One of the most interesting changes that the internet has made to the world of retail has been the relative ease with which new brands and and designers can start trading. Without the overheads associated with running and staffing stores, all one theoretically needs to do business is a decent transactional website, a means to store and deliver stock, and of course a cracking product range won't do any harm....
But of course with every up there up there is a down, so if ecommerce is the relatively cheap means by which you start your retail business- it will be the route for plenty of other competitors also....
This then leaves new businesses with the age old challenge- how to let people know about and the great things you are doing? With a saturated internet retailing market, magazines and supplements are awash with reccomendations for savvy shoppers, so many so that it is difficult for us to remember to have a look when surfing the net after a hard day's work (or maybe during a hard day's work.. heaven forfend). Of course there are additional opprtunities to promote your business through new media, but as everyone else jumps on board, again there are challenges involved in trying to stand out from the crowd....
Which brings me in a very roundabout way, to what I thought was a very smart marketing move indeed- by The Outnet. This website (The Outnet ) is the spin-off outlet site of the rather more well-known luxury fashion website Net-a-Porter, whose owner Natalie Massenet recently made £50m from her 18% stake following the sale of the site to Richemont, the Swiss luxury goods group- which gives you an idea of how successful the site has been.
Outnet is only recently established, and recently celebrated it's 1st birthday, with the Mother Of All Sales. Potential customers were invited to sign up to the website to get an invite to the online sale- designer products in which would all be sold for £1- limited to one per customer. Yes I did say £1.
Needless to say the sale was massively popular, selling out within hours as thousands of customers got a bargain of a lifetime, and thousands more were disappointed as the site continually crashed due to volume of traffic (I missed out on a pair of Philip Lim 3.1 trousers and I'm still sore about it)
Undoubtably the cost of reducing all those goods to sell at £1 would have been a considerably expense, and one that someone in the Finance department was probably having sleepless nights about, but I can't help but think this was a marketing move of sheer brilliance for the fledging site.
The sale generated considerable media exposure- both before and after, which will have increased the awareness of the brand in the market place hugely. (Look- we're talking about it now!) But most importantly- in order to be invited to the sale, those who were already in the know had to register with the website- given those golden details- name and email address, that mean that Outnet have a much larger potential customer base now, to contact with information, sales and exclusive offers, to build a strong relationship that they hope will encourage us to shop with them when goods aren't £1...
A young retail business will flounder quickly without exposure and a customer base. These things are difficult to come by- yet Outnet has proven that sometimes the best solution is the most obvious- Nothing Beats a Good Sale.
I should swiftly add a caveat to this post!
ReplyDeleteSince writing this, it has transpired that this Sale was in fact so busy/popular that a very many people weren't able to log on- which has led to a less favourable press.
So- great idea poorly executed. How about staggering it next year?