“A real no-brainer”: Vacay Swimwear expands presence in North America

Six years after its launch, Vacay Swimwear now has a presence across Australia, the US, Canada, Europe and parts of Asia. Here, we catch up with co-founders Jordan Kallios and Corey Decandia to talk about what’s next for the brand.

Inside Retail: To start with, can you tell us a bit about Vacay Swimwear and how it came to be?

Corey Decadnai: We’re in our sixth year of operations now. The business formed when Jordan and I were at university, both studying marketing. In our final year, we did a bit of travelling together over in Europe, and when we were over there we noticed that there was a gap in the market back home in Australia for on-trend, mid-length swim shorts. 

[Australians] were still sporting the old boardshort-style shorts, and there weren’t really any brands that incorporated high-quality and affordable prices. Fast forward a few months after we got back, we decided to crack into the business. 

Initially we were just making shorts for Jordan and myself, but that quickly gained the attention of some of our friends and family who saw the vision behind what we were creating, and from there we realised we were onto something special. And that’s kind of where the business began. 

IR: I know Vacay is available in a few countries worldwide, and you’ve recently bolstered that offering – can you touch on some of the key milestones of the last few years?

Jordan Kallios: In 2019 or 2020, we did our first huge marketing campaign and launched the business into the US market. We had a really good response from that market, and made around 70 per cent of our revenue that year from the US.

That gave us the confidence to pursue expanding the business internationally, and [we] launched the business across Canada and Europe. We landed a contract with one of the largest online retailers in Europe, Zalando, which – to put it into perspective – is around double the size of Asos, and recently we landed a deal with Hudson’s Bay, which is a huge online retailer in Canada.

Across Asia, we do a whole lot of business through Finn’s Beach Club. We’re one of the few brands that are stocked in their boutique store, and we get a lot of their male demographic. 

On top of that we do a lot of business through Zalora.

Today, our sales in Australia represent around 30 to 40 per cent of our sales revenue, and the rest of the world makes up the majority. We’ve expanded internationally quite quickly over the past few years.

IR: You mentioned the recent agreement with Hudson’s Bay in Canada – how did that come about, and what opportunities does it open up for Vacay?

CD: It was a real no-brainer. We got in contact with them with the numbers of what we’ve been doing, and our heavy sales volume into the US, [and] they were stoked to bring another Australian brand onboard. 

That allows us to continue to cement our footprint in the North American region. Although we sell a lot into Canada, it probably ranked about our fourth for sales volume, so we see a lot of potential for growth in that area, and selling through Hudson’s Bay really gives us the credibility to consolidate the Canadian market: they’ve got 60-something stores throughout Canada, which is going to help with our footprint throughout that region. 

IR: Vacay Swimwear is available across a number of markets – can you tell me a bit about the strategies you employ across each of them?

CD: Luckily, the US market is our biggest market and they love an Australian brand, so our brand identity doesn’t have to change. It’s more so about how we communicate the message through advertising. A lot of the way that consumers over there soak in messaging is different than how they do here, so we have to tailor our advertising a bit for the North American market.

In different areas of Europe, we dabble with a lot of different languages, and have a few copywriters on our team that speak a few languages, so we’re able to translate our messaging for the French and the German market. They’re some of our bigger European markets. 

The ideology of the brand stays pretty much the same everywhere – it’s all about swim and resort wear for those that want to travel. We speak to that message and I think that’s why we have had such great success – we know who we are, and the customer that we’re going after. 

IR: A lot of your business seems to be wholesale, do you have a focus on direct-to-consumer as well?

CD: When we started out we were 100 per cent direct-to-consumer, and that is still our biggest source of revenue. Over the past couple of years, we’ve made a real conscious effort to make sure we’re not putting our eggs in one basket. 

The way the world has been the last few years, it just made sense to diversify a bit and dabble more in the wholesale market.

We’re both marketing graduates that specialise in e-commerce, so online and e-commerce is still our bread and butter.

We have both international and Australian websites for each of our regions, as well as fulfilment centres set up: one in Europe, one in Malaysia, and one here in Australia.

IR: What do you think the rest of this year looks like for Vacay?

JK: We don’t have a crystal ball, but right now the market is really controlling how things are going. With inflation high and consumer confidence low, you’ve got fewer people spending on luxury items, so we’re really focusing on running our business in the most agile way we can. 

Travel has increased after the last few years [of Covid], so that’s a bonus for us, because when you’re going overseas you buy bathers, and you buy resort wear. 

In the next 12 months, the market should stabilise, and we can go back to somewhat normal. Until then we just have to keep riding the waves and do what we can for our community.

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