, our whole story is you don’t have to compromise between form, function, and fashion. You can get it all. And we want our content to be aspirational, but be attainable. We want it to kind of feel like it’s a little bit of a dream, but also feel like you can get there and you will get there because that’s what’s going to happen. And we want that to come across.
We have very editorial type images that we take, but then we also do a ton of photo shoots with the iPhone. And so it’s got to be a little bit of everything because again, that’s our consumer. Our consumer isn’t just a one trick pony, and our brand is not a one trick pony, and we have to speak to our consumers in the same way that we see our brand, that it can meet many different needs and it can speak to the consumer in many different ways. So all of our content is really intended to bring our brand to life, bring our story to life, bring our product to life.
We know product photography and functional kind of videos like Shay’s walkthroughs that have always done so well for us, are the best performing content that we do because at the end of the day, consumers, when they’re wanting to buy product, they want to know what that product does. But when they want to buy into a brand and they want to feel like they are buying into a lifestyle, which is what any brand dreams of, then they want that aspiration and then they want to feel like they’re looking at an editorial runway-esque type book. That’s what you kind of want to exude, I think, as a brand. And so we get to do both and we do them all, I think really well. Our content team is remarkable. And again, Shay has such a good sense of what people will respond to and just such a great eye. It’s amazing to watch. It’s like watching a designer. It’s kind of like the same concept. And that’s how we approach content.
And one of the biggest things I think we’ve learned is newness is so important. We do a photo shoot almost every single month, sometimes multiple. And it sounds crazy and it certainly is a very big investment of time and resources, but it’s worth it because again, like we talked about, trends are fast and they’re fast paced and they’re changing, and so if you want to say relevant, you can’t then have your content not speaking that same language. So it’s incredibly important that our content is aligned with again, consumer behavior and consumer trends.

Gabriella Bock:
Oh my gosh, I absolutely love it. I love the approach. Retail, as a media channel, we’re seeing it more and more, but those are really the brands, I think that are exciting consumers the most and to your point, making it very like aspirational. I could picture myself being plucked up and placed right into that spread or into that video. But then also using standard tools, like the iPhone where it’s like, okay, but I can also relate to this. And here’s how it would appear if I myself, as the everyday person was walking around with it or traveling with it or capturing it on my own iPhone, doing my own little travel shoots on my Instagram or anything like that. So I think that’s really cool.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
And I think the other thing we’ve learned, and we learned this quite meaningfully in the last several years, and very different I think on how we maybe even approached it before then is every channel content is different because people, when they are on different channels and different mediums, they receive information differently, they expect to see it differently, they respond differently. What works on a paid ad won’t work on social and what works on social won’t work on TikTok and won’t work on email or your website, so it’s really approaching content with kind of the end in mind. It’s like, what is this going to be used for? And how do we create content that’s relevant to that channel from a business strategy is really important because that’s what helps deliver your ROI, and that’s what makes it a sound business strategy. It makes sense to then be investing as many resources as we do in content.

Gabriella Bock:
Yeah, absolutely. Definitely not a one size fits all, even just with video-

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Definitely not.

Gabriella Bock:
… which is something we’re learning here as we are trying to move into TikTok, and some of our videos that we’ve made for YouTube where even if you just kind of reformatted a little bit, it’s like, “No, nobody on TikTok would even find this remotely interesting, but on YouTube it performs well.” So yeah, just really understanding those nuances.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Absolutely. Yep.

