I realised something, short after completing studies in fashion, specifially the subject of buying and merchandising. A sentence stuck with me: “A buyer needs to know their customer as if it was their best friend”.
If I gave you £100 right now, and ask you to buy a present for your best friend, you will know exactly what to buy.
A buyer works with the same principle, and with a budget in mind.
Now, when we, as consumers buy clothes, nothing is random any more , yet we barely notice it. Even the digital platforms come up on our screen with products and articles, based on the search history we have previously done online.
If you are a retailer, buying clothes from suppliers, to create the best collection for your shop, is no different.
The high street giants have very thorough strategies to create the beautiful collections in the shops, one of the strategies being getting to know us really well, as consumers.
Independent retailers can also benefit from this strategy, however, from my experience, retailers go to trade shows, they meet new brands, or buy again from the same suppliers, they choose the products , and display them for sale in their store.
However, product is not selling as good as they though. The ideal customer is not coming into the shop. The product they thought would sell end up in markdown.
If this sounds familiar, don’t worry, you are not alone and there are certain things you can do to address the issue.
I applied the steps of a high street buying office to redefine the target customer of a luxury knitwear brand, because independent retailers and brands can benefit of the same strategies and steps that a high street store currently follow, in order to create a collection.
When applying these steps, the designs got adapted, the colour palette was freshen up, and the ideal customer was defined, hence increasing sales.
I have helped retailers to find out exactly who their customer is and who are they buying for when creating the collection.
Do you know yours? Do you know who are you buying for?
Raxanie Ltd