New Fashion and Apparel Products Wanted
16 ways to increase your manner brand'south profitability this twelvemonth
A concern and insight article by Ben Muis
If you follow the mainstream news, y'all could exist forgiven for thinking that the curtains are coming down on both way brands and the retailers that stock them. The continuous battery of features highlighting closing retail stores or bankrupt brands and dare I say it, the consequences of Brexit, are at the fore of a high level of negativity.
But there are also success stories, growth businesses in the fashion industry who are working hard to build on their success. The industry is notwithstanding very much live, simply it is changing. Periods of modify are tough considering they tend to affect the well-nigh established businesses more than, but information technology is non always bad for everyone.
Running a fashion brand successfully means overcoming a huge variety of regular challenges.
1 of the many challenges in running a mode brand of any size is to proceed an overview of the total concern whilst being forced to focus on pressing urgencies. Information technology is a draw-back of being in what is typically a fast-paced industry. Entrepreneurs are commonly drawn into whatever the daily pressures are, simply sometimes yous exercise need to accept a step back, look at your business and start a project that volition assistance yous abound or increase profitability.
The commencement reaction might be to put pressure level on sales volumes, merely even though this is important information technology is not always required to grow revenue in guild to significantly grow profits. The typical fashion business has plenty of opportunities to grow their gross or net margin. To assist you lot see this I have outlined some ideas to consider. Any branded way business can probably take at least one action point from this list to kick off a project or add new string to their bow.
I hope that it helps make this year more progressive for y'all and your team. And of course, if you demand more data, advice or back up, yous know where to detect united states.
About The Author: Ben Muis
Ben Muis is a consultant, mentor and speaker with more than 30 years of practical mode industry experience at all levels. He has been involved in more 20 brands and has a real focus on the improvements to strategies, direction, processes, technology and sustainability that can lead to the increased abilities and subsequent success of a manner, sports or related business.
01. Communicate - go back to your existing audience and offering them what they really want
How good are you at communicating with the customers or consumers you already accept? Do your retailers only hear from you when they demand to buy or pay? Do your consumers just get notified when the auction starts? Really think about who you are dealing with and what would be interesting to them. Any increase in the frequency of communication should exist interesting to them, not to you. And then, your messages or calls should have the purpose to heighten their lives and business organisation if you lot really desire to be valued and front end of mind. Don't sell in these letters only instead make sure you are really being helpful.
Extra TIP: COMMUNICATE.
Exit of your brand for a few minutes and think near who is on the other side. What would interest them that you could find and show them. At that place is cypher like a brand that cares enough to requite advice or include their terminate-consumers in their lifestyle. Are you a swimwear brand? Practise a short serial well-nigh sunday exposure and aftercare. Are you an outdoor make? Do a real client review of a lesser known hiking destination. Are you lot a cycling make? Go involved past doing a survey of your customers favourite cycling routes and publish it to your customers in a series of articles. Y'all tin can e'er put that new top as an advert at the bottom, but the goal here is to generate interest and a sense of belonging. Appoint, write, share. Of course, you can make sure that your images all characteristic your product so that the destination or topic is always associated with your make'due south lifestyle.
02. Re-sourcing
Identify good products in your business that are either not equally successful as they could be considering of their relatively loftier toll or depression margin compared to what the market appears to bear. Those products should exist looked at closely to come across if they could benefit from resourcing or redevelopment to make them more than successful and assisting.
03. Create a new sub-make
Sometimes it is also practiced to take a footstep back and look at the big picture when information technology comes to your make identity and collection structures. In many cases the brand construction makes sense to the people inside your visitor. Does it however brand consummate sense to your customers and consumers? Is there something your brand could realistically add or extend that would put yous in a better position to attract more new customers in the next yr or and so?
Don't but think about going downwardly in price, also consider going up with a sub-brand. For instance, by doing something that is a collaboration or express edition, or maybe fifty-fifty benefits a sure goal or charity that would entreatment to your audience. The goal here is to get boosted customers that won't alienate or cannibalise your existing ones, and so think nearly this strategy carefully.
04. Sell more through your existing structure and network
There are many ways of doing this, but we will focus on a elementary but clever applied science solution because many of the other methods are already covered elsewhere in this article.
