Now That Online Designers Can Sell Clothes, What Retailers Do?

Before the fashion of the interface, there were young designers and designers.

The story of love killing.

Now it seems that the game is just beginning. The designer with long standing disadvantage is planning to throw away the retailer and achieve self production and sale.

Generally speaking, the designer's fashion output is usually very small in the first few seasons, and correspondingly, they spend a lot of money on raw materials and production.

Under the pressure of high investment and low recovery, the profit itself has been rather thin.

Even John Galliano has had an embarrassing situation when he finished his show in the early years.

The "default payment" implied by the industry is that designers will be able to receive money at least one month after delivery. The young people in the fashion world often live in endless funding gaps.

From time to time, the "direct sale" mode is gradually gaining popularity: if the intermediate link is skipped, the profit will come even higher.

Is this theoretical path feasible? The fashion news website Business of Fashion (hereinafter referred to as BoF) has had a chat with several of the water testing people in front of them, and the results seem not very good.

Direct profit is almost four times that of wholesale.

First of all, Facebook and Instagram are open to them.

With the help of social platforms, young designers publish their latest series online.

Compared with department stores such as department stores and boutiques, the profit of direct selling is 3-4 times higher than that of direct selling.

More importantly, the brand really owns customers.

Lawrence Lenihan Lenihan, co-founder of Resonance Companies, believes that in the absence of intermediaries, the interaction between brands and consumers is more real and firm.

Her company mainly provides capital and operational support for fashion start-ups.

In 2010, they started selling online.

Warby Parler is a success story.

Neil Blumenthal, co-founder, spoke about her personal experience in her interview with BoF. "The profit margin after direct selling is much higher. Your business can at least be done to support daily business expenses."

Designers also believe that clothes can get the proper treatment in their own hands, at least they will not be arbitrarily included in the discount list.

Because in the eyes of consumers, discount products are good but easy to dilute the original value of the brand.

More and more young designers have been implementing direct selling in recent years.

In November of last year, the legendary fashion brand Bill Blass was reorganized and brought back to business. The Thakoon designer, who was popular with Anna Wintour, said that it was about to switch to direct selling mode. Thakoon Misha, a designer from New York, was even more radical. She just announced that she would not follow New York fashion week, but would follow the retail schedule and move to Blass.

It has been less than a year since its establishment of the same name e-commerce website, and has accounted for 15% of the total revenue.

However, when the market becomes crowded, the cost is also rising.

Designer brands and retailers are always the same.

Once the designer has reached the stage of maturity and has been favored by large groups or attracted private placement, their bargaining power in the face of retailers has naturally been enhanced, even if it is independent shop.

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Young designers are now moving directly to the final stage through the Internet, which is not easy to operate.

Neil Blumenthal told BoF: "when we first started Warby Parler, it was quite successful, when the concept of direct selling was just born.

Now the brand needs to break through tight encirclement, so as to catch customers in a pile of direct selling similar products.

One of them is the rising cost of online marketing.

"Take Facebook as an example. It's still the best way to get customers, but we didn't need to spend any money in the early years."

Neil Blumenthal said.

Direct selling is not a panacea for every brand.

The following example is more like a basin of cold water.

In 2014, Nicole Najafi launched the high street cowboy line Industry Standard in New York, the flagship "made in the United States".

Her strategy at that time was to compete directly with competitors who had been selling.

Although these jeans are from the Losangeles factory, the price of Industry Standard is only between 95-115 US dollars, far below the average market price of 300 yuan each.

In the next two years, Industry Standard praised a group of loyal fans, some of whom were concerned about the brand because of media coverage such as Vogue and Refinery29.

But the company's annual business growth of 35% makes the Nicole Najafi, who is alone, feel powerless.

Finally, she decided to search for dealers last year. The first one was Fivestory, a New York concept store.

There, the $100 Industry Standard jeans and the 2100 Giambattista Valli cloak and the $1995 Olympia Le-Tan handbag are put together.

Within a few months, Fivestory accounted for 10% of Industry Standard 2015.

After seeing the status quo, Nicole Najafi intends to step up its efforts to find retailers in San Francisco, Losangeles and Chicago.

"At the very beginning, I depended on the media and word of mouth," she said. "Now we find that offline retail not only brings new customers, but also meets the needs of people trying to buy them before buying them."

"Two in one" is probably the smartest way.

Chris Gelinas advocates reconciliation: 60% direct sales and the rest to retailers.

The Canadian, who was selected for the LVMH Young Designer Award, left his studio in New York after graduation.

Since his debut, he has mainly relied on media and friends to introduce and sell fashions.

Chris Gelinas said: "before I was able to receive 10-25 orders at trunk show (non-public fashion show), each 1~2 piece would sometimes be up to 6 or 7 pieces."

In February this year, he participated in the New York fashion week for the first time and rented a two week travel shop after the show to receive retailers.

Depending on previous experience of direct selling, Chris Gelinas found that she had many equal conversations with wholesalers. "I have information about my clothes and prove that they are what women consumers want."

If the camp allows designers to be humble, retailers will teach them basic business knowledge in practice.

In an interview with an interface reporter, Chinese designer Wang Tianmo mentions the shortcomings of the international team such as Opening Ceremony and his buyer.

The unprofessional description here includes special label instructions, material testing, product packaging, etc. to meet the export standards of foreign trade. It also refers to the exchange with the buyer, and the docking of the store on the following shelves and publicity.

After all, besides selling goods,

If we want to move on to the next stage, retailers are still partners.