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Where are the shirts made? Are you planning to go into pants, suits, jackets, etc.? As a business decision, the $69 price-point seems a bit high. That sets it
by cpks 12y ago
Where are the shirts made? Are you planning to go into pants, suits, jackets, etc.?
As a business decision, the $69 price-point seems a bit high. That sets it at elite, rather than mass-market. The problem with elite is outside of SFO and NYC, you'll get a lot less viral word-of-mouth growth. In most of the world, elites do talk to each other, but they talk to non-elites a lot more, and when they do talk to elites, the topic is usually not clothing.
To give a concrete example: I am C-level. As such, I could afford it, but most people I know would not be able to. The only people I could mention it to would be VP-level or C-level, most of whom are colleagues rather than friends. This would limit word-of-mouth from someone like me to perhaps 2-3 people tops, rather than 20-30 (so in practice, 0 rather than 2-3, since it would come up in conversation for perhaps 10% of the people I know). At $69, I also won't buy it on a whim. At a price point competitive with Eddie Bauer, or even Men's Warehouse, I would, just to see how well it worked. If it worked well, I'd switch to it. If I did buy it, at $69, I also expect quality. I wouldn't buy a second one until I see how long the first one lasts. That means repeat business won't come until you probably run out of runway.
Custom-tailored pants, in India or Africa, cost $10 for the fabric and $3 for the labor (and are fantastic). Even with a generous mark-up, you ought to be able to have a slow but inexpensive process that competes with middle class mass-market goods (not Walmart and Target, but certainly EB and Men's Warehouse).
- mpenn 12y agoThe shirts are made to our stringent quality controls in China. We're definitely planning to expand into other types of clothing. And since we take all your measurements, you'll only have to get measured once! We get what you're saying about virality. We wanted to make shirts of a quality that we were proud of and after getting many samples we decided that we could make very high-quality shirts for $69. We hope that we'll be able to bring the price down with time. FYI - the salesman in me has to say that if you have any doubts, you can try us risk-free because of our very generous return policy. We're happy to accept a return or remake your shirt for any reason (not just fit).
- jsmthrowaway 12y agoYou consider a $69 shirt elite? I've paid about that for every non t-shirt that I own. Hell, even my t-shirts are about half that, but that might be a function of my size. Shit, my ex-wife would pay $150-$200 for what I'd consider to be a basic blouse without even flinching.
- mpenn 12y agoI would just say here people have very different expectations for what a nice dress shirt should cost. There's everything from $13 ones at Walmart to $70 - $90 ones at J. Crew and Brooks Brothers (MTailor price point) to $300 Armani shirts (and above). Having spent a lot of time in in-person custom shirt shops, our $69 shirts are comparable in quality to shirts you would buy there for $125 and above.
- jsmthrowaway 12y agoI'll be honest, I wasn't even aware dress shirts were sold at Walmart. Just my thinking on this is you're about average, and your comment seems to back that up. I don't think of J. Crew and Brooks Brothers as particularly "elite," but that might just be me.
- mpenn 12y agoI don't argue that there isn't a big market below the $69 price point, but as jsmthroway is saying, there's a large market at our price point, and up to now, it's almost exclusively off-the-rack. We think we can provide a high quality custom product where previously the only option at that price was off-the-rack. And obviously we'd go even lower if we could.
- cypherpnks 12y agoThere is a large market. How are you planning to reach it? If you cannot go lower, I'd consider a partnership with an existing brand. You'll have to have an insane marketing budget to compete with existing clothing brands without viral. If you can partner with Brooks Brothers (established in 1818, and part of American preppy folklore), J. Crew, Men's Warehouse, or similar, you'll have an easy time breaking in, although a much harder time getting most of the profit share.
- mbesto 12y agoI know plenty of people who are not c-level who easily spend $69+ on shirts. In fact, I would argue that most people on wall street are expected to pay $50+ on shirts. $250+ would be c-level IMHO. Data point - Brooks Brothers does $750MM in revenue[1] [1]- http://www.insideview.com/directory/brooks-brothers-inc http://www.insideview.com/directory/brooks-brothers-inc
- cypherpnks 12y agoThat is a true statement, about Wall St. Less true about C-level, until you hit pretty big companies. A typical C-level or VP-level earns between $200k and $500k, typically towards the lower-end of that (obviously, Fortune 500 would be millions for CEO -- I'm basing this on companies of ~100 employees). I don't know typical Wall St. income, but the friends I have there are around $300k. You can cite Google and Apple employees too as spending $50+ on clothing. That's all the elite. Median household income is $51k in the US. That's 1/3-1/6 of a single salary at Google (and most have working spouses as well). It's perhaps 1/6 of Wall St. That translates into many times that difference in disposable income. I appreciate the appeal of making products for people similar to yourself, but if you think that makes for a good business plan, compare you $750MM in revenue to TJ Max with $18B in revenue, Gap at $13B, Ross at $10B, etc. If you look at relative prices, that's probably about 100x as many items of clothing sold.