The system is Stockbase. Their elementary method substantially makes the brand'southward stock available to the online systems of the retailing stockists. And then, imagine y'all are a retailer with a website showing the products that you currently have in stock. It may be that you lot chose to buy a certain brand's jacket or pair of shoes in a variety of sizes and a quantity that yous felt comfortable with at the start of the season. Now, a size has sold out (or you lot never bought it), but a customer is browsing online and wants to purchase that size. If they find that the size they want is non in stock they will nearly likely move on to another retailer. The auction is lost, and the customer may well exist lost for the time to come likewise if the other retailer gives a good feel.
However, if the retailer would accept had Stockbase linked to your stock levels, the system would have live-checked your stock brand during this transaction. If the product was in stock at your warehouse it volition just offer it to the client without them even realising that this is what is happening. The resulting order and fulfilment are and then triggered automatically and then that the retailer (and subsequently the brand) can take the sale instead of losing information technology.
In its home market (the netherlands) Stockbase is already very established and even contained retailers are reporting upwardly to 14% increase in sales because of having the system linked to the brands they stock.
The brands tend to stimulate the retailers to sign up, considering it increases everyone's sales, reducing the amount of production left at the terminate of the flavour and after increasing the average profit percentage for the season. Everyone wins.
If yous are interested to detect out more, only contact Rodrigo at the London office for more than information.
05. New markets - Distribution & Sales
When a brand expands into new territories, it is rare that they have a similar infrastructure and bankroll as they do in core or domicile markets. As well frequently the words 'we are in Italy at present too' only mean that a few Italian retailers bought a few dozen pieces each at a trade show. Within Italy, the brand is then still very much unseen or unknown and the additional sales would in that case take been more than profitable if it was in the home market place. But if in that location is a market that has shown some interest in your product pay real attending to it.
Finding a partner, distributor, agent or sales team that truly has the belief, desire and drive to help you build the brand to its full potential in that market can be an amazingly benign exercise. The key is to put yourself into a position where y'all tin treat that market place with the same intendance and attention you would give your abode market place, which oft means you will have to trust a local partner as your eyes and ears to evangelize that care and attending.
06. Add something to your product that encourages repeat sales on your own website
When a paying consumer walks out the door with your products at one of your stockists or when they receive their parcel from your warehouse: what is in the bag, attached to the product or noticed in the box that genuinely enhances the customer experience? If you would buy a winter coat, what practise yous find in the pocket? A voucher to redeem online for your free polar fleece scarf? If you buy shoes, would you register to receive your free mini shoe intendance set? Does your graphic T have a competition fastened to win festival tickets?
It does not accept to exist expensive and information technology can be a non-monetary detail like a 6-month subscription to a lifestyle magazine that yous negotiated for free because of the exposure their marketing director wanted.
Extra TIP: ENHANCE THE Feel.
Retailers love it when a brand does something that enhances their footfall. Doing a competition where one or more customers across the country can win something that is in line with the lifestyle of your brand will also make the retailer look skilful. This also is an opportunity to negotiate enhanced positioning in the window, on the store floor, by the counter and you will find that fifty-fifty the sales staff volition accept you front of mind for a while. The benefit of this is astonishing. Customers redeem their entry by registering directly with yous. You can for instance give abroad a keen prize that is attractive to your target lifestyle group, simply in addition could give 'losing' entries a discount voucher to your store or to selected not-sale items from your brand in that specific retail shop. This would encourage people to engage / register when they purchase but to also come up back and redeem their voucher (which you can remind them of as often as yous like). If you need to do specific product development for this (for instance the gratuitous item that you tin can go with a paid one if you employ a voucher), then consider this. The retailer would take to stock the paid item to get the free one, so you tin allocate the marketing expenditure to the price of the product while you yet make a profit on the total in most cases.
07. Increase Online Sales
Selling directly to the consumer is ordinarily allot more assisting than selling via retailers and distributors. That does not mean that we practice not need the retailers. They have a different level of footfall which cannot exist ignored. The same with distributors, they run a country that y'all otherwise would not make revenue in. The distribution income is extra turn a profit, extra is good. Initiating a further move to online sales enhances your profit further due to the lower overheads associated with online fulfilment vs physical direct retail.