Gabriella Bock:
I watched an old video, I think when the brand was just starting up, where Shay was… she was kind of smearing makeup on the travel bags and seeing how easy it was to wipe off, and then from that she kind of determined, “Okay, the insides need to be more slick.” So does Beis really… Do you guys still embody this kind of dedication to testing your product ideas?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Oh my gosh, yes. Yeah, so we do multiple type of testing. We do the traditional testing that happens at the factory level to make sure it’s functional, but then we do what’s called, use testing, and Shay loves doing this. And if you ever bring her a bag and she doesn’t try to smear makeup on it, then something’s wrong [inaudible]. So every single bag has to be makeup resistant it seems… or dirt resistant because those are two things that happen a lot when you are traveling. But yeah, we use test as much as we can, the team, our product testers, our fans.
When we launched baby, we actually reached out to a ton of moms in this area and said, “Hey, just take this bag. It’s a prototype. Test it, give us feedback.” And to be honest, the end product, we very much took that feedback and changed the product. Our first version was far too big. The handles weren’t working properly. So it gives us that opportunity to absorb information and respond to it in a really meaningful way.
And we do these seasonal drops. So we have our core portfolio, which is our tried and true, and it’s the stuff that’s kind of the timeless, and then we have seasonal drops that leverage different materials or patterns or new product forms that we’re testing. And we get a lot of feedback through those as well because those you might not have as much time to do kind of consumer testing with, but we’ll launch something because it’s a great idea and we have amazing use for it, and sometimes the consumers will tell us, “Hey, that was awesome, but next time you do that, put a zipper there.” Or “Next time you do that, the hook should be over here or maybe it needs to be bigger or maybe it needs to be smaller.” And we take all of that. We spend a lot of time reading our reviews, getting customer feedback through Instagram and other channels in which our consumer speaks to us, and taking that, and on a very regular basis, making sure that we’re incorporating that into when we renovate product or tweak product or we launch it at other times. And that’s just part of our process.
And Shay having… She’s part of almost every sample review. And every sample review, she will do some form of a use test, whether it’s putting Atlas in the baby [inaudible] or pulling it or putting makeup on it or hanging it from somewhere and hanging her body on it to make sure it can hold it. All kinds of stuff we’ve seen. And it’s hysterical, but it’s also real. That’s what people are going to do, so let’s make sure it can function in that way. And our entire team serves kind of as that resource for the product team.

Gabriella Bock:
That’s fantastic. I love the dedication to testing and just really listening and incorporating that feedback because customers they really will tell you exactly what they want.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Oh yeah. You just have to listen. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Gabriella Bock:
Absolutely. So I know you guys launched in 2018, and as you mentioned earlier, coming up on your four year anniversary. Congratulations.
I did kind of want to touch on the pandemic a little bit. As a new brand specializing in travel and work bags, how did the pandemic impact your business and were there any big lessons learned?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Yeah. I mean, I challenge anyone to say that it didn’t. Well one, yes, a hundred percent. Our business is in the world of people in motion, and the entire world was grounded. So that in itself was just a very jarring kind of realization of which, not many of us on the day of lockdown realized the scope and scale. Certainly, we didn’t to the scope and scale of what this would be and how long it would be and what the kind of implications of it meant. Very early on, and I’ll even say, kind of before pandemic, and again, this kind of goes to the fact that the strategy that we had outlined really early in this brand’s inception was why I think that helped us weather the storm a little bit, we always knew we didn’t want to be a luggage brand. There are many amazing people in the marketplace that paved the way for luggage as an e-comm brand. That is not normal. Before even five, six, maybe 10 years ago, everybody would say that this category could never live in e-commerce because it’s so big, it’s so bulky to ship, and it was a brick and mortar channel. And there are definitely brands and we all know them that paved the way to kind of start that relationship with the consumer.
And so we rode the coattails, and we understood that yes, luggage is very important and it’s certainly a way that people travel, especially on planes, but we always wanted to be more than that. And we didn’t launch very intentionally with rollers. We launched with mainly shoulder bags and accessories. And that was intentional because we felt like that was a little bit one, more where the wide space opportunity was, but two, more likely what people are using in their day-to-day lives. That rollers, yes, but how often are you actually using those every day? “So let’s launch with the things that people are going to build that relationship with and then let’s in soon order, within six months, launch the products that are bigger investments and will require a little bit more thought.” And that was very intentional.
And the reason I bring that up is because when COVID hit, we had a little bit of the luxury of having a diverse portfolio that allowed us to pivot our marketing language and our strategy relatively seamlessly to start to speak about products within our portfolio that were doing well, but weren’t these kind of heavy, plain travel items or even travel items at all. They’re items that kind of lived in people’s day-to-day, like when you take your dog out for a walk or when you take your kid to the store or when you walk around the block, because nobody could do anything more than that, and here are pieces that can answer. When you take, which was my life, when all your kids are home at school and you have to go from this room to this room and you need something to schlep it from here to there, the work tote can help you do that. So we really tried to figure out, “What are consumers doing right now in their lives, and how do we make sure our product is answering the need of how they’re living their lives today?” And we had the luxury of a diverse portfolio.
Second to that, we’re a very nimble organization because we’re small. So we were able to pivot our future innovation, our supply chain. We could kind of be a little bit more thoughtful as, “Okay, with everything coming out in the future, let’s make sure we have more hands free options. Let’s make sure we have things that are going to provide consumers answers in the way that they’re interacting day-to-day with their lives.” And that was kind of our saving grace in many ways. We weren’t so heavily reliant on rollers. And I think the companies that were really felt that disproportional impact because travel, I mean until recently really hadn’t seen an insurgence. However, having that, now that it is kind of picking back up, we’re able to capitalize on that growth as well.

