First off congratulations on having a business that has lasted 100 years! That is a rare accomplishment these days.
I think you both have an interesting perspective on the future of apparel and e-commerce. The one thing that I think deserves mentioning is that it has been getting easier and cheaper to own the means of production so you can convert raw materials into finished goods with out holding lots of inventory. You also need the manufacturing capabilities if you want to do mass customization.
My limited experience with this has come over the past 3.5 years building DODOcase.com. We ended up building all of our own manufacturing and hold less than 2 weeks of inventory, while over 30% of our online sales are one off custom built products.
My hope is that the future is brands built online that actually make their own stuff. I agree with Jamie that the brands of tomorrow will have to be more hands on but just holding inventory and shipping D2C is not enough, I think they will have to own and master the manufacture of their own products.
Completely agree here. I've spent the last year and a half building Pistol Lake - we make men's shirts.
There are the few of us who want to spend the years it takes building manufacturing and operational expertise necessary to build an online-first direct-to-consumer company - and there are a huge number of things in our favor:
1. easier to build audience than ever before
2. costs overseas are changing and making domestic, short-run manufacturing more economical
3. allowing you to keep less inventory, and if you don't have a billion SKUs, turnover can be rapid
That said, it takes a long time to build the expertise and a long time to make a good product, period. Nothing will change that. It also takes a unique skillset to be able to be creative in the design of things, process driven to build scalable manufacturing and logistics, technical enough to manage an e-commerce platform and sophisticated customer acquisition/economics hacking, etc.
Ultimately, I think there will be hundreds of designers going online-first, direct-to-consumer, making incredible things, and we all benefit from it. Couldn't be more excited about this maker revolution.
Spot on- we stock fabrics for customers to choose from, which cuts out another middleman (cloth cut length houses). Since they're raw materials, it's fine if some risky, fashionable fabrics take a couple of years to sell out. Fine fabrics last forever, and we bring out selections from years past sometimes. We even have some yardage on 60s stuff, which we mostly use for costume projects (we do a lot of film and theater).
Also agreed brands could do their own manufacturing and reap tremendous advantages- but that's a whole 'nother disruption!
Also as a side note I just started reading (yesterday) "LL Bean: The Making of an American Icon" by Leon Gorman grandson of LL Bean and former president of the company. It is a fascinating read on the ups and downs of a 100 year 4th generation family run business. It sounds like something you might find relevant to your business.
I think you both have an interesting perspective on the future of apparel and e-commerce. The one thing that I think deserves mentioning is that it has been getting easier and cheaper to own the means of production so you can convert raw materials into finished goods with out holding lots of inventory. You also need the manufacturing capabilities if you want to do mass customization.
My limited experience with this has come over the past 3.5 years building DODOcase.com. We ended up building all of our own manufacturing and hold less than 2 weeks of inventory, while over 30% of our online sales are one off custom built products.
My hope is that the future is brands built online that actually make their own stuff. I agree with Jamie that the brands of tomorrow will have to be more hands on but just holding inventory and shipping D2C is not enough, I think they will have to own and master the manufacture of their own products.