The Glossy 50 honors the year’s biggest changemakers across fashion and beauty. More from the series →
Six-year-old travel brand Béis has already surpassed $200 million in revenue this year, according to its CEO and founder member, Adeela Hussain Johnson. And, while its stylish, high-quality bags and luggage have largely powered its growth, another factor has certainly helped: its community.
“[Community] has always been a pillar of our brand’s ethos,” Hussain Johnson said. “We invest in and listen to our community and actually respond. And we do it authentically. There’s not a lot of pretension in the way we talk about ourselves, our brand or our product.”
Since its inception, Béis has prioritized open communication between its customers and its team, Hussain Johnson said. For example, Béis regularly hosts focus groups allowing customers to test the latest products, plus it has a sampling team that gifts products to the brand’s loyal shoppers.
Now in growth mode, Béis is evolving the way it engages with customers based on a three-tiered strategy established early on in the brand’s existence. First, the brand is doubling down on responding to customer feedback. For example, when consumers criticized its products’ lack of colorways and silhouettes, Béis committed to expanding its product assortment and launched new products. This year, it introduced a striped collection, more pastel colorways, a special-edition “Wicked” assortment and new products specifically for kids.
Second, Béis is hosting more experience-led activations. “We produced six activations throughout the year that connected our product to [experiences] our consumers were already living and breathing,” Hussain Johnson said. These included a partnership with the National Park Foundation, a Béis wash pop-up and a brand activation at the Stagecoach music festival.
Lastly, Béis is developing partnerships allowing it to expand its global reach. “There’s still a slew of people who don’t know who Béis is,” Hussain Johnson said. “One of our missions is to get into more households and to get more people to know us.” One way it’s doing so is through new retail partnerships. Béis added Anthropologie, Selfridges and Hudson Airport Group as partners this year. And in October, the brand expanded into resale.
“To truly build a community experience-led brand, you have to look beyond the numbers — which is a high risk, especially when you have a board to report to. But it always pays us back in spades,” Hussain Johnson said.
Still, Hussain Johnson does have an ambitious revenue benchmark in mind. “I want us to become a billion-dollar brand,” she said. “I know that’s far off [right now], but I absolutely believe we can get there.”
