As people pack their bags and hit the skies en masse, premium luggage brand July is enjoying a surge in sales – and expansion opportunities.

The brand marketed as “designed in Melbourne. Made for the world” was borne of the simple desire to make better luggage.

“We wanted to create something beautiful – something that we were proud to walk into the airport with, to travel with, to be very colourful with. We didn’t see anything that was even close to it in the market,” says Athan Didaskalou, July’s co-founder.

He tells Kochie’s Business Builders the key difference with July is in their design thinking. Their clever features include a handle with over 20 different heights, a power bank to charge your phone and your laptop under the handle, as well as hidden laundry bags.

But for Athan, it’s the wheels that seal the deal.

“When we couldn’t find the wheels that we wanted, we redesigned the wheel,”  he says. “We made it so that they’re absolutely beautiful to roll – which is hard to describe in words, but essentially, they are so smooth they’re like butter and can handle anything.”

Building a flourishing travel brand through lockdowns

While disastrous for sales in the early days, the pandemic has been instrumental in July’s growth – ironic given travel was one of the hardest hit industries.

Having launched in 2018, sales dropped 95 per cent as travel ground to a halt. Athan and business partner Richard Li decided to put the unexpected downtime into product design.

It was a smart investment; leading to the development of their ultra-light carry on, which they say is the lightest carry-on bag in the world, while remaining strong, sturdy and easy to use.

The pandemic also put a pause on new entrants into the already stagnant industry on a global scale, with others dropping out entirely. July’s fresh take with innovative design and options to personalise – think various fonts and colours available, and 14 different languages (and of course, emojis) have seen their cases gobbled up.

“Through the pandemic, we’ve managed to survive a travel brand that is something that people love and want. And we can continue forward with this journey,” Athan says.

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Entering the bricks and mortar retail sector

As travel – and luggage sales – return, a love of retail and the idea of getting to know their customers saw the duo open their two Melbourne stores in the CBD and Collingwood.

Athan says as a direct-to-consumer brand, there is no middle person when it comes to the manufacturing design and selling of their products. This meant as well as online sales, retail stores would give them real feedback and reactions from customers, and to allow them to touch and feel the product.

Australian financial services and payments technology company Zeller has been part of their journey into bricks and mortar sales. Athan says the system has been so simple to use, he hasn’t had to think twice about it.

“People come in, they experience the luggage for what they need to see, they touch, they feel, they pay at the terminal – which we can put anywhere we choose, they get the receipt and move forward,” he explains. “From a business perspective, it’s seamless. We can focus on designing new products that make customers happy.”

July chose the competitively priced fintech over a traditional bank as their payments partner because Zeller employ good tech and put user experience first. The sign-up process is simple: a business owner buys a Zeller EFTPOS machine, which comes with a free transaction account and business Mastercard. There’s no lock-in contracts, and you pay a flat-rate fee for all card types.

“Zeller is very competitively priced,” he says. “They are just really good in how they manage things.”

July co-founder Athan Didaskalou is making lightweight luggage a global heavyweight. Image: Kochie’s Business Builders.

From the Winter Olympics to world domination

Following a successful tender submission, July became an official luggage supplier of the Australian Winter Olympic team at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics back in February. However, the brand had already rolled its wheels into international waters well before the Aussie team boarded their flights with July bags.

In 2021, Athan and Richard launched July in the US as they looked to markets experiencing more freedom to travel than Aussies who were under widespread restrictions at the time. July has seen “phenomenal growth” in the US since, with sales in the country accounting for about 70 per cent of the business’ sales.

“We are on our way to the US. We’ve launched there, but we need more retail stores there. So hopefully Zeller follows us over there as well. We are looking to expand all over the world, with the US and UK being next,” he adds.

Summarising the journey with July to date, Athan says he is proud to be creating products that people absolutely love.

“To be able to be part of a business [and] be part of a team that makes things people talk about and tell you how much they mean to them, how much it’s changed their travel, and how much that they love the brand and the product – we are really proud to be part of this,” he says.

Find more about July here. For more on Zeller’s payments solutions, visit myzeller.com and sign up for free.

This article is brought to you by Kochie’s Business Builders in partnership with Zeller.

Images: Kochie’s Business Builders