Go Deep or Go Home
By Marc Weiss - CEO, Management One
We have been in a narrow and deep assortment cycle for a long time. As e-commerce and social selling have increased revenue, this has become an even more attractive strategy.
The “What and Why” behind Narrow and Deep.
Deep is literally just going deeper in key looks. If you have a $10,000 budget for a specific period and category, buy deeper into one, two, or possibly three vendors, instead of 4 or more.
It may seem safe intuitively to over assort and buy from more, but the reality is you will typically only sell the best of a wide assortment and be stuck with leftovers after the best gets picked through. In the simplest of examples, selling 4 out of 6 is better than selling 1 out of three.
Narrowing vendor selection in a category makes each vendor more important, and that can give you an advantage with those vendors.
As digital selling increases, this can be a key to your success, as we see Indie clients selling dozens if not hundreds of key looks in very compressed periods of time. This is a great strategy to build your digital business.
Check previous season’s or even current season’s sell-through at regular price. If you had 80% full-price sell-through in a look in 4 to 5 weeks, what would have happened if you had bought it deeper? It’s hard to sell off broken sizes.
Narrow means you do not go wide and thus limit selection to key in on looks that you believe in.
The obvious risk is making a mistake and buying deep into a look that flops. It happens… mark it down, get your cash out of it and move on to the next opportunity. Remember that Fail Fast is all about how quickly you can get out of mistakes.
There are different merchandise strategies available, and they can overlap as well as integrate with each other. You can ease into this if it is new to you by starting with safer classes.
We will be at MAGIC in August with educational seminars, a cocktail party for our clients where we will be sharing what is working successfully for Indie Retailers, as we are now adapting to a new world of retail that now coexists with a wave of tools to help our community elevate and grow. We will also be available at our room at the show to meet and discuss merchandise and marketing strategies one on one. Look for our scheduler to meet with members of our team.
Please use this link to register for MAGIC with M1. Informa has added benefits and features to enhance your experience at the show. One of the important reasons to attend is to source new looks and new vendors.
We look forward to seeing you again in person in Vegas at MAGIC!
Onwards and Upwards,
Marc