Gabriella Bock:
Yeah, that’s really smart, especially with kind of, as you said, pivoting your marketing strategy and really leaning into the idea that travel isn’t always jet setting to lavish destinations, to your point, sometimes it’s traveling around the block with your dog or just traveling from one room to another. It is still all travel. It is being on-the-go, so I think that’s brilliant. Really cool stuff.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Thank you.

Gabriella Bock:
And I think it really just shows… kind of testifies back to your guys’ creative team and being able to be agile and really know who your consumers are. And I mean, so many brands felt a lot of pain, sadly during the pandemic, but even as a new brand, it sounds like you guys… You’re coming on your fourth year now, so I think that’s really great.
So we’re coming up on time here. And so I did have just kind of one final question for you know. You guys launched as a DTC brand, and I know you are currently working with a few retail partners, are there any plans to open a base flagship or your own stores?

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Oh, it’s interesting you ask that. I would say not in the traditional way. So we’re probably not going to do the store that’s always in this one spot all the time. I don’t think that for our brand necessarily makes sense, but what we have seen and did tremendous success, we actually launched our first popup at the Grove, that was now a month and a half ago, and it did tremendously well. And it was so amazing to see how excited consumers [inaudible] able to interact with our [inaudible] in real life, but not just our brand, with this whole experience.
And the popup gave us this opportunity, Beis Motel. It was very interactive. It was very well branded. It had all the bells and whistles that you would want in an experience, in an experiential kind of marketing activation. And I’d say that to me seems a little bit more realistic in how we would execute brick and mortar in the more traditional sense of the word. And I think we would look at all… We are growing internationally, quite meaningfully as well and recently launched domestic distribution centers in Europe and in Canada to help with some kind of very impactful shipping costs that exist if people from there are buying our product. And so as we think about international expansion, as we think about even domestic growth, can we have retail activations that are kind of in and out that allow the consumer to interact with our brand, deliver an experience that replicates every other channel and medium that we speak about how our brand is, and then jump back out, take some learnings, and then do it again in a different way? And so I think that’s more likely the way you’ll see us bringing the more traditional brick and mortar life to play, outside of course, the relationships we already have with Nordstrom and Revolve.

Gabriella Bock:
Fantastic. Yeah. I mean, gosh, the Grove is just the absolute perfect place for a pop.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
It was the dream. It was the dream. It was quite literally the dream. And I remember when I saw it, and I know Shay and the team that executed this, I mean, they’re just geniuses and led by Liz, and I know she quite literally cried right when she saw it. It was this very emotional, visceral reaction because she was like, “Oh my God, this is just… It’s everything we ever dreamed of.” And it really, really was it. And consumers responded in that way and that was super encouraging to see because you just never know. When you’re a such heavily e-comm brand, you don’t know how it would always translate, and it was seamless.

Gabriella Bock:
Amazing. That sounds like… just being able to see kind of everything that you’ve worked so hard on come to life and see consumers in real-time, in physicality getting excited over the products and the brand. I’m sure it was just an amazing moment.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Oh, so motivating. Yeah. Very, very motivating. Keeps us going for sure.

Gabriella Bock:
Fantastic. Well, Adeela, I really appreciate your time today and thank you so much for sharing with us more on Beis. And I’m excited to continue to watch your guys’ growth.

Adeela Hussain Johnson:
Thank you. And thanks for this platform to talk through it, and we look forward to kind of following you as well.

Gabriella Bock:
Thank you so much.