via Sassi Sam
Love Anna Wintour or hate her, the formidable Editor-in-Chief of Vogue U.S and the brainchild behind Vogue Fashion Night out has definitely come up with a winner.
Sydney city was a buzz with hype and activity and it was great to see. They improved it drastically from last year by centralizing it by moving it to Pitt Street Mall from Martin Place. It had the same buzz of a regular shopping night in Hong Kong and there was a real excitement in the air. I have nothing but praise for Wintour’s commercial success of creating this event to promote retail spending during the after effects of the G.F.C. Especially from an editorial perspective, as a means I imagine, of looking after her prized advertisers who were the major chains and luxury boutiques and department stores. Genius!
Phoebe Garland co-owns Garland & Garland Fashion, along with Robert Garland who was described by Ragtrader as a “veteran rag trader” with over 30 years experience. Between the two of them, Phoebe & Robert Garland have over 45 years sales experience. Garland & Garland Fashion is a leading fashion agency based in Sydney representing women’s fashion labels targeting the 30+ market. Garland & Garland Fashion is regularly sought for comment from various media on business fashion issues and topics.
Whilst the event was incredibly successful in Sydney CBD, and by successful, I mean I actually saw people with some serious shopping bags, what I would love to see is a similar event aimed at supporting the smaller independent retailers and held on a national scale.
The need for an industry body, magazines and/or a group of apparel companies plus the buying groups to band together to support the smaller independent retailers couldn’t be more critical. Whilst some of the larger apparel companies may be turning towards more vertical markets, I think there is a need to remember exactly how their businesses got started in the first place. Especially for the larger apparel manufacturers such as Pacific Brands, Levi’s, Billabong, Quicksilver, and many others, also let’s not forget the buying groups like ARL and Frontline. Now is the time, they need to look after their retailers as their retailers have supported them throughout the years.
Independent retailers are constantly competing with chain stores, department stores and the vertical operators on price. Some of these small retailers have placed pretty hefty wholesale orders hitting over 140K a season with some of these big companies. Sure, they may not always be the glamorous side of the industry, but when you have a national wholesale base contributing orders like this every season it’s a significant amount of money. We need to recognise the contribution they have made and reinforce the personal service and the wonderful relationships you can have with the smaller boutiques and buying from Australian retailers. These smaller retailers have contributed significantly to building these multinational apparel companies. And, these are the retailers that are really suffering. They simply do not have the luxury of operating on the higher margins the chains stores and vertical operators do and they have quite often been lining the pockets of the big apparel companies for years.
So I call on Australian Retailers Association, Executive Director Russell Zimmerman and the CEO’s of the apparel companies and buying groups to band together to come up with something similar to support the smaller wholesale retailers on a national scale. From a marketing perspective, it would gain immense loyalty with their retailers and would probably even strengthen wholesale sales which would only improve the bottom line for the C.E.O’s. Give back to the smaller retailer and encourage spending in this sector of the industry. Let us not forget the small independent retailer.
As always very interested in your thoughts.
Email Phoebe at:
Become a fan on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter.