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post #16 of 29
9/20/11 at 5:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThinkDerm View Post


i'd love to hear why to forget italy completely.

thanks.

seriously, discounting in italy would be great, as their wares are way overpriced for 90% of the year.

i would never start a new business there, but it's easy to serve the entire EU from another EU country.
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post #17 of 29
9/20/11 at 5:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThinkDerm View Post




seriously, discounting in italy would be great, as their wares are way overpriced for 90% of the year.

I can routinely find things for less then the sales tax on the same item would be in Canada.
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post #18 of 29
9/20/11 at 10:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThinkDerm View Post


i'd love to hear why to forget italy completely.

thanks.

seriously, discounting in italy would be great, as their wares are way overpriced for 90% of the year.

Import/export rules are labyrinth, the clothing market is saturated, as someone said, outlet are numerous, and the internet is not nearly as highly used as in other EU countries. I'd definitely say that Germany might be a good place to start.
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post #19 of 29
9/20/11 at 2:25pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Guy View Post


Import/export rules are labyrinth, the clothing market is saturated, as someone said, outlet are numerous, and the internet is not nearly as highly used as in other EU countries. I'd definitely say that Germany might be a good place to start.

We don't care to be in Italy anyway. The truth is, a big part of the reason to go international is also for personal reasons... I'd like to take the opportunity to provide an international experience for my 3 school-aged children (11, 9 and 7 years old). I don't plan to (can't afford) to put them into private school, and so the UK is a more natural choice and would provide a more smooth transition for the kids (not to mention myself and my wife). Plus its only 6 hours away from NJ...
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post #20 of 29
9/20/11 at 2:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by eHaberdasher View Post


We don't care to be in Italy anyway. The truth is, a big part of the reason to go international is also for personal reasons... I'd like to take the opportunity to provide an international experience for my 3 school-aged children (11, 9 and 7 years old). I don't plan to (can't afford) to put them into private school, and so the UK is a more natural choice and would provide a more smooth transition for the kids (not to mention myself and my wife). Plus its only 6 hours away from NJ...

You probably already know, but the UK can be pretty rough. Actually, I'd say that it is a country in the midst of a cultural crisis. The rates of juvenile delinquency are pretty high, and incidences of casual violence among youths is much higher than in many areas of the US. I spent some of my formative years (3-5) in the UK, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it. But every time I've gone back to visit, I'm surprised by how even a pretty small city like Cambridge, with a huge amount of gown influence on the town, is pretty rough outside of the area immediately around the colleges. Northern England is drearily post-industrial, and looks like Detroit as Dicken's might have envisioned it. That said, there is something to be said for international travel (my father made sure that I spent time in Hong Kong and China, and I travelled and worked during the summers all over Europe for many years.)

Honestly, if you are looking for an international experience, go to Montreal for a while.
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post #21 of 29
9/20/11 at 2:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Guy View Post


You probably already know, but the UK can be pretty rough. Actually, I'd say that it is a country in the midst of a cultural crisis. The rates of juvenile delinquency are pretty high, and incidences of casual violence among youths is much higher than in many areas of the US. I spent some of my formative years (3-5) in the UK, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it. But every time I've gone back to visit, I'm surprised by how even a pretty small city like Cambridge, with a huge amount of gown influence on the town, is pretty rough outside of the area immediately around the colleges. Northern England is drearily post-industrial, and looks like Detroit as Dicken's might have envisioned it. That said, there is something to be said for international travel (my father made sure that I spent time in Hong Kong and China, and I travelled and worked during the summers all over Europe for many years.)

Honestly, if you are looking for an international experience, go to Montreal for a while.

+1.

But LA Guy - I disagree - the type of SF B&S discounting obtained by US shopping at outlets such as Saks Off 5th and NMLC is not widely available in Italy. Things typically do not reach 80 to 90% off MSRP in italy. Getting something below 50% MSRP is quite the challenge, seriously. It's part of their culture not to discount past 50 off.
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post #22 of 29
9/20/11 at 3:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThinkDerm View Post


+1.

But LA Guy - I disagree - the type of SF B&S discounting obtained by US shopping at outlets such as Saks Off 5th and NMLC is not widely available in Italy. Things typically do not reach 80 to 90% off MSRP in italy. Getting something below 50% MSRP is quite the challenge, seriously. It's part of their culture not to discount past 50 off.

