Pedersen, founding CEO of Cariloha, forged his own path by creating unique bamboo products. Cariloha’s sales increased 600% in its first year alone.
Fashion styles are always among the things that change most over time. In the 1950s, women and men often preferred formal clothing: women commonly wore full skirts, while men wore suits with shirts and dress trousers.
Today, dress standards are much more relaxed, and looking polished is no longer as important as dressing comfortably. This is why comfort-focused Athleisure sportswear is increasingly popular. Consumers also prefer soft products that provide comfort and convenience.
It took Cariloha’s founding CEO Jeff Pedersen some time to discover this customer trend and need. He asked himself, “What can I do to satisfy customers?”
In 2007, Pedersen and his company developed a range of travel fashion accessories, including watches, sunglasses, and wallets… By 2008, Pedersen had opened the first 3 Cariloha stores in Cozumel, Ocho Rios, and St. Thomas. Everyone thought the time had come for comfort-focused travel fashion to take off, but things did not develop as predicted.
“We were far from our earlier projections. Sales fell short of our expectations, and no one knew our brand. As a member of the executive team, I had to visit each store to understand customers' shopping habits and learn what kinds of products they wanted to buy,” Pedersen said.
Pedersen visited the store in Cozumel and on the first day noticed customers looking at the company’s watches, going outside to call acquaintances in to look with them, then putting the watches down and leaving. Intrigued, he followed one woman and asked why she had not bought the watch. If she answered, he would give it to her entirely free.
The female customer said she had never heard of their brand, while its price matched that of a Fossil watch. Since she already knew Fossil, she chose it instead of the product at Cariloha.
After hearing this answer, Pedersen made an extremely important business decision.
“Do we really need to spend a great deal of time building a brand and competing on price with established companies, or should we choose to explore a different path?”
After this moment, Pedersen decided his company would not compete in existing markets but create its own playing field.
From that point, he began looking for unique products that could distinguish his company. One day, he met a distributor in Las Vegas who gave him a major idea by presenting a distinctive product—a 4×4 bamboo clock.
“I was very surprised at the time,” Pedersen said of the bamboo watch. “The next morning, I flew to Southern California and ordered 5,000 T-shirts made from… bamboo. I put them in my stores and, you know, we sold out in just 2 weeks.”
After this decision, Pedersen was certain customers wanted not only distinctive products but also comfort when using them, so he made another bold decision. Cariloha would start making socks, sportswear, bedsheets, and more, all from bamboo. Its stores dropped traditional products and focused on bamboo products, turning them into a new trend.
Pedersen said their sales increased by as much as 600% in the first year alone. Cariloha now has 60 stores in 14 countries. Pedersen distilled his success into the following 4 factors:
– Create your own market so you do not have to compete with anyone.
– Hire and work with people you trust, enjoy your work, and work with a burning desire to succeed.
– Deliver products customers want.
– Design a perfect in-store experience to build the brand.
“We created a distinctive experience for customers who visit our booths,” Pedersen said. “Customers enter a new world filled with a range of products made entirely from bamboo.”
As soon as you enter, you feel a cool space with a faint, natural bamboo fragrance, enough to sense the difference between these bamboo products and traditional cotton goods. Everything in the store is also made of bamboo, and Pedersen trains employees to believe in the distinctive material behind their brand.
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