We spoke to JP Craucamp, senior visual merchandising manager for TFG’s women’s fashion division. He oversees brands such as The Fix, G-Star Raw, JD Sports and BeautyBox. The conversation was about the challenges of planning, testing and implementing store layouts and product presentations across multiple brands. He also explained how IWD helped his team transform this process into a faster, more accurate, and data-driven operation.
Kristle Navarro, US Marketing Associate at IWD: ‘Can you briefly introduce yourself? Simply who you are and what you do at Foschini Group.’
JP Craucamp, Senior Visual Merchandising Manager at TFG: “Sure, my name is JP Craucamp. I am the senior visual merchandising manager for the area we call the ‘Women’s Wear Stack’. The Women’s Wear Stack is our brand, similar to the Foschini Group, a huge women’s fashion retailer. The company has been in South Africa for 100 years. This includes The Fix, a fast fashion discounter that is very trendy and fast. It also includes all of our beauty stores, so a lot of work in that Beauty segment. I am the main person responsible for the project to ensure its successful implementation.”
KN: ‘Perfect. Can you briefly tell us how you worked before IWD and what your work process looked like?’
JC: “Before IWD, at that point I only had The Fix as a brand and fast fashion. Fast fashion meant we had to be fast. We had physical stores that were replicated in our office. But you could only put the current month’s products there, which was very labor intensive.
The process was pretty slow. We had to spend two whole days designing this space. There was only one copy of each item because they were samples. While it was nice to have a physical store, it wasn’t realistic. There was no overview.
We also lacked historical data. Stocks that were in stores for twelve, 20 or 30 weeks and older were not taken into account. So you had this perfect view of the new products. But when we then visited the shops, the picture was completely different and it wasn’t really clear.”
KN: So it seems like there were a lot of issues with quick implementation and communication. How has IWD specifically helped with these challenges?
JC: “I had a business manager named Robin Winlock. She said, ‘I’ll give you what you want and what I want from you is clarity.’ That’s exactly what we aimed for. So we launched Mockshop and I imported the data and information.
I pulled the analysis and said, ‘Okay, guys, we’re going into July, and July 1st is when we start summer.’ We start very early when it is still winter. Essentially, we’re helping the country thaw with our fashion. We have different categories, and when I opened the analysis there were 27 dress models in the test.
That’s a lot of testing. How should we learn from this? Our store is only 250 square meters. You think, ‘I’m bringing 27 tests into the store. But where is it all supposed to go?’ We were able to make very quick decisions. We spread the product over three months.
We have grouped certain categories together to provide the same insights. The same results would mean we could reorder large quantities of this product for the summer. It was one of our most successful clothing seasons this year.
Mockshop enabled the necessary agility. When we needed agility, the software provided it. And it was very quick to transmit all the information. The process ranged from review with buyers to approval by management and then passing it on to our teams, who understood and implemented it and then gave us feedback. Mockshop was fundamental in this process to enable us to do this.”
KN: ‘That’s really good to hear. It’s always nice to hear how we can help speed up these processes. Because you can achieve so much more, especially in the fashion industry where, as you said, things change with the seasons and trends. With that in mind, can you describe IWD and your experience with it in three or four words – or even just one?’
JC: “Supportive. Fast. Open to new ideas.”
By partnering with IWD, JP can further advance Foschini Group’s retail strategies. With a growth mindset, the company is able to make faster and more accurate merchandising decisions without compromising performance.
See more of our interview with Foschini Group on our Youtube channel!
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