An Interview With Martita Mestey
When you embark on the journey of founding and building up a company, there is barely a day that passes without learning something new or the opportunity to grow with a challenge.
As part of our series about the future of retail, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anna Yona.
Anna and Ran Yona founded the company Wildling Shoes in 2015. After Anna completed her degree in Middle Eastern Studies and English literature at Tel Aviv University, she worked in marketing, as a freelance translator and journalist. The couple initially remained rooted in Israel. Their three children grew up barefoot there before the family moved to Germany in 2013. At that point, finding suitable shoes for kids who were used to running around barefoot became the biggest challenge. None of the models seemed to meet the requirements in terms of freedom of movement, sustainable materials, and fair production. And that’s how the idea of Wildling Shoes was born.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Wildling kind of happened to us by chance. We had recently moved to Germany with the family and we’re starting a new life. Our kids, who had grown up mostly barefoot up until then, needed shoes to get through the German winter. They simply refused to put up with conventional footwear that was restricting their feet and free movement, so we had to become creative.
Looking into the data of how frequently people suffer from footwear-related health issues, we quickly felt that we were onto something important. With the right design and function, we were certain that we could create a product that would really solve a problem. It gave us the energy and commitment for what then turned out to be a rather lengthy product development process.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
That’s a difficult question. When you embark on the journey of founding and building up a company, there is barely a day that passes without learning something new or the opportunity to grow with a challenge. Looking back, the most exciting moments were probably the many “first times” — testing the first prototype, launching the crowdfunding campaign that funded our first production, receiving the first shipment from the factory, the first customer feedback, employing our first colleague, and so on. But the most memorable events and those that shape you the most, usually center around people.
Learning from and with each other, practicing self-reflection, questioning your perspectives, and embracing diversity and complexity is what truly defines collaboration. In the end, founding an enterprise is mainly about forging good and lasting relationships.
Are you working on any new exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
Wildling is a constant work in progress. We are currently working on reducing plastic in the shoes and developing a full repair service and recycling method for our outsoles and fibers to make our shoes fully circular in the future. We are partnering with farmers to grow our raw materials in regenerative cultivation projects and with manufacturers to establish local European supply chains. We are rolling out social onboarding programs in our factories and are working on fair compensation schemes that will go far beyond minimum wages. We are also dedicating time to the team itself, creating safe spaces for self-reflection, communication, and resilience.
We believe that it is all interconnected and that we need to tackle social and environmental issues at the same time. The complexity can sometimes be overwhelming, but on the bright side, if done right, solutions can be multi-solving, too! The results are manifold more biodiversity, more carbon storage and better water retention in the cultivation projects, future perspectives, and better pay for the people involved in creating value, less waste, fewer chemicals, less plastic, and at the same time a higher quality and an extended lifespan of the product for our customers.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful, who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
As mentioned before building an organization is first and foremost about shaping relationships with many different people. These people will teach you something or help you even with a little gesture when you most need it. So, it’s hard to pinpoint one story.
But for me as a female founder and mother, the one person who helped me most along the way is my husband and co-founder, Ran. Since our three kids were still quite young when we started the business, him taking over the giant share of the family management was essential for me to be able to focus on Wildling. At the same time, he has always had a clear vision and very good intuition of how the product, brand, and customer relations should develop. It is not always easy to be both husband and wife as well as business partners, but knowing that we can entirely rely on each other is invaluable.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
To be honest, I find it difficult to make a distinction between the two — I would rather define success as being able to do good. If you can have a positive impact on your environment and the people around you, if you can contribute a tiny bit to a better present and future for some, then that feels like a good use of your time. The same goes for the organization. Our goal is not to grow our bottom line and make a handful of people rich, that is not what we define as success. Wildling is successful if those that we establish a relationship with — our team, our partners, our customers, our community — benefit from that relationship in a lasting way.
Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main questions of our interview. The Pandemic has changed many aspects of all of our lives. One of them is the fact that so many of us have gotten used to shopping almost exclusively online. Can you share a few examples of different ideas that large retail outlets are implementing to adapt to the new realities created by the Pandemic?
Wildling is a direct-to-consumer brand. We have showrooms in three German cities, but most of our products are sold online. To me, it seems that the Pandemic has only accelerated a trend in retail shopping towards a more selective and targeted way of shopping. Instead of buying items based on functionality and purpose (e.g., black shoes for work), people increasingly buy from brands that reflect their lifestyle and ideals. In retail, they are looking for the same “brand experience”.
