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ZAM BARRETT - ZFACTORIE DIRECT TO CONSUMER COMMITMENT
Hello to all our friends, clients and supporters of our brand and its products.
In the Summer of 2010 we launched Zam Barrett as a menswear brand by doing a small presentation in New York during New York Fashion week. About 40 of our close fiends and supporters attended the event, with most being non industry professionals. From that event, we were fortunate enough to be contacted by three stores across the world with an interest in carrying our products.
AL Select in Japan, Pollyanna in Barnsley England and a now defunct store in Moscow Russia.
In our second season for Fall 2011, we were encouraged by a few friends and the then buyer at Pollyanna, to take our collection to Paris Market for the Fall 2011 season. In that season we met with nine stores, sold our collection to eight of them and had a reception to our work at the time we never imagined. Stores like INK in China, Layers in London, The Number 4 in Kuwait, John Bull private lab in Japan, Boutique W in Japan, all made significant orders and we began to grow our brand distribution on global scale.
At the height of our wholesale distribution we were sold in approximately seventeen stores between 2013 and 2015. Stores like H Lorenzo in LA, Downtown in San Francisco, ODD in NYC, Jades in Germany, Orimono in Sweden, Spring Sioux in Paris, France were all distribution channels for our work.
We did all this while building Zam Barrett as a brand and Zfactorie as a production division with a devoted commitment to crafting true Artisanal products through non industrialized processes and doing so without compromise. We are without wavering a company committed to artisanal products.
Zfactorie the webshop over the years has become the biggest distribution channel for our works while we sold to the stores. it was created for two basic reasons
WHY WE STARTED ZFACTORIE WEBSHOP
1. To provide products for our customers in sizes and styles than were never carried by our wholesale partners, in locations where there were no physical stores carrying our products.
2. To give the customer a clearer vision of what we do as a brand and not allow the awareness of our products to be filtered through the decision making lens of store buyers.
Zfactorie continued as an online distribution channel alongside all the stores who carried our works since its inception in 2014, but over the years became the main commercial channel for our products
TODAY WE ARE ANNOUNCING THAT WE WILL SUSPEND ALL WHOLESALE DISTRIBUTION OF OUR PRODUCTS and become exclusively a direct to consumer brand, beginning with the Spring 2019 Season.
We went to Paris market this past June for the Spring 2019 wholesale market, and sold orders to Five stores. We have notified all stores that the collection will not be delivered to them and we will focus on exclusive direct to consumer sales through our web shop. The webshop was already accounting for over 80% of all sales to customers all over the world and allows us a greater level of flexibility, in designing, producing and getting the products to our customers in a much more efficient way than the wholesale distribution allows.
Over the last 4 to 5 years the Artisanal Clothing Market has changed significantly, some of the stores that once carried Artisanal brands have closed, some have reduced the quantity of artisanal products the carry and some have even completely dropped thier artisanal offerings altogether. Fashion is an evolving industry like any other and organizations and businesses must evolve, adapt than change with the times in order to remain relevant.
At this time we feel that in the best interest of our brand and its customers. This is the most expedient thing yo do
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR OUR CUSTOMERS?
It means a lot of things, but mostly positive things.
THE DOWNSIDE - simply that customers in places lie Japan, or Sweden or Canada where there are still physical stores carrying the brand, will not be able to go into stores and touch, feel, try on and purchase new products from us (this is one of the downsides of selling online)
THE UPSIDE - Zfactorie is able to use the time and resources freed up not preparing for seasonal markets on:
1. Creating better quality products - Our products are always great, but we believe in the Japanese principle of Kaizen, we are always seeking to improve every aspect of our products and services.
2. Our products will come to market faster - as a general principle we have always waited on the stores to release the items before we release them on Zfactorie, we will now release products as soon as they are ready
3. Better Customer Service - this has been a weak area for us, we have worked very hard and seen improvements. however we will invest more of our resources that was generally allotted to market to hiring more people and to increase efficiency in communication and shipping times specific to products sold on Zfactorie
4. Womenswear - We have tested the market with womenswear before, and the response has been positive. While there was no womenswear for the FW18/19 season there will be significant womens offerings for SS19. The time freed up with cancelling wholesale production will be used to expand our women's offering beginning with SS19.
A BIG THANKS TO EVERYONE
We want to thank all our customers who have been with us from the beginning, and the New ones who have come along over the Years for your consistent appreciation of what we do as a brand. we want to thank all the Stores who carried our products in the past, even the ones who were looking forward to our SS19 collection. We feel at this time, with already our growing direct to consumer customer base, and the need for us to be as lean and efficient as we possibly can as a brand it designing, producing the items and getting them out to our customers, this is the most expedient decision as we look forward to continued growth and taking better care of our Customers for Spring 2019 and beyond.
--- Zam Barrett + Zfactorie Team --