The problems with opening an outlet style store in Italy would be nearly unsurmountable, maybe second only to opening such a store (internet or otherwise) in Japan. There would be huge problems with sourcing, fir starters. The average Italian man spends approximately 15% of disposable income on clothing and accessories, compared to 4-5% in the USA. This means that sell through at retail is much better, and that "jobbing" will much much, much, harder. A place like a TJMaxx (which own's Filene's Basement, I think) is going to give you, maybe, $0.08 on the retail dollar. Try finding that in Italy. Better, try finding that in Italy that doesn't already have contracts with an outfit like Yoox. Yoox even had house stuff from places like Eral 55, which is an independent store. The Benjamin houseline line is quite nice, but there are lots of competitors in that midprice range in Italy.

Second, there are lots and lots of outlets. The Italian brands discovered, to their surprise and profit, that foreigners were quite willing to shell out for things that are several seasons out. Note that I said "foreigners". Italians themselves are much more loathe to buy these goods. There are a number of internet retailers that cater exclusively to the foreign market.

It's not just part of their culture to not discount. It's part of the culture to buy at retail, and to get the newest stuff first.
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post #23 of 29
9/20/11 at 3:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Guy View Post


The problems with opening an outlet style store in Italy would be nearly unsurmountable, maybe second only to opening such a store (internet or otherwise) in Japan. There would be huge problems with sourcing, fir starters. The average Italian man spends approximately 15% of disposable income on clothing and accessories, compared to 4-5% in the USA. This means that sell through at retail is much better, and that "jobbing" will much much, much, harder. A place like a TJMaxx (which own's Filene's Basement, I think) is going to give you, maybe, $0.08 on the retail dollar. Try finding that in Italy. Better, try finding that in Italy that doesn't already have contracts with an outfit like Yoox. Yoox even had house stuff from places like Eral 55, which is an independent store. The Benjamin houseline line is quite nice, but there are lots of competitors in that midprice range in Italy.

Second, there are lots and lots of outlets. The Italian brands discovered, to their surprise and profit, that foreigners were quite willing to shell out for things that are several seasons out. Note that I said "foreigners". Italians themselves are much more loathe to buy these goods. There are a number of internet retailers that cater exclusively to the foreign market.

It's not just part of their culture to not discount. It's part of the culture to buy at retail, and to get the newest stuff first.

it's hilarious, because this season's borrelli looks nearly identical to last season's borrelli - dress shirts basically look the same from season to season, so to buy a borrelli RTW shirt at 300 euros retail MSRP is crazy, and for them to knock 50% off because a dress shirt is a season old and sell it for 150 euros (225 USD) is still a lot.

Yes, discounting is NOT a part of italian culture, and tons of these brands sell to Yoox - a lot of small shops have their stuff sold to yoox, probably for 80%-90% off.

I disagree about there being "tons" of outlets in italy. In my experience, there are not that many - perhaps you can share where these all are?

PS - Eral 55 is nice, love their stuff

PPS - Yoox really does scoop up basically everything left over from Saldi in Italy, when shopping there in the past, i've seen unique items from specific shops show up on yoox 6 months to a year later.
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post #24 of 29
9/20/11 at 4:01pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by LA Guy View Post


You probably already know, but the UK can be pretty rough. Actually, I'd say that it is a country in the midst of a cultural crisis. The rates of juvenile delinquency are pretty high, and incidences of casual violence among youths is much higher than in many areas of the US. I spent some of my formative years (3-5) in the UK, and I have a lot of nostalgia for it. But every time I've gone back to visit, I'm surprised by how even a pretty small city like Cambridge, with a huge amount of gown influence on the town, is pretty rough outside of the area immediately around the colleges. Northern England is drearily post-industrial, and looks like Detroit as Dicken's might have envisioned it. That said, there is something to be said for international travel (my father made sure that I spent time in Hong Kong and China, and I travelled and worked during the summers all over Europe for many years.)

Honestly, if you are looking for an international experience, go to Montreal for a while.

Perhaps, but that would defeat the whole BUSINESS aspect of moving to a EU country - to circumvent having to pay duties and better servicing and broadening our European client base who also, in turn, would not have to pay duties... Montreal is nice, but je ne parle pas francais.
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post #25 of 29
9/20/11 at 4:06pm
Very interesting discussion. I just returned this evening from Barcelona and found the shopping there unexciting. The sales season is finished and menswear shops are very few except Carmina and a few others. I went yesterday to the Roca Village (interested only in Loewe and Zegna), part of the chain having Bicester in UK and Vallee Vilage near Paris. These luxury discount places appeared in many EU countries and attract lots of people.
In Italy (and Switzerland) there are so many discount outlets selling mostly Italian crap (difusion lines from D&G, Ferre, Valentino, Zilleri, etc). To compete with these would be very difficult if you do not have the connections. There are many professional sellers on ebay.it, but most do not ship outside Italy/EU, or the shipping fees are too high. Some have also some pretty poor online websites (e.g www.maranellowebfashion.com, mclabels.com, www.orlandinifirenze.it). The vente privee / Gilt syle sites multiplied a lot in the last 2 years.


