Making every cruise better
The cruise retail differential
In this new column dedicated to the cruise sector, leading retailer Harding+ will address key themes and insights relating to the onboard retail experience. In a contributed column for this edition, the company assesses what sets cruising apart as a channel of opportunity.
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Building travel retail strategies over the past few years has been a more complex task for brands, for obvious reasons, as both ‘best practice’ and expectations were temporarily stopped in their tracks.
This meant revisiting and reformulating approaches to allow for market listening to take place and to see where growth might really sit.
And if any brand has missed the performance of cruise in the travel retail rebirth, it might be time for a rethink. The sector expects to host 31 million guests at sea in 2024, up over +10% from 28 million in 2022.
Every one of those guests is part of a captive and engaged audience for days or weeks at a time – no rushing to catch planes or fight through security with stressed mindsets. This consumers have time to consider, browse and, as our statistics clearly show, shop. At Harding+ alone, a 44% guest conversion rate is testament to that.
Cruise Market Watch estimates that there were 323 cruise ships in operation in 2022, with the new builds in 2023 bringing total numbers almost back to pre-COVID levels. The industry’s leading operators are continuing to launch or refit at an impressive pace, offering over 1 million berths for guests.
Combining experience, interaction and the spirit of education and entertainment can deliver rich rewards for all cruise retail partners
And if guest and ship numbers weren’t enough of a trigger point, we are also seeing an enviable range of the world’s leading brands and sparkiest challengers signing up. However, they are not just signing up to be on board, but to be on board in increasingly innovative ways to land impressive ROI.
At Harding+ we are the world’s leading cruise retailer in terms of ship numbers served, which will stand at 105 by 2024. We have over 300 stores at sea and over 5.9 million guest transactions running through the tills this year. We have ambitions to be a US$1bn revenue business in our own right in the next few years, and that doesn’t come easily. But what will help is a heavy and well-researched understanding of what makes the sector tick.
As part of a series of features that dive deeper into cruise as an essential part of any brand’s travel retail strategy, we are going to look over the coming months at cruise differentials in the travel retail mix. We will consider why the growth is there, how the onboard guest thinks about and buys into brands, and what the potential is for even richer growth and success.
Core to this, in our view, is that effort brings rewards.
Whether that is from a Harding+ perspective that sees us work from more than 30,000 guest surveys to produce the behaviour insights that shape range, approach and brand interactive and promotional strategies.
Taking a bespoke, tailored and localised approach to the spirits offer onboard
“Cruise is becoming a hub for retail firsts and brand confidence, with the added ability to pick and choose from any global market for test and learn”
To recognising that with captive guest mindsets for weeks at a time, having more than just a static on-shelf presence can be vital for brands. When experience, smaller group interactions and the spirit of education and entertainment work together, what is delivered is not just sales, but the start of a loyalty curve and deeper brand understanding and affinity.
Or that by committing to bold design steps from the cruise ships, Harding+ design teams and brands all putting their best put forward, retail is built into the fabric of a cruise ship experience. No one puts retail in the corner here. And reinvention, ship-to-ship individuality, and retail spaces that match or exceed the world’s best shopping spaces, are becoming standard strategy – in a totally non-standard way!
Commercially, bringing those elements together in our Harding+ Quaternity model of working (fusing cruise, brand, guest and our own team’s insights into one team) can increase sales by up to +35%.
Cruise is also becoming a hub for retail firsts and brand confidence, with the added ability to pick and choose from any global market for test and learn. Locations may differ, but cruise culture and guest dwell time is a constant wherever the ship may be.
This year we have seen first-at-sea in the brand space from the likes of Dermalogica, Dead Man’s Fingers and Diamanti Per Tutti, who all chose cruise ships as the springboard for new collections, travel exclusives or existing favourites. It’s a meeting of the right demographics for them, the right relaxed lifestyle settings and, importantly, the value of live focus groups – guests have time to get under the skin of the product, share thoughts and indulge in a mutual launch experience. You don’t get that depth of value or time spent with guests in high street retail. Or in the more time-limited airside model.
Dermalogica (left) and DPT Antwerp are among the brands to select cruise as launchpads for their first at sea launches
Dwell time is an incredibly powerful asset on which to capitalise. It is unique to any other part of the retail mix, a dream many seek, and something cruise delivers on in spades.
Self-treating, gifting for others and the ‘everyday’ feature in the product mix for the triple hit of mindsets that brands can benefit from. For Harding+ we sell products that range from US$2 to US$200,000, that hit all of those states.
The reality of cruise retail is that it fits seamlessly into the guest’s day. It’s not a diversion; it’s a not a crammed-in task. Planned time doesn’t disappear because you end up being late.
The retail experience can start before boarding, as well as during and post. We see our mission at Harding+ as being able to make ‘every cruise better’ at every touchpoint. Guests want that. Our partners want that. And the creative freedom to deliver on the promise is becoming ever more open. Pushing boundaries is both the opportunity and the expectation.
And of course brand loyalty from the deeper dive into brand stories, or association with amazing travel or landmarks, spreads outwards. A functional buy elsewhere becomes an emotional one from a cruise start point.
Who wouldn’t want to be part of a world where creativity and quality exposure meets profit opportunity?
Next time: New to cruise? Brand firsts, changing demographics and guest trigger points.
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The Moodie Davitt eZine
Issue 327 | 29 September 2023
The Moodie Davitt eZine is published 14 times per year by The Moodie Davitt Report (Moodie International Ltd). © All material is copyright and cannot be reproduced without the permission of the Publisher. To find out more visit www.moodiedavittreport.com and to subscribe, please e-mail kristyn@moodiedavittreport.com