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Discussions about the fashion industry thread

clee1982

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Like between Macy and Nordstrom/Bloomingdales?
 

LA Guy

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bbconair

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did you guys know that nordstrom's presence in NYC is limited? and that there are plans (in process) to build a flagship store in NYC? how does that jive with what we know is a huge struggle for all department stores - including nordstrom's, which last i heard was looking for an equity line from the founding family...

very interesting that nordstrom's trying to get into NYC at a time when others might be looking to exit...
 

robinsongreen68

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according to the articles above £1.3 billion in sales led to just £1.3 million in pre-tax profits? (i could be misunderstanding, i know very little about business). seems like an incredibly low profit margin if so
 
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LA Guy

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Ivwri

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This has been such a great thread to read through and has come at a time when I am considering some changes as well with regards to how I am running Stranger here in Lagos.

That article @LA Guy just posted is exactly what I am about to trial right now. There are a few tweaks here and there - what members get access to and how open the membership list is (we will be trying out an invite only thing first), but yeah. Very cool to see this conversation going on.

Oh and hello again!
 

Gus

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I am a member at Wingtip and so are a few folks who occasionally post on Styleforum. I have found it to be far better than hotels or restaurants for business meetings and socializing in SF. The food service and bar are very good and the private rooms for events and meetings are excellent.

Variations on a club retail strategy are also used by luxury retailers such as Stefano Ricci and Domenico Vacca in NYC where spending in the neighborhood of $100K a year in the store will get you a pass. However, Wingtip has quite reasonable membership dues.
 

dieworkwear

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"What if Stores Charged Admission?"

I've been to Ami Arad's Wingtip club a few times. We've co-hosted an event or two with them, including a dinner for our 10th anniversary, and while it's not really my thing, I could see this "club" experience being the way forward for some high end retailers. @dieworkwear and @GusW - are you or do you know guys who are part of the Wingtip club?

https://www.businessoffashion.com/a...il&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-e3ab1c1431-419717661

I don't know of anyone who's part of that club, no. But a tailor took me upstairs once to have drinks and the venue is nice. (I am not part of the club).

I know I'm beating an old drum here, but assuming the Wingtip model proves successful in the long term, I think this is about what I mentioned earlier: augmenting the core of a product-focused business with a service that's localized and can't be digitized. That way, you compete with internet retailers. You can't digitize the experience of that lounge. It's very localized. It's a service (an experience). I don't know how "tied" it is to the core of their business, which is selling clothes, but it's an example of how businesses are finding creative solutions. And the solutions are tied to that services theme.
 
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LA Guy

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I don't know of anyone who's part of that club, no. But a tailor took me upstairs once to have drinks and the venue is nice. (I am not part of the club).

I know I'm beating an old drum here, but assuming the Wingtip model proves successful in the long term, I think this is about what I mentioned earlier: augmenting the core of a product-focused business with a service that's localized and can't be digitized. That way, you compete with internet retailers. You can't digitize the experience of that lounge. It's very localized. It's a service (an experience). I don't know how "tied" it is to the core of their business, which is selling clothes, but it's an example of how businesses are finding creative solutions. And the solutions are tied to that services theme.
I can see, for example, the onsite MTM being exactly as you said. But it seems to me that even they can't fully avoid the commodities problem that we've all been talking about and that @gdl203 articulated best. The 10% discount tied into the membership probably makes the store competitive pricewise at retail, but I would like to know their sell through at retail, and then again at sales.
 

dieworkwear

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I can see, for example, the onsite MTM being exactly as you said. But it seems to me that even they can't fully avoid the commodities problem that we've all been talking about and that @gdl203 articulated best. The 10% discount tied into the membership probably makes the store competitive pricewise at retail, but I would like to know their sell through at retail, and then again at sales.

I mean, to be clear, you're always competing. Hermes is still competing, and they're probably the best example of a non-commodified product.

But that membership idea has to be tied into a new service. You can't just charge people at the door to go into Unionmade. It's not the membership idea here that's key -- it's the creation of a localized service.

That's where the article is, for me, at times frustrating. It's putting the focus on a membership fee, which gives people the idea that stores should just start charging membership fees. That's only true if you've come up with a unique service.
 

cyc wid it

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There's a lot of membership type barbershops that also have social events for members. I was a member at one for a while.
 

LA Guy

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I mean, to be clear, you're always competing. Hermes is still competing, and they're probably the best example of a non-commodified product.

