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As one of the first Australian e-commerce players from the early 2010s to get us into the habit of buying clothes online, The Iconic is up against some stiff competition these days.
There’s Amazon, whose Australian expansion has been so aggressive it now accounts for a fifth of all national online spending. Then there’s Chinese-owned ultra-cheap retailers Temu and Shein, which are stealing customers so successfully that analysts say the trio are collectively reshaping global retail.
“We’ve seen Catch.com.au gone under. We’ve seen MyDeal.com.au gone under. You’ve seen a disruption in the marketplace. It’s no longer sleepy,” said Jere Calmes, chief executive of The Iconic.
The Iconic chief executive Jere Calmes in the warehouse.Credit: Louise Kennerley
“We’d like to be in the winning circle when the disruption is over. [But] disruption is never over.”
The Iconic has been racing to become a sharper, leaner operator as rivals of the online shopping playing field – where it once had a first-mover advantage – become more formidable. It has been up for the fight: The Iconic took Shein to court in December last year over infringement of the trademarked name of its in-house brand, Dazie. The companies later settled for an undisclosed sum.
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To counter the blistering rise of global juggernauts, The Iconic has pushed to become best in class on the most important frontiers of e-commerce: quality, value for money, excellent customer service, and as-soon-as-possible delivery.
“It will be make or break,” Calmes said of delivery speed.
“At the end of the day, one of the main drivers for ecommerce in general, not just fashion, is convenience. I mean, look at Gen Zs. They don’t go to the supermarket, they shop for everything online. It’s 100 per cent of their shopping habits.”
The typical customer is shopping everywhere, at any time. One sees a product on social media, does some desktop research, goes into store to assess it in person while scrolling through reviews on the phone, asks a customer service rep some questions, then might complete the purchase online.
The Iconic doesn’t have the advantage of retailers with both a digital and bricks-and-mortar presence (“omnichannel” is the technical term among retailers). Its vision is to earn trust as the go-to online destination for fashion and lifestyle shoppers, which is broad enough to stock over 1500 carefully curated, highly desired brands, but not become so big it loses sight of its core competency.
“We are not going after the everything store,” says the American-born chief executive. “You can buy apparel at Costco … but you do not go to Costco primarily to buy fashion.”
Calmes says, “One of the main drivers for e-commerce in general, not just fashion, is convenience.”Credit: Louise Kennerley
But, on a number of counts, Calmes says The Iconic’s performance has stepped up since 2023, a low point for the retailer. Growth projections turned out to be been temporarily inflated by the COVID boom, where people had little choice but to shop online. Two years of losses resulted in a cost-cutting drive in which 116 employees were made redundant, warehouse consolidation (now just one in western Sydney) and a new head office that brought staff across six floors to one in Barangaroo, with better views to boot.
Just with that change alone, leaders have been tasked to listen to customer service calls. Returns are easier and delivery times in Melbourne have halved to one to two days. Active customers, which dropped off across 2022 and 2023, are growing again (over 2 million), and earnings have increased. The Iconic notched $127.2 million in gross profits for the first half of 2025.
Other retailers – which are also stepping up – are taking notes. “It’s flattering to say this, but when we look at companies like David Jones, they’re now following us. They literally copy everything we do online,” said Calmes, pointing to social media posts, marketing strategy, and even search engine optimisation.
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The next frontier The Iconic has yet to prove itself in is loyalty. The fashion retailer is launching a loyalty program in October this year, dubbed Front Row, that will operate with a tiered system: Insider, Stylist, Muse and VIP. The more a customer spends, the faster they will graduate through the tiers to unlock more benefits.
After 14 years of operation, the loyalty program feels very late in the game, especially as retailers from grocery giants Coles and Woolworths to beauty stores like Mecca are doubling down on it to capture and keep customers coming back. Myer chief executive Olivia Wirth – the former boss of Qantas’ frequent flyer division – has made loyalty core to the department chain’s strategy.
Why did it take The Iconic so long? “It has been a priority; we had to fix the basics,” said Calmes. “We’ve started getting our customers back without a loyalty program.”
Front Row has been developed with direct input from 50,000 customers, who participated in multiple surveys and focus groups.“You need a company that listens. It’s absolutely critical.”
Would The Iconic ever open a physical store? Calmes is reluctant to rule it out, but it’s not part of the game plan.
“That doesn’t mean that we don’t do pop-ups. That doesn’t mean we don’t have physical activations, but as a company, I’m not building the muscles to manage 100 or 200 or 800 stores.”
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