‘We never had to pivot our message’: Lands’ End’s Sarah Rasmusen on comfort coming back in style

Comfy clothes certainly had a moment last year. Indeed, as Sarah Rasmusen, chief customer officer at the apparel brand Lands’ End said, “it could not be a better time to be in the elastic waist business.” While the company’s revenue slightly dipped year-over-year according to its most recent earnings, online sales grew nearly 8% and the company is bullish about its products remaining in demand. Rasmusen joined the Modern Retail Podcast and spoke about how the decades-old company has been navigating the changing tides. It began as a catalog business, and even made the jump to online quite early. Lands’ End, in fact, launched its website the same month as Amazon. But in the mid-2000s, the apparel brand lost its way. Now, Rasmusen has spent the last four years trying to right the ship. That meant completely reimagining Lands’ End’s online experience, as well as testing out new ways to keep customers engaged. Indeed, last year the brand launched its own marketplace. Why would other brands want to list their products on Lands’ End? “It’s the pay to play equation,” she said. That is, on a site like Amazon a sandals brand will be competing against tens of thousands of other listing. But on a smaller site like Lands’ End, where people are there to buy similar items, there are much fewer. For now, the strategy is to continue building on earlier momentum. Digital innovation is a big part of that. “If you are not going to invest in your digital property,” said Rasmusen, “you fall behind.”