Direct sales and mass customization are two channels that have been heavily utilized by fashion startups over the past few years with much success. Brands, with a traditional product, now have the point of difference they need to stand out and be noticed. It’s time to take these sales channels seriously.

Direct Sales

Remember Avon and Tupperware? Two household names, which made it into everyone’s homes through their direct sales method? After years of this model being relegated to pots, knives and lipstick, direct sales is once again credible selling channel for apparel and accessories.

By taking the product directly to the customer either as a group event or one on one, the customer has the undivided attention of the seller giving a more personal experience in their workplace or home.

Pros:

• Direct relationship with the customer so can get instant feedback on your product, positive and negative.
• Flexibility of hours and schedule, ideal if you have a family or are studying
• Sociable working environment.
• Works for any product, apparel, accessories and home.

Cons:

• Leads / appointment acquisition can be tough and the rejection rate can be high.
• When scaling the business, the cost and time involved in building up the selling kits and team can be high.
• Initial limitation on coverage for sales.
• Stock level management to ensure you have consistent product availability

Men’s shirting line Trumaker&Co and women’s jewelry labels, Chloe and Isabel and Stella & Dot are three brands who have made a success from this sales channel either through ‘outfitters’, ‘merchandisers’ or ‘stylists’. Product samples or sales cards are shown to the customer, orders are placed and the goods are shipped. With Trumaker&Co, the shirts are made to order through mass customization but with the jewelry, finished goods are made made and held in stock to be called off.

So as an emerging brand with a limited budget, you are able to utilize this method with relative ease. Providing you have product (materials or finished items) and leads (friend and family or referral), you can dictate when you sell, what you sell and how you ship. By start locally and keeping it small, use incentives of discounts or commission to friends to promote your brand.

Starting finances can be minimal providing you have your product in hand, but they can and will escalate when scaling your sales team. With stock in hand, there is no reason why it can’t be sold directly, wholesale as well as D2C. Maybe take a small part of your collection purely for direct sales and merchandise them as looks or as a theme. Customers who can touch and feel the product are more likely to buy it. See it as a complimentary sales channel albeit a more direct one.

Mass Customization

Mass customization has been around for a few years (more commonly used in software) and uses mass production processes with the flexibility of individual customization, which in terms of apparel, takes an established block and with the customer’s measurements, finds the nearest grade and adjusts to the accordingly. Its not pure bespoke, neither is it mass-produced. The product is then made individually and then sent to the customer.

You’ll have seen that NikeID have been offering a customizable shoe for several seasons and whilst the possibilities are open for the larger brands, it’s really the smaller more nimble brands that can accelerate it due to flexibility and customer expectation. For Nike it’s a great marketing tool but it’s lacks viability on a larger scale. For fashion Startups it’s their minimal viable product.

Pros:

• It’s is a great business model to test your product before you invest fully.
• It can be grown at your own pace and kept sustainable.
• Can be used for multi product groups: apparel, accessories and home wares
• Can be managed with ecommerce as well as direct sales.

Cons:

• Whilst it’s a great way to test your market scaling up can be hard and you may have to have multiple sources, which means duplicate able quality.
• You need a customer base that is prepared to wait for the product, with realistic expectations.
• Management of raw material inventory instead of finished goods.

The trick to making mass customization work for a new brand, is to keep it simple and gradually expand rather than over promise and under deliver. Be exact with your process timelines and supply chain, provide options that add value aesthetically to the product and don’t be scared to use it at as an additional channel next to your existing. Perhaps you have scarves, bags or shirts already in your line that you can add details to? Embroideries, monograms, appliques or contrast stitching; People will pay more if their product is unique to them.

Think laterally when making changes to your sales channels. Having a personal connection or being part of a brand community adds value to your brand whilst adding a unique element to a product or building to fit elevates your message higher than its neighbor. It’s time to make your brand multi faceted.

The creation, design, development and production of a collection involve the generation, sharing and distribution of a huge amount of information. The information flow from the start of the development process to the end of production is a crucial element for the successful internal workings of the brand and for the external relationships with the factories, trim suppliers and customers.

Tips:

• In development and production you need to manage the flow of information. If you don’t consider yourself organized or able to multi task, choose a different area of the business.
• Writing up technical information needs to be clear and precise. Never make assumptions that the factory understands; check and double-check everything until they are clear.
• As the development matrix is the hub for the style information, keep it updated and without error, as it will reduce problems at a later stage. This is your responsibility.
• If you are using more than one factory, be careful when sending the matrix to them. Filter the sheet so that only the information relevant to that factory goes out.
• If more than one person uses the planning sheets and you are concerned about other people changing details without your knowledge, password protect it so only you can change details.

For more information on the Information flow or other aspects of building a fashion collection, check out Blue is The New Black

Susie / Co-lab54.com

I think it’s fair to say that to be good at fashion development or production you need to be organized. Some people use paper, some use apps like Trello and Evernote but whatever the method, using some form of ‘list’ or organizational tool is essential practice with the number of aspects that need to be juggled within a project. But list making is not just about being organized; it’s also about helping to maintain a focused and motivated outlook in the task ahead so that you see progress as it happens.  For me, these points are key and these are what I’ll be giving you tips on in this post.

