ially attributed to its loyal following. “Those consumers have their absolute die-hard fragrances they love, and feel confident to buy those online,” Claire Barnes, Ecoya CEO, told Inside Retail. But the experiential element of the product drives an equally successful offline presence, where consumers are more likely to make impulse buys, whether for themselves or as a gift. “I don’t think we could ever be too heavily weighted one way or the other,” Barnes said about Ecoya’s mix of online and offline sales. “The mix that we’ve got is really good and allows the consumer to experience the brand in different ways, where we maintain a direct voice with them, but we also support our retail partners to add their own flavour and merchandise the brand and with your aesthetics as well,” Barnes added. With the opening of Ecoya Martin Place, Ecoya now has two DTC retail stores that complement its extensive network of retail partners, including boutiques and florists to big department stores like Myer, David Jones and Ballantynes. In 2020, the brand opened its Auckland store in a new precinct on the ground floor of the PwC building. The juxtaposition of a scent sanctuary with the corporate CBD environment was successful and served as an unintended blueprint for the Ecoya Martin Place boutique. This retail concept offers convenience to customers, whether they are corporates or commuters headed to events, in need of a gift or pick-me-up for themselves on their way home. “It’s a unique opportunity with all the corporates in the area – in an office, there’s always someone having a baby or getting engaged or all of those sorts of cool things and then there’s the whole corporate gifting piece,” Barnes said. In Auckland, the Ecoya store is located in a tower housing over 10,000 professional services workers alone, not to mention the other buildings and surrounding offices nearby. “It fits in quite nicely and what’s worked for us in Auckland,” Barnes said. “We’ve found you get to know the customers in the area because they’re working there every day, and it becomes a cool service offering that people can get to in their lunch breaks and during their commute.” Next stop Martin Place “I guess we’re pretty open-minded,” Barnes said about Ecoya’s approach to choosing store locations.“We definitely wanted a store in Sydney, because the brand was founded in Sydney 20 years ago,” she added. Ecoya has a flagship boutique in Auckland, near the brand’s head office and Sydney was the “next most obvious place to open. It’s where we have the strongest following, so it needed to be in Sydney,” Barnes said. From a brand perspective, a flagship in Sydney’s iconic beachside suburb of Bondi made the most sense to Barnes and the team. “We loved Bondi because it encompasses what our brand’s about, which is the Australasian lifestyle,” she said. When the opportunity for a lease in the Martin Place Metro precinct was presented, Barnes saw an opportunity to replicate the success of the Auckland store. “We thought let’s piggyback off what we know from Auckland, and do this in a place where there’s less seasonality and we can build relationships with people that work in the area over time,” she said. “It was a bit opportunistic, I guess, but it has worked out really well.” While Ecoya has a “huge retail network” and is committed to those partnerships, Barnes noted that “wholesale and retail partnerships don’t allow you to showcase the brand in the way that the brand wants to”. “Having these these stores, we’re able to showcase the brand in its best light, and give customers a real brand immersion experience,” Barnes said. Nevertheless, the brand doesn’t have plans to do a full retail rollout. “You won’t see us popping up in every centre or city,” she said, teasing that Melbourne would likely be the destination of a third Ecoya store. Natural hallmark As a fragrance brand, Ecoya differentiates itself through product innovation. “Our competitors in the category are all well known for candles and diffusers, and I think where Ecoya has been able to forge ahead has been through our innovation,” Barnes said. “We launched the plug-in diffuser back in May, and have just had an insane response to that.” The electrical plug-in device has replenishable fragrance flasks, and the brand has continued to innovate into the laundry and kitchen categories. “The experiential element is important to us because our range has gone more lifestyle and into every room of the home and your car, not just candles and diffusers anymore,” Barnes said. Ecoya was originally known as a leader in natural wax and paraffin-free candles and home fragrances. “We’ve been really steadfast about keeping our formulations as clean as possible and locally made,” Barnes said. “As we’ve added all of this innovation, it’s become so much more than candles and diffusers, and that’s what’s cool to explore with consumers in these retail spaces.”