So, what can you exercise to increase your own, directly online sales? The principles are just like increasing sales in any store, information technology'due south the methods that are different.
08. Create ain Marketing channels
What is your audience interested in? What is your lifestyle association? Can you create a channel (weblog, vlog, magazine, app) that goes into the topics deeper only is also completely associated with your brand?
This would also attract people that are of the right mindset to later on become your customer and an extended audience can stimulate retailers to buy deeper into your brand, not least considering y'all will accept an audition to send to them for launches and other events.
09. Spearhead products for target audiences
What one production could you develop that will give new volumes to your sales? Sometimes it is time to think nigh what most of your customers would buy from you if you had it in the right version and price. This does not mean taking a huge take chances, information technology is more the opposite.
You are looking for a adequately rubber bet that you can execute really well at the correct price. This 1 production can exist used to guide people back into your or stockists' stores, preferably considering they will replenish it when it wears out.
Not sure which production that would be? Ask your retailers if they could accept what they wanted from y'all, what it would be.
10. Collaborations in sales infrastructure
Joint showrooms, tradeshows and landing pages with other brands increase audience, cross-fertilisation and enhances your exposure and opportunities.
This is a strategic and big affect bespeak. It will take some inspiration, meetings and discussions simply the efforts can exist incredibly profitable in the long run. Which other companies are serving a level of the marketplace (not necessarily in the same retailers) as your brand? Would you all do good from combining forces on some levels. For instance, if 1 of yous has a showroom and that showroom could be shared between 3 or 4 brands this would reduce the price and increment the exposure of each make instantly. As each of the brands invite customers the other brands also get exposure.
The same applies to tradeshows. Taking a stand as a collective, rather than individual make, gives negotiating ability, more exposure and existent savings. A larger stand up with sections can for instance share the same bar, transport and installation company. The same principle applies, the brands attract different retailers, only all retailers get exposed to each of the brands to some level. Opportunities to sell more at a lower price.
11. Offering a real warranty, because production registrations = database expansion
If you are very confident in your products, why non offer a free warranty for a reasonable menses? Aye, this does need some setting upwardly only gives several key advantages.
As a brand offering a warranty, you win on the shop floor against other brands when it comes to trust (a key factor in long term consumer brand conviction). Consumers cull to register with y'all to activate their free warranty, giving you the power to entice them dorsum to the retailer when new ranges are delivered. Perhaps y'all tin even invite them to a future special preview evening with a drinkable in-store.
Y'all can incentivise the warranty registration with a voucher or gift. The resulting entry into your consumer database is valuable every bit it would accept toll you significant advertisement funds or endeavour to observe a motivated and spending consumer that has already proven that they are willing to buy your products. Reward them for trying your brand or coming back. Make the promise to look subsequently them real. If you need to discover a local tailor or alterations store to help you lot deliver on the hope of repairs or replacement, practise it. Having another 100 or chiliad real consumers in your database is worth the endeavor, especially when new product launches and events demand to be successful or when you are trying to win a potential stockists' trust.
12. Retargeting with purpose
The concept of retargeting may be familiar to yous. The principle of repeated visibility of your make and product to a consumer who visited your site recently is used past many. Information technology makes sense, considering that approximately 96% of consumers who visit a site for the first fourth dimension do not buy.
The key is to do retargeting (or remarketing) in an intelligent, custom and helpful way, rather than just repeating one generic advert to anybody. A helpful product highlight in one circumstance, a sale imprint in the other and a change in approach if the customer did already buy the product from your site.
In that case you want to compliment what the client bought, rather than repeatedly showing the particular they now already own.
13. Innovate technology that drives efficiency, transparency and visibility.
Extra profit is sometimes created in places that y'all do non look. For instance, could your sales squad or customer services support bargain with orders in a much more intelligent way if they had advanced software and apps? This may well lead to a better rest within the guild placed and subsequently a meliorate sell through, as well every bit a reduction in the hours spent on processing the orders both by the sales person and the back office.
On the other side, how efficiently practice you handle the product evolution and production of your way products. Remember, time is money, and repetitive tasks or lack of visibility should be eliminated if you desire to achieve long term profitability.
