Embracing Digital
I told you so, for a very, very long time. Call this depressing. The businessoffashion.com on going digital or die:
Fashion and luxury brands have the power of their brand to leverage, plus style and design skills, which technology players are often missing. New technologies like smart fabrics, 3D Printing and Internet of Things, should be integrated to create new products, aligned with a brand’s lifestyle proposition.
1. Focus marketing on digital and data.
2. Transform the physical retail experience.
3. Less wholesale, more direct.
4. Change design and production.
5. Product innovation.
6. Create new digital brands.
7. Change the funding model.
Read more45% of Chinese Luxury Consumers Shop Online.
The Truth About Handbags
According to the businessoffashion.com: What this tells us is that consumers want novelty and get tired faster than in the past. Louis Vuitton has recently got back to growth, achieved largely through new canvas and logo products, including those created in collaboration with third-party designers, riffing on the LV monogram, of all things. The fact that Prada became a casualty highlights the possibility of fatigue risk from over-reliance on a few coveted shapes.
This may sound blasphemous, but even Chanel and Hermès may not be safe in the brave new world of handbags if they fail to replicate their past landmark successes with new blockbuster products.
I have a story to add to the “truth”. I visited a handbag factory in Guangzhou/ China to move my production and saw “PRADA” handbags everywhere on the plant’s floor. My first thought was, of course, this factory produces fake Pradas. But then a friend and the factory boss assured mw, these are no fakes. Under close inspection the leather, hardware and overall quality was really good so I didn’t add second thoughts.
Then, weeks later I ran into some problems with this company and I put them under more scrutiny. I noticed that the sample makers where making patterns from Prada bags, and I asked myself, this is a strange practice, I do not expect from a mega brand. Even if they diversifiy production, then they should use some kind of master samples and not let a factory quintessentially copy the bag. I also was questioning the fact they would only produce several hundred of satchels and men’s bags. Prada would not produce in a factory with less then a hundred employees, wouldn’t they? I asked, where do the bags go? The boss answered:” Shenzhen”. I expected he would say Shanghai, the fashion mega hub in China. Then I just said: ” I think these are just good fakes”. He denied and said he has a license from “PRADA”.
I put this all together. The bags were most likely very well made “Prada” fakes. I don’t assume “PRADA” hands out licenses to small Chinese factories, so maybe the “PRADA” store gave them a license and sells fake “PRADA” handbags to add to their bottom line and bypassing original inventory. A theory, I won’t be able to find out but it would cut into “PRADA’s” overall profit if the practice is more common.
Your Business Evaluation
Fashion or anything else this list is the best rundown of your idea evaluation:
Urgency How badly do people need this?
Size How many people would purchase this?
Pricing Potential What is the highest price people would be willing to pay.
Acquisition How easy is it to acquire new customers?
Cost Costs of product and service.
Delivery Cost How much does it cost to deliver the offer.
Uniqueness How unique is your offer versus the competition.
Speed How quickly does it take you to get this running.
Investment How much do you have to invest before you have an offer.
Up Sell What related offers could you present?
Evergreen Potential The more evergreen the more attractive the market.
But the best is this: Apply a value to each point from 1-10. Keep it conservative! Keep these rosy glasses of your face. The add it all up. Below 50, don’t do it. 75-80 excellent. Start action tomorrow!
Thanks to Josh Kaufman, “The Personal MBA.”