I'd be your ideal client since prices in Switzerland are so high. But with yoox, threedifferent, ebay, and almost all year sales from Matchesfashion, Asos, etc there are good deals all the time. I'm afraid in Europe, except Uk and Scandinavia, not so many people are buying online clothing. You'll have to wait a few more years.Need to go to sleep, my English is not very fluent at this moment,,,
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post #26 of 29
9/20/11 at 4:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ThinkDerm View Post



Yes, discounting is NOT a part of italian culture, and tons of these brands sell to Yoox - a lot of small shops have their stuff sold to yoox, probably for 80%-90% off.

I disagree about there being "tons" of outlets in italy. In my experience, there are not that many - perhaps you can share where these all are?
.
Discounting is not indeed as popular as in UK and US, and those that can afford buy always current year's fashion, but these are no so many.
Only in Milano I saw a few months ago 4 or 5 interesting outlets. In Il Salvagente there were many Italians, while those in the centre (D-magazine) were full or tourists. Many Italians are crossing the border in Switzerland to www.foxtown.ch in Mendrisio.
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post #27 of 29
9/20/11 at 4:18pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by clausc View Post

Very interesting discussion. I just returned this evening from Barcelona and found the shopping there unexciting. The sales season is finished and menswear shops are very few except Carmina and a few others. I went yesterday to the Roca Village (interested only in Loewe and Zegna), part of the chain having Bicester in UK and Vallee Vilage near Paris. These luxury discount places appeared in many EU countries and attract lots of people.
In Italy (and Switzerland) there are so many discount outlets selling mostly Italian crap (difusion lines from D&G, Ferre, Valentino, Zilleri, etc). To compete with these would be very difficult if you do not have the connections. There are many professional sellers on ebay.it, but most do not ship outside Italy/EU, or the shipping fees are too high. Some have also some pretty poor online websites (e.g www.maranellowebfashion.com, mclabels.com, www.orlandinifirenze.it). The vente privee / Gilt syle sites multiplied a lot in the last 2 years.


I'd be your ideal client since prices in Switzerland are so high. But with yoox, threedifferent, ebay, and almost all year sales from Matchesfashion, Asos, etc there are good deals all the time. I'm afraid in Europe, except Uk and Scandinavia, not so many people are buying online clothing. You'll have to wait a few more years.Need to go to sleep, my English is not very fluent at this moment,,,

For Europe, Yoox and threedifferent really have a tremendous selection with lots more product than we offer at eHABERDASHER, but we (would like to) think that our selection is much more selective. Yoox and Threedifferent offer little to none of the brands that we carry (although I know Threedifferent is a tremendous source for Boglioli). Little to no Kiton, Brioni, Borrelli, Barba, and certainly no Benjamin! And I don't think there's any other website that comes even close to having anything like our selection of Caruso suits...

We'll have to check out the other sites you listed there.... thanks for your input!
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post #28 of 29
9/20/11 at 4:19pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by clausc View Post

Discounting is not indeed as popular as in UK and US, and those that can afford buy always current year's fashion, but these are no so many.
Only in Milano I saw a few months ago 4 or 5 interesting outlets. In Il Salvagente there were many Italians, while those in the centre (D-magazine) were full or tourists. Many Italians are crossing the border in Switzerland to www.foxtown.ch in Mendrisio.

Yes - I have been to Foxtown a few times myself... actually never bought anything there though.
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post #29 of 29
9/20/11 at 4:29pm
Thread Starter 
[quote name="clausc" url="/t/266554/discount-luxury-men-s-clothing-websites-in-europe/15#post_4829312"

Some have also some pretty poor online websites (e.g www.maranellowebfashion.com, mclabels.com, www.orlandinifirenze.it). The vente privee / Gilt syle sites multiplied a lot in the last 2 years.

[/quote]

Poor sites indeed (although I really can't speak - our site isn't the greatest either and we hope to have it revamped before year end)!

Mclabels is particularly peculiar... I didn't know Allen Edmonds and Cole Haan were so popular at crazy prices in Europe... "the grass is always greener"!

http://www.mclabels.com/designer/cole-haan-en-220-3/

http://www.mclabels.com/designer/allen-edmonds-en-226-3/

But when you look at Cucinelli and Hogan, it becomes clear that all the prices are pretty out of whack...
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