Now, I think it’s also fair to say that being organized doesn’t always come naturally to people and for me it was the same. It’s something that has taken me years to manage and I have learnt the hard way by forgetting things or by just feeling overwhelmed by workloads.

Here is how I learned to love a list:

Around 20 years ago, I went to a time management course paid for by my then employer. It was one of those two day set ups in a beige, characterless conference room of a London Hotel filled with eager folk, pens and papers to the ready, waiting to soak up those all essential words of wisdom by some guy called Frits. I remember his name, randomly enough because usually Fritz is with a ‘z’ but he announced himself as ‘Frits–with-an-s’. This course was 20 years ago, strange what you remember: ‘Frits-with-an-s’.

Without going into a minute by minute run down of the course, what he taught us was to break things down stage by stage into bite size pieces, a piece of advise which I give to teams even now. His route was starting with a monthly schedule and dividing it first weekly, then daily,then hourly. What this does is make tasks or events more manageable which is crucial when faced with something big like planning a wedding or a product launch.

For me, the first time that this method of planning really kicked in, I was working at a new brand, which was setting up from scratch in its development and production department. What this meant was that I needed to hire a team, build a sourcing strategy (find factories), create internal processes, and build the information flow documentation (decide who did what). Quite a complex set of tasks and not something I had actually done before. So how did I start? Being old school and preferring to use a pen and paper (don’t judge) I took each section and divided it so that it was broken down into the smallest of detail:

Sourcing Strategy:

Product groups / Countries of manufacture / buying office / agent / factories /Contact person / email address

Team:

Departments / Positions / / Salary / Job Specs / Recruitment agents / Adverts

Internal Process:

Key Documents / Format / Templates

Once I had listed all these in a ‘waterfall list’ (items trickling down in size) I found it easier and less daunting to  attack each point and I was able to cross things off the list giving me a sense of accomplishment and  progression. If my list had been simply: ’ Set up the whole development and production structure for a large  international fashion brand’ I would have probably quit after 3 hours and taken up basket weaving instead. As  it was, I worked through the detailed list striking things off it, reviewing and updating the list daily and weekly.  I’m not saying that this set up was easy or things went according to plan, but by having a detailed plan of  action and by reviewing and updating it on a regular basis, I was able to make progress and slowly build the  department.

This takes me to another point: Reviewing and updating your list on a regular basis is a good thing and is essential for progression.

While working through a project, large or small, work or personal, you will notice that tasks and deadlines will change on a regular basis. This is not because you are not managing the list efficiently, it’s the just the nature of the beast. You are working with external forces (in development: factories and fabric mills, for a wedding, cake makers and florists) that also have their own lists and priorities, which may not match yours. Because of this, be prepared to update and review your list on a regular basis, changing priorities and adding new tasks. This process is a positive thing as there is nothing more satisfying that starting a new list and seeing how much has been crossed off the old one, or at least I think so.

Overtime, maybe your list will get smaller as you strike things through, or maybe it will stay the same length but will have different tasks on it because of a different project. But what should stay consistent is the way you approach it.

Here are my key tips on learning to love a list.

–       Break the task down into bite size pieces, from large to small (don’t be afraid of adding detail to make it easier)

–       Literally strike things through when they are done so that you see the progress.

–       Accept that things will change and that you can’t control everything.

–       Review and update on a regular basis.

Susie Breuer runs the consultancy Co-Lab54.

For more Industry related tips check out the book Blue is The New Black.

Without fabric there would be no garment. You could have the best design in the world, but without fabric it can’t be realized. Making a judgment call on which fabrics to use and for which garment is a skill, and it is one that can be learnt through experience in the workplace. For example, look at the clothes in your wardrobe. Take a cotton shirt and imagine what it would be like in a heavy wool fabric. Take a silk dress and imagine it in denim. Both the dress and shirt would still be wearable, but would probably be suitable for different occasions. Understanding which fabric is used for what style and why, is part of the skill of the developer.

Tips:

• The subject of fabrics is huge. There is always something new to learn. Read the industry press to keep up-to-date on fabric price concerns or new developments.
• Learn the basics on fabric types and construction, as this will give you a good grounding.
• Fabric mills and agents love to talk about fabrics. For them it is their passion and for you this is a free education. Listen and learn, as their knowledge comes from years of experience.
• When I meet with a fabric supplier the first things I ask are; what is the fabric weight, weave and composition? How much is it? What are the minimums? What is the lead time? This is a good starting point for any fabric appointment.
• Understand how colour works with fabric. Not every colour will work with every fabric type.

For more information of the concept or other aspects of building a fashion collection, check out Blue is The New Black

Susie / Co-lab54.com

At the time, I was working as a product developer for a large clothing brand which produced near Bangalore and for this trip I was due to travel with my designer to hand over a new package of styles which would later be sampled. We arrived in India at around 1 am and once through customs and baggage reclaim made it to the hotel around 3am,  tired and in desperate need of a shower.