Mono-brand stores can take advantage of this to provide a distinct shopping experience and service and thus, differ from more generic multi-brand stores. I believe we should try to see what opportunities lie behind a larger online focus. Can we reduce retail space and rent and just offer a showroom, saving storage space and shipping the items to the customers instead? Wildling does this, and it works well. This way, we can use the digital flow of communication and bring the customer right back to our online store. Another idea is to use the physical store for better service, such as a small repair station or return drop-off and delivery pick-up. One could also use the retail space for events, helping to bring the digital community together.
The supply chain crisis is another outgrowth of the pandemic. Can you share a few examples of what retailers are doing to pivot because of the bottlenecks caused by the supply chain crisis? How do you think we should reimagine our supply chain to prevent this from happening again in the future?
We were very lucky to have no supply chain crisis. This is mainly because our supply chains are regional and short (mainly in Europe) and that we have good relationships with these partners. For me, this also points to how supply chains should develop in the future. To establish resilient value creation systems, we need to start with transparency and fairness: know our suppliers and create partnerships on eye level. We should also shorten transportation routes and focus more on local, decentralized production. Cultivation in regenerative systems is less prone to be negatively affected by adverse weather conditions and pests. Local, short transportation routes are more stable. Good relationships and fair remuneration, as well as focusing more on working with several smaller suppliers than one very big one, has a positive impact on livelihoods, strengthens local economies, and at the same time reduces the risk of bottlenecks.
In your opinion, will retail stores or malls continue to exist? How would you articulate the role of physical retail spaces at a time when online commerce platforms like Amazon Prime or Instacart can deliver the same day or the next day?
Physical retail space offers different opportunities that cannot be simply replaced by online shopping. Touching a product, trying it on, chatting with a real person, and receiving personal advice is valuable part of the offline shopping experience. We can focus on sensory perception and a unique store design. We can offer people a space to meet, communicate, and experience the brand and products differently. When adding services (such as repairs, drop-off, and pick-up of online orders) and focusing more on establishing relationships with the customers, as well as treating the customer’s journey as a fluid motion between online and offline, we can create a true alternative to the uninspiring, one-dimensional “add to cart”.
The so-called “Retail Apocalypse” has been going on for about a decade. While many retailers are struggling, some retailers, like Lululemon, Kroger, and Costco are quite profitable. Can you share a few lessons that other retailers can learn from the success of profitable retailers? Amazon is going to exert pressure on all of retail for the foreseeable future. New Direct-To-Consumer companies based in China are emerging that offer prices that are much cheaper than US and European brands. What would you advise to retail companies and e-commerce companies, for them to be successful in the face of such strong competition?
I think today’s market is less about price and function and more about brand and relationships. Customers increasingly want to know who stands behind the brand and its products and how that brand relates to their own ideals and self-image. To me, it is more important than ever to focus on brand personality, transparency, and authenticity, as well as offering customers true quality and a great experience. This will always stand out against a cheaper price in the long run. It will save on customer acquisition costs due to higher retention rates and word of mouth.
Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a fantastic retail experience that keeps bringing customers back for more? Please share a story or an example for each.
1) Have a unique design. Direct to consumer brands need to create retail spaces that are unique to their brand. Craft this experience carefully. Our showrooms are made with all-natural materials and look more like a gallery than a store.
2) Invest in relationships. Many of our customers feel a strong connection with the brand. We try to foster this by using the retail space as a place to meet each other. In our larger showroom, there is a small café. We exhibit art on the walls of the city showrooms, host small events, and have a co-working area for the team behind glass doors so that customers can look behind the scenes.
3) Know your customers’ needs. Many of our customers have children. So, there is a space to safely park your stroller, a quiet corner to nurse your baby, a climbing tree, and a reading corner. Shopping for shoes should not feel stressful but be an enjoyable experience for the whole family.
4) Let them experience the product. Our shoes stand on small displays, like in an art gallery. The design is minimalist — less is more. There is good lighting to see the colors and materials. Besides the items on display, all other pairs are stored in the back room, to avoid clutter. A custom-made wooden path allows customers a sensory experience of the shoes.
5) Make the best of your space. Our showrooms are just that — showrooms. You can touch and try on the shoes, but when you buy them, we will ship them to you. This saves storage space and warehouse complexity. We can close the loop from offline to online and customers don’t need to carry home any boxes.
Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. Here is our final ‘meaty’ question. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think the Wildling movement is already underway, and the beauty of it is that it combines so many different perspectives on tackling climate change and social injustice. And because the movement is diverse, it does justice to the enormous complexity of challenges that we are facing. I understand I cannot start a movement that will change the world for the better. But I am honored and humbled to consider myself to be part of one.
How can our readers further follow your work?
You can also follow us:
IG- @wildling.shoes
FB- Wildling Shoes
LinkedIn- Wildling Shoes
You can follow my journey: @annawildling
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Anna Yona Of Wildling Shoes On The Supply Chain and The Future Of Retail was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.