Click-and-collect: How a quick pivot helped AMR Hair and Beauty triple its e-commerce business

At the 2004 Sydney Royal Easter Show there was a single stall selling something other than showbags, and a 14-year-old Ammar Issa was the helm.

It would be another two years until Issa could register his business name (he had to wait until he was 16 years old), and while it’s no longer showground stalls Issa is competing with, the hard work has certainly paid off.

As of 2021, his business AMR Hair and Beauty has around 75 staff in its Australian operations, and more employed in the UK; four brick-and-mortar stores, with others currently being built; and it earns more than $100 million in revenue a year.

Issa attributes his business growth to ‘looking after the B2B more’, and disrupting the industry by supplying hair and beauty products mostly to trade customers. When asked how the business stands out compared to competitors, such as Adore Beauty and AusHair, Issa reiterates this B2B notion, saying AMR “didn’t push too much into [the] consumer market”.

But times are changing, and Issa admits AMR is turning more into a consumer business than it expected to.

So how did AMR suddenly enter the consumer market, and in doing so, manage to triple its e-commerce revenue during a pandemic? It all comes down to a speedy pivot to click-and-collect.

Key takeaways

1. Don’t be afraid of change, even if it’s not what you first planned

2. Adapt your business to your consumers wants and needs

3. Learn from what others do well, and from your own mistakes

4. Click-and-collect is here to stay, in two very different ways

Pivot to success

“A huge part of [revenue] is e-commerce. But our stores are actually really, really profitable,” Issa tells SmartCompany Plus.

After all, AMR started as a brick-and-mortar store first, and didn’t go online until 2015. Issa says the company “jumped on the wagon pretty late”, because selling to their main customer — hairdressers — can be complex.

“Hairdressers don’t like their prices displayed to the consumers. So it was something we sort of had to disrupt; we were the first ones to put trade pricing out there publicly and still honour it only to trade,” Issa explains.

Even now, the business-to-business market is still AMR’s main segment, and the consumer is “just an added bonus”. But AMR still wants the shopping experience to be a great one, regardless of the ‘type’ of customer.

“We’re putting more effort into our stores, getting more stores out there and making them look beautiful with better presentation, and giving [customers] that awesome shopping experience as well,” Issa says.

Providing this ‘awesome experience’ — in store or online — comes down to giving your customers what they want, and pivoting when necessary… or when a global pandemic strikes.

A two-week turnaround

AMR did have click-and-collect services pre-COVID, but it was done in a “really amateur-ish” way, Issa admits.

“It was just a light one that told customers when their order was ready by email,” he says. “There were no text messages or anything like that.”

With online shopping spiking, Issa’s friends started telling him about the click-and-collect service they were experiencing — and it was these comments that helped him jump on the trend.

“I started putting bogus orders in … just to test out their click-and-collect systems,” Issa says.

“We were amazed at the service you were getting.”

The AMR team quickly decorated the whole warehouse building and its stores across the country with click-and-collect signage. The company then launched SMS messaging and number plate recognition, using its CCTV cameras to send out an alert with the number plate that’s driving through the gate.

AMR’s click-and-collect signage outside the warehouse. Source: supplied.

“By the time they enter the door, their order is already ready for them,” Issa says.

With new processes comes new people, and Issa doesn’t shy away from admitting that it did cost the company “a fair bit” to get the “out of the box solution” up and running. Despite it all, AMR had its new streamlined process ready to go within a mere two weeks.

Two trends emerging

Issa says shipping still “takes the crown” as the choice for his customers when it comes to online shopping. Although he speculates that could be because AMR isn’t in every major city in Australia yet, and thinks he’ll see a reduction in click-and-collect once that happens.

But there are two ‘types’ of click-and-collect customers, he’s noticed, and serving them both to the best ability is a balancing act.

The first type of customer is the click-and-collect customer who wants to pick it up from an actual store. This is “the best one”, Issa says, because most customers will get stuck in the shop buying more things, which is a win for both parties.

“Picking up [click-and-collect] orders in store is so much better. You’re able to walk in and pick up anything else you missed out on or forgot.”

Yet, Issa does admit there is going to be a growing need for “click-and-collect express”.

That’s where people want to arrive at a store or warehouse and they don’t want to get out of their car; they want the employee to put the order in the boot and they can then drive off. It’s an option many retailers are leaning further towards in the pandemic — especially when outbreaks occur — to limit the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

“I think people are stuck on that service,” Issa says. “People are going to rely on that a lot more.”

Issa says this means retailers should split click-and-collect into the two offerings, although he admits AMR is “still figuring that out internally”.

“Wow factor”

So what’s Issa’s advice to other retailers looking to enter the click-and-collect space?

“Get on to it as quickly as possible, and make sure your technology is good because it gives people that ‘wow factor’.”

Issa gives the example of Officeworks, where one of his recent orders was ready in two minutes.

“It worked flawlessly,” he says. “And that puts a good impression on the company, to be honest, the better — and the more efficient — it works.

But in terms of its biggest click-and-collect inspiration, Issa says the AMR team loved Dan Murphy’s service the most. It was indeed Dan Murphy’s that gave Issa the idea of number plate recognition, and became the “typical copy” for what AMR would implement.

So, ultimately, it comes down to doing what 14-year-old Issa was too busy to do: your homework.