Upon checking in we received the message from our factory contact that instead of being collected at 9 am the next day for a 10am flight to the factory, we would instead be picked up at 6am for a seven hour car journey instead (apparently due to bad weather and a delayed flight). So with the prospect of three hours sleep and another epic journey ahead, we went to our rooms to ‘settle in’ for the night.

My bathroom was less than basic with a bucket and hose for a shower whilst in the bedroom itself I discovered a broken fan instead of  the aircon, but water is water and if you lie still and don’t move, you don’t get hot. This was my tactic for the three hours before the pick up.

6am came round and a bleary eyed designer met me outside with bags and what looked like a beaten up VW Golf and a 13 year old standing next to it with car keys.

The designer, being six feet tall, took the back seat to stretch out whilst I sat in the passenger seat next to our driver, the child. My seat was an interesting arrangement with the seatbelt stuck at my shoulder and the position of the back support stuck at 70 degrees. So leaning forward and gripping both the dashboard and door handle, to steady myself, we set off on the trip to the factory.

One hour into the journey, the young driver reached into the glove compartment and took out a tape. He gesticulated that he should put it into the cassette player, to which I nodded. After a whirring and a click, the enthusiastic voices of the Backstreet Boys came blaring out in broken stereo waking up the designer and causing him to smash his head on the roof of the car.

Nice! I said, we’ll have a sing along!. The designer declined whilst the driver stared blankly at me. I was on my own.

After a full run though of the tape, I had been brought up to date with the back catalogue of this talented US teen group and I felt it time to perhaps have a snooze. Trying to support my head to avoid lolling ( thanks to the angle of the seat), I found myself drifting in and out to the same song on the tape.

How could this be? Was I dreaming ? Had I actually been asleep? No, it wasn’t a dream and Yes, I had been asleep!

What transpired was that this was the only tape we had in the car, and it was on loop…for the next  7 hours. The initial joy of a sing along to A.J, Howie and friends was now less of a ‘joy’ and more of a joke, and a bad one at that.

For the rest of the journey, I continued to drift in and out of sleep, waking to hear “I Want it That Way’ and wishing I could only make such demands on the musical choice or at least, the angle of the seat.

But both, alas,  were fixed and I had no choice but to learn each and every song, making a mental note to myself that, in future, I will pack my own musical arrangement that would carry me through at least a 7 hour journey.

I still work in Fashion but now run Co-lab54, a consultancy set up to assist companies large and small with product development solutions.

My book, Blue is The New Black was published last year and is available online.

Tara St James of StudyNY released her Anti_fashion calendar earlier this year at Redress Raleigh Conference in North Carolina to a hail of appreciation by the small business crowd. Her calendar compares the traditional design, development, sales and production periods of a 6 month structure to the ‘Anti’ version which allows for monthly drops of seasonally specific capsules to hit the stores. T-shirts in summer and sweaters in winter. Ground breaking huh? She designs monthly, she sells monthly and she produces monthly. This not only gives a regular cash flow and clothes when they are needed, but also allows for regular work for the manufacturers rather than peaks and slumps in production lines.

This method of structured design and production is great for small businesses, its great for manufacturers, it’s great for the public and it’s something I talk about a lot in the lectures i give within the industry. So why isn’t it adopted by more brands?

Well, to my surprise, it might just be. Tamara Mellon, ex Jimmy Choo, announced earlier last week that she was launching her own fashion label which would sell clothes in the seasonal months that they should be worn in. For this high-profile individual to flip the traditional fashion calendar on its head takes some guts and a huge risk. Customers will love it for sure but from inside the industry, I’m curious about the stages of how this can be achieved when it comes to concept, colours and fabrics.

For instance, the concept of the collection would, i guess, still be set ahead of time, but colours and fabrics  will be selected from previous and current season to allow for seasonal relevance (fabric mills produce 6 months in advance to show new designs). When it comes to the design side, would she connect directly with her customer base to assess their likes, dislikes, wants or desires or would this be pre planned and fixed? So, on this point alone, it’s interesting to see whether her collection is designed and produced 6 months in advance and then just delivered monthly or whether it is designed, produced and delivered monthly so being able to respond to the customers. There is a very big difference behind the scenes.

But of course the PR of her doing something, potentially, so radical against the norm is a great way to launch a new brand, or sell her new book whichever is first. Regardless, it’s about time someone recognised the need for a more sustainable approach, however luxurious her line will be.

Susie

Co-lab54

Blue is the New Black

But then I have been a little preoccupied with a book, 2 weddings and 2 high profile consultancy projects.

Still no excuse?, Ok – you’re hard to please……

In that case I will finish with the apology and will start the sausage machine up again. Expect a continuation of the previous with a little extra thought and opinion. Subjects on my mind right now  include product development, reshoreing, supply chain, e-commerce, information flow, manufacturing communities, book ideas, retail business models, ebook launches, workshops and lectures.

But first, coffee.