But that membership idea has to be tied into a new service. You can't just charge people at the door to go into Unionmade. It's not the membership idea here that's key -- it's the creation of a localized service.

That's where the article is, for me, at times frustrating. It's putting the focus on a membership fee, which gives people the idea that stores should just start charging membership fees. That's only true if you've come up with a unique service.

Taking your point a step further, a some commodities when paired with a service, can be sold at a higher price. The obvious example is liquor. I can be at home drinking my Four Roses, but if I got to any bar of a high enough caliber that they are serving Four Roses, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be paying at least 2x the market price, and the better the place, the more I can expect to be charged. It seems like the important thing is that the good or service cannot be enjoyed off premises, like MTM. Wonder how that could translate to other things, or if it could. We are unlikely to end up with special makeups of of every model, in small quantities, after all. The only retailers who can make that work, with every third party brand, is rare.
 

dieworkwear

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Taking your point a step further, a some commodities when paired with a service, can be sold at a higher price. The obvious example is liquor. I can be at home drinking my Four Roses, but if I got to any bar of a high enough caliber that they are serving Four Roses, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be paying at least 2x the market price, and the better the place, the more I can expect to be charged. It seems like the important thing is that the good or service cannot be enjoyed off premises, like MTM. Wonder how that could translate to other things, or if it could. We are unlikely to end up with special makeups of of every model, in small quantities, after all. The only retailers who can make that work, with every third party brand, is rare.

I agree. My point is that attaching a unique service to a commodity helps it from being just a commodity.

Services are fundamentally not like products. They differ in many ways, but one of the ways is that they're harder to compare. Again, take your local barber. Most men will stick with their barber forever because you never know if a new barber will be good. Same when you hire someone for any service job -- tailors, carpenters, graphic designers, consultants, etc. When you hire a plumber, you're never just looking at price because no two plumbers are really directly comparable. That's not true for, say, white t-shirts. Hanes and Fruit of a Loom mostly compete on price because most people see the two as completely substitutable.

The point of attaching a service to a product-based business is to 1) help stop the product side from being commodified in a world where comparison shopping is just two or three clicks away; 2) root the business to a locale; and 3) allow the company to play on its own terms (admittedly all three points are related). And in doing so, you can charge higher prices.

IMO, this gets us away from all the other business strategies people have proposed -- streamlining the production process so you can more quickly follow trends, lower prices, compete on delivery, etc etc etc. That might buy you time, but the fundamental point is to get out of the commodity game. And that's usually by attaching a localized service that's hard to digitize. Make it core to your product business, otherwise you'll wonder what's the point (part of me wonders if Wingtip's club is really helping its clothing biz. Otherwise, the point of the biz is really just the club). Once you can get that kind of fusion, people aren't comparison shopping, which allows you to set your own prices.

MTM is one way, but as I've mentioned in earlier parts of the thread, I don't think it's the only way. Every biz will have to find its own service strategy, but solutions will be tied together by their service component.
 

double00

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ultimately the bundled product-and-service approach is just another way of discounting and another race to the bottom.

on the other hand once you've established that a retailer is really primarily a service provider, then you're in the services game with a side of product, which imo is an untenable position as well.
 
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Epaulet

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I mean, to be clear, you're always competing. Hermes is still competing, and they're probably the best example of a non-commodified product.

But that membership idea has to be tied into a new service. You can't just charge people at the door to go into Unionmade. It's not the membership idea here that's key -- it's the creation of a localized service.

That's where the article is, for me, at times frustrating. It's putting the focus on a membership fee, which gives people the idea that stores should just start charging membership fees. That's only true if you've come up with a unique service.

I'm with @dieworkwear on this one... honestly the article doesn't lay out much of a suggestion.

In my eyes, the social club aspect of Wingtip and the retail aspect are pretty distinct. Outside of some kind of ephemeral hyper-trend situation (Yeezy popup) I don't see customers paying for a membership at our level of product. They do, of course for Amazon Prime and Costco, but those are different beasts.

With Wingtip, it seems to me that they have a separate retail business and a social club. They can be sort of connected... like if Soho House opened up a little Dover Street Market on the first floor, but I'm skeptical that they're really driving each other in tandem. And I wonder if Wingtip's retail business has been affected by the same general downturn as everyone else.

I find that customers want a direct richness of the shopping experience. They come to you to buy stuff, so the experience part should be directly related to the purchase part. If you're doing a trunk show for handmade shoes, it's much better to have the shoe designer on hand than a famous bartender, in my experience.
 

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