The RM Williams' Adelaide workshop has, over the past two years, quietly expanded its made-to-measure Craftsman line. The pair a customer orders through the service is not, at $995, cheap. But the wait time, six to nine weeks, indicates the demand.
Who is buying
The new customer profile, according to internal figures RMW has begun to share selectively with retail analysts, is younger. Median age has fallen from 54 to 41 since the launch of the expanded service. Metropolitan customers now make up 68 per cent of Craftsman orders, up from 51 per cent.
The reason, as far as anyone at the company will say publicly, is a broader cultural shift. Younger buyers want fewer, better, more durable pieces. The Craftsman offer, which produces boots designed to last thirty years, sits within that framing more naturally than it did in the 1990s and 2000s.
The commercial question for the business is whether the new customer represents growth, or whether it represents an aging shift with different demographics. The next three years of retention data will tell.
