Jane Cay is the trailblazing founder of fashion retail juggernaut, Birdsnest. She joined editors Adam Bub and Cec Busby on the First Act podcast to share her journey from a boutique store in a small country town to the online fashion retailer of choice for Aussie women.
Jane Cay knows how to make women feel good, whatever size, colour or style of clothing they wear. As one of the first fashion retailers to take their offering online, she’s also a veteran of selling in the digital space and a fierce advocate for diversity and inclusion in her fashion ranges and business operations.
“I have built a life around making women feel good about themselves so they can go out and have fun,” Jane says. “Our business is not in a product game – yes, we’re selling frocks, but we realised very early on that we’re in a service business. We differentiate ourselves through the service that we provide around being the matchmaker between a girl and her perfect outfit.”
Jane Cay, founder of Birdsnest
“Evolve or perish”
When Jane bought an established small business in the small Snowy Mountains town of Cooma in 2004, she immediately realised that a rebrand was necessary. She also had a keen sense of the opportunities available in taking her business online – well before the online shopping boom had begun in Australia.
“The business sold everything from R.M. Williams boots and Akubra hats to saddlery and fashion, and what I worked out quickly was that the fashion part was the bit that was working,” says Jane. “So we rebranded and made it all about women. That’s when Birdsnest was born, and we went online in 2008.
“I’m a girl that left school unable to turn a computer on,” Jane admits. “I just knew I wanted to be part of this revolution that was happening around the internet and how that was changing the way we did business. I could see what was happening overseas, where online shopping was a much bigger thing and was growing at a much faster rate than it was in Australia at that time.
“Of course, everyone said, ‘Jane, don’t be silly, no one’s gonna buy jeans online, you’ve gotta try them on – it’s just never gonna happen’. But my favourite quote in life and business is Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution – it’s not the strongest that survive or the smartest; it’s the ones that are most adaptable to change. As a business, that’s something we’ve taken on – evolve or perish.
“We were a business that was a hundred per cent bricks and mortar – we’re now 95 per cent digital and online. We’ve always been about recreating the magic that happens in change rooms in an online space.”
Listen to Jane Cay on the First Act podcast:
Diversity and inclusion
Birdsnest is well known for its work in the diversity and inclusion space, both for its customers and its team. They were pivotal in introducing more diverse fashion and model sizing in Australia – both big drawcards for their brand.
“It’s an extremely vulnerable space, the change room space,” says Jane. ” Women are judged on our appearance from such an early age. We want to be a place where you land and feel much safer because then you’re much more likely to explore.
“An important step for our business was to extend our size range,” Jane reveals. “Many brands were only going to size 14, and for us, that’s a middle ground – it’s the average Australian size. That’s when we went from being a retailer solely of other people’s products to creating and manufacturing our own labels, where we could take a garment from a size six or eight right up to a size 24 and offer all those beautiful designs in everybody’s size.
“We’ve always had diversity in our models; we shoot the garments on different body shapes and sizes that you can relate to. We have constantly focused on how we can create a space that looks a little bit different to what’s available for women right now.”
And the diversity doesn’t stop there, with Birdsnest’s team ranging from school kids to Jane’s 70-year-old mum.
“We’ve always felt the responsibility of representing women to women,” says Jane. “Our team ranges from 16-year-olds helping us after school to my mum – she still does the underwear buying, and she’s just turned 70. There are 18 different nationalities represented in our team, which is pretty unique in a country town of 6,500. We have so much diversity – and in ability as well.
“A real look in the mirror moment was when we partnered with Taryn Brumfitt, who runs the global body image movement,” says Jane. “She spoke with us and did some work in our business, which really helped us lift our game. There were some things we were doing that we didn’t realise the damage of at the time. For example, we were whitening our models’ teeth, but then we were showing something that wasn’t real to a customer – even though we weren’t changing their body shape, we were changing their body. So we pledged that we would no longer Photoshop anything about someone’s body or appearance, and our customers have really responded to that.”
Ditching the ‘fast’ fashion label
As the world focuses on tackling the effects of climate change, the ‘fast fashion’ industry has come into focus as a major player in the issue – something that Jane says Birdsnest is dedicated to tackling head-on with generous returns policies and a game-changing new initiative called ‘Rehatched’ – using the Birdsnest platform to allow unwanted or used clothing to be re-homed.
“We’ve really lent into returns,” says Jane. “People get a bit antsy about returns, but for us, it’s all about creating that safe environment for customers to take a risk on you and their wardrobe and try something new. We’ve got the most generous returns policy in Australia that I know of, with 365-day returns – you can have a year to change your mind on something, and if you haven’t worn it, you can return it.
“We’re also about to launch Rehatched – our online pre-loved offering. You bought something, you loved it, but it either doesn’t fit anymore, or it just doesn’t bring you the same joy it used to. So even if you’ve worn it, we will take it back and find it a new home.
“People are now starting to think about their wardrobes differently; we want to take responsibility for everything we bring into the world. So we are thinking about how we can have this rotating Birdsnest wardrobe amongst our community and how we can evolve to be part of that solution for the challenges our planet faces.
“I don’t think any of us understood climate change 20 years ago, but it’s our latest challenge,” says Jane. “This business needs to adapt, as the whole industry does. Often the decisions that are good for the planet are inconvenient for our lives, but what if we can find ways to make those decisions easier? What can we do to make it easy for people to consume differently?”
Jane shared lots more insight into building her brand and changing the way women shop for clothing in this First Act episode – listen to the full podcast now.
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