Everlane Closed on Black Friday
everlane.com
everlane.com
Everlane model: Cost to make shirt + profit for everlane + shipping -> total cost
Conventional clothing model: Cost to make shirt + profit for manufacturer + shipping + cost of operating retail outlet + profit for retail outlet -> total cost
They are still outsourcing their manufacturing so the above isn't completely accurate, but it's close.
This is the future of the clothing business and I for one am very happy about it.
As someone who is a non-standard size, I hope that new business models provide a much greater range of clothing sizes. Offering three or four sizes of T-shirts is profoundly ridiculous. They will only fit a small percentage of people well. I look forward to the day when you enter your height, neck, chest and waist measurement, specify your desired style of fit (slim/casual/loose) and they find the closest out of (perhaps) 20 sizes and send it to you.
As a thin, tall person, it's virtually impossible to buy clothes that fit properly (even T-shirts). If someone provided a way to buy custom fit essentials, or even just a granular range of sizes, at internet-margin prices, I would sign up tomorrow.
The cost of the retail outlet though is spread among many goods. While there are stores that are certainly devoted to one product (and run by the manufacturer or designer) there are more stores that contain many designers. So what what matters it the incremental cost of adding one extra product to the store and what their markup is on the goods.
Also, you will most certainly sell more total products (and lower your costs) by having, in general, multiple channels for those products.
Lastly, as the point I made in another reply here said, you can't discount the amount of what you are paying that goes to the designer for lending their name to the product or getting involved. Tiger Woods is paid to put his name on golf clubs. Ralph Lauren makes shirts and all sorts of goods. People like and buy the label. Some of it is about quality and some is about cache. By eliminating the retail outlet you only remove one part of the costs.
"We eliminate the middleman" is a pitch that has been around for a long time. And yet, people still manage to do business selling through retail channels at the point of purchase. And there is certainly room for both.
"Designer clothes typically sell for 8 times what they cost to make. But it doesn't have to be this way. We've set out to challenge conventions and build a new retail model. We have no physical stores, no middlemen taking their cut and no crazy brand markups. Instead, we create our own luxury basics and sell them exclusively at everlane.com."
One thing this model is missing is that part of the reason designer goods cost more is because people are paying for the name as well as presumably better quality. To the point where people knock off designer goods and there is an entire IP infrastructure in place to police those brands.
So while this is pretending to be the "Louis CK" model of selling it's really not. First, they don't have a known "Louis CK" brand. 2nd removing the middleman only removes a part of the markup of a luxury brand.
This might be similar to someone offering to sell a Hyundai that performs on the same level as an equivalent Porsche or BMW but is a Hyundai. By "performs" I mean same quality of materials, same cornering, acceleration etc. (Let's suppose they could do that). What you would end up with is only part of the allure of the Porsche. The brand does mean something and that's part of what you are paying for. (In addition to the commission the dealer makes and the salesperson makes).
Part of the money that goes into a brand is what you are paying for when you buy the brand. If what they want to do is simply sell better quality goods and cut out the middleman that's fine. But they shouldn't dismiss the value (in some people's brains) of having a "brand" of anything and paying more for it either.
Most first-time visitors probably come from something social, and thus have a pretty good idea that Everlane is some kind of retail.
Knowing this, the folks at Everlane opted to optimize the band experience for registered users and those who haven't registered but are familiar with the company. This is a great example of leveraging a point-of-view into a statement about your brand, rather than watering-down the messaging to appeal to even the smallest subset of users.
Leaving their product pages up and simply disabling purchasing would have been a better idea.
With this message, the "Sign up" link is the most attractive thing on the page. I'm guessing they'll get more press and more signups today than otherwise, and those organic signups will generate sales from e-mail campaigns. Really smart.
http://www.storyofstuff.org/blackfriday/
I pledge to skip the mall and stay home with friends and family this Black Friday. Instead of spending money on things I don't need, I will spend my time with the people that I love.
I'm not someone that cares about a brand but I am someone who cares about quality to a somewhat obsessive level. I love my Everlane shirts and the backback I got from them is rugged and comfortable with just the right amount of pockets and storage. When I return to SF in February I would really like to visit their office and learn more about the company.