For instance, how much time are y'all and your team spending on administrative duties like maintaining spreadsheets, looking for information, creating reports or overviews, assembling information for buy orders, going back and forth with suppliers on emails to clarify or negotiate, arranging testing and approvals…?
Reduced cost = turn a profit
The multiplication of tasks times the number of products makes an average fashion company quite a complex beast. The right engineering science solutions can transform concern processes. A PLM (Product Lifecycle Direction) organisation pulls all the processes related to product development, approvals, supplier management, pricing and production into one system. This means that much of the time spent on the very transmission administration, communication, approval and follow up tasks can be re-allocated. This unremarkably leads to a design, development and product team that can focus on the product, decision making (rather than fire-fighting) and situations that need their attending. This dramatically increases capacity and usually leads to much better decision making every bit the range evolves.
A good organization shows the tasks that need be completed and volition warn if something is not striking the timelines or approvals that were expected. Managing past exception becomes the norm and both the business and production wins, while expensive plush mistakes or unnecessary expenses on samples of items that are not hit targets are eliminated early on.
Extra TIP: PLM Engineering science.
Our recommended fashion specific PLM system is WFX (http://www.wfxondemand.com). Information technology is quick to implement, affordable for most brands and has a proven track record in generating great results. There are complimentary online system demonstrations and some nice video'south showing the positive results at brands that are already using the system. If yous want to have a closer look, contact Rodrigo and he will adapt for more information or system demonstrations.
14. Licensing
The principles of licensing are genuinely very interesting if executed well. You built a brand which volition have a value in the marketplace and an appeal to a certain type of consumer.
What else would that consumer purchase from the brand without damaging the values of the make? Also, which consumers in other markets than your core ones could gain more access to your brand if you found a licensee in that location?
Because of the high profit percentage and low maintenance cost associated with licensing, fifty-fifty achieving ane or 2 new deals a year in new categories or receptive countries tin can aid your business profits grow fifty-fifty in tough climates.
15. Build sustainable thinking into your business
The way industry does not accept the best reputation when it comes to sustainability or ethical trading practices. If it is non enough that information technology makes sense to practice the right thing, whatsoever you do, you should consider that the word is out.
Over the side by side year to five years many new regulations and consumer reactions will come into force that will ensure mode companies dramatically decrease their pollution footprint. The link between plastic and polyester is only a documentary abroad. The way that cotton is so incredibly h2o intensive has already started to accomplish the general public.
Beginning thinking about what yous can do to your packaging, material choices and transport methods to reduce your impact or practice something in a more responsible manner. It will reduce the bear upon on your business concern profits in one case the regulations hit, because you will accept organically started to comply. It makes business sense and makes you, your customers and your auditor feel improve besides.
16. Motivate your people
People are as strong an asset as your brand itself. See what you tin can exercise to build on the motivation and loyalty of your people without forcing them to do things they do not appreciate.
Happy, motivate staff cares about the business organization in a different way. Yous tend to see they are much better at looking out for opportunities to relieve money and sell more. If you introduce 18-carat advantage systems, for case by increasing commissions for a specific period or product range or having a squad do good if certain goals are achieved you should run across a response.
Simply like with your customers, you need to brand sure that the bulletin or incentive matches your audition. What will your people answer to? A calendar week off for the team with highest average profit %?
In Determination
Why not take this year to add together i or more new strings to your bow which tin assistance to grow and guard your time to come profitability?
There are always things y'all tin can exercise to progress your brand, your squad and your structure. Take the one or two ideas from the listing that can kickstart this for you, engage some help in doing it and prepare realistic but ambitious or exciting goals inside each.
Brands are relevant, retail is too. Just because nosotros are in a changing mural does not mean we tin't do well. We can all wait with hindsight and say what we think Blockbuster should take washed when the motion-picture show on-demand market changed. That now applies to united states and we tin't do it with hindsight. Nosotros must stay ahead. For the more progressive in the market, the opportunities are greater than most can imagine.
Want to learn more? Let u.s.a. know and we will invite y'all to our online seminars and let you know when nosotros add together similar content.
Invite Me
Conceptable is very careful with your details. Nosotros practise not sell or share your details with tertiary parties. For more see our Pricacy Policy.
0 Response to "New Fashion and Apparel Products Wanted"
Post a Comment