Discussions about the fashion industry thread

[dieworkwear]

Neiman Marcus to cut 225 jobs. Also reassessing it's Last Call stores. Not totally surprising, but adds to the discussion we had earlier.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...-eliminated-jobs-assessing-last-call-division

Unrelated, but does anyone have a theory on how Japan has avoided the kind of discount culture in the US? It used to be that stores had two big sales -- midseason and end-of-season. While that's true for some stores, it's not uncommon to see near year-round sales at this point. But that doesn't seem to be true for Japan. Is it cause the market is less crowded? What prevents any one store from capturing first-mover gains on sales?

 

[double00]

japan also doesn't have thrift stores like in the US.

is a silly question tho, two completely different cultures. even if you could suss out 'an answer' it would be utterly academic (read: useless).

 

[Epaulet]

Neiman Marcus to cut 225 jobs. Also reassessing it's Last Call stores. Not totally surprising, but adds to the discussion we had earlier.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...-eliminated-jobs-assessing-last-call-division

Unrelated, but does anyone have a theory on how Japan has avoided the kind of discount culture in the US? It used to be that stores had two big sales -- midseason and end-of-season. While that's true for some stores, it's not uncommon to see near year-round sales at this point. But that doesn't seem to be true for Japan. Is it cause the market is less crowded? What prevents any one store from capturing first-mover gains on sales?

@dieworkwear I'd imagine that culture is a part of it, the Japanese seem to take a more respectful approach to commerce as well, so there might just be less thinking of "mark it up so you can mark it down."

There might be laws in place too. If I'm not mistaken, retailers in some European countries are not legally allowed to run price promotions outside of twice a year. They have to price things with a minimum markup.

 

[gdl203]

The retail margin structure is completely different (40% gross margin at RRP, multiplier=1.66x) so they simply cannot discount that deep. It naturally creates discipline.

 

[Kallipagan]

Neiman Marcus to cut 225 jobs. Also reassessing it's Last Call stores. Not totally surprising, but adds to the discussion we had earlier.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...-eliminated-jobs-assessing-last-call-division

Unrelated, but does anyone have a theory on how Japan has avoided the kind of discount culture in the US? It used to be that stores had two big sales -- midseason and end-of-season. While that's true for some stores, it's not uncommon to see near year-round sales at this point. But that doesn't seem to be true for Japan. Is it cause the market is less crowded? What prevents any one store from capturing first-mover gains on sales?

On your unrelated note, I don't think that's the current case in Japan. From the scholarly articles I skimmed it seems that they are shifting towards a discount culture. The articles all seem to share the same themes, in that less prosperous economic times and a shift in views on materialism are leading to this effect. If anything they might have less sales overall because, in Japanese culture at least, items that are discounted are seen as having lesser quality.

(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5884.00181/pdf, page 11 under 'Recent Changes' and http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/the-new-japanese-consumer).

 

[dieworkwear]

On your unrelated note, I don't think that's the current case in Japan. From the scholarly articles I skimmed it seems that they are shifting towards a discount culture. The articles all seem to share the same themes, in that less prosperous economic times and a shift in views on materialism are leading to this effect. If anything they might have less sales overall because, in Japanese culture at least, items that are discounted are seen as having lesser quality.

(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5884.00181/pdf, page 11 under 'Recent Changes' and http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/the-new-japanese-consumer).

Those two articles are a really good. A bit thin on discount data, but if you compare this with the US, the two cases would make for a good comparison case study showing how the internet affects different markets. That is, even with all these differences, the internet still has the same effect.

Would be nice to find a place with a robust commercial environment, but little WiFi, but I imagine that's near impossible.

 

[Epaulet]

On your unrelated note, I don't think that's the current case in Japan. From the scholarly articles I skimmed it seems that they are shifting towards a discount culture. The articles all seem to share the same themes, in that less prosperous economic times and a shift in views on materialism are leading to this effect. If anything they might have less sales overall because, in Japanese culture at least, items that are discounted are seen as having lesser quality.

(http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5884.00181/pdf, page 11 under 'Recent Changes' and http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/the-new-japanese-consumer).

Yeah, I read some articles with a similar sentiment.. largely on how fast fashion (Uniqlo) was killing the traditional independent boutiques and small brands. The young generation is simply unable & unwilling to spend as much as the ones before them on clothing & footwear.

 

[LA Guy]

The retail margin structure is completely different (40% gross margin at RRP, multiplier=1.66x) so they simply cannot discount that deep. It naturally creates discipline.

This, and also, two things:
1) The retail price is set by the vendor, not the retailer, so comparison shopping is essentially futile.
2) A lot of shops seem to carry relatively shallow inventory, so there is more motivation to buy at retail.

 

[gdl203]

Yep. Retail in Japan goes like this: vendor says "this jacket is 100 retail. You get 40% discount when you buy wholesale." (they actually refer to the retailer margin as a "discount"). When a retail shop gets a 40% discount on full retail to sell in his shop, we're pretty much guaranteed they will not be trigger-happy with discounts. When things go on sale in Japan, it's 20% off, not 70%

 

[LA Guy]

Yep. Retail in Japan goes like this: vendor says "this jacket is 100 retail. You get 40% discount when you buy wholesale." (they actually refer to the retailer margin as a "discount"). When a retail shop gets a 40% discount on full retail to sell in his shop, we're pretty much guaranteed they will not be trigger-happy with discounts. When things go on sale in Japan, it's 20% off, not 70%

Though... I've gotten some 30% off coupons recently...

 

[dieworkwear]

Amazon offers two-hour delivery service in Singapore

https://www.businessoffashion.com/a...ters-singapore-with-two-hour-delivery-service

 

[clee1982]

Well it's Singapore they probably can do one hour pretty soon...

 

[jah786]

Same online - it's called CC fraud and the store ALWAYS ends up holding the bag (even if the transaction was authorized and the package was delivered and signed for)

agree 100%. i have yet to win a CC fraud case, no matter how rock solid my case is. the only way to win is to pay close attention to fraud alerts and not ship but even then there can be issues.

 

[jah786]

Speaking of which, I am pretty grateful that they have done such a great job with Golden Goose, which, not 5 years ago, was really hard to find. Now, it's become a staple. I always liked their "casual LA via Italy" style, though I know that most Styleforumites are probably looking at me like I have a third eye right now. I just looked on their site to see that they still repped Golden Goose and found that they also represent legitimately cool brands like Troubadour, which makes pretty nice bags that would fit in super well with a military/streetwear style. Good on them.

I'm with you on golden goose. i love it. don't own any, but there's something about them that tickles me. i love minimalist branding no logo stuff as much as anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s with all those damn logos but i need a change now and again. golden goose does that subtle rebellious thing and i love it

 

[johanm]

The retail margin structure is completely different (40% gross margin at RRP, multiplier=1.66x) so they simply cannot discount that deep. It naturally creates discipline.

Interesting - are there also other factors that result in less unsold inventory there than here...e.g. more predictable/reliable customers, less competition (segmentation, obstacles w/ online competition), tax arbitrage selling overstock into US, narrower size ranges, etc.?