Iron Heart Products - What do you think we should make?
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@goosehd It could be probably solved by better demand supply relationship. Thus we can see that some classic as well as new fashioned stuff (continuous production) has stuck on the store shelves while the seasonal/limited run is on continuous demand
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@goosehd My message was that often seasonal or limited run is in higher demand than continuous one and probably to make seasonal/limited run continuous would make happy if not everybody but the majority of us
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@Tago-Mago astute observation
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@Tago-Mago On the other hand it could be a clear indication that the product is most desirable. No one would spend his money on the stuff that is not quite to his taste just because the product is not going to be restocked.
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@Yoprst That only applies when there are limited numbers of consumers. What I like and someone else does are two different things.
I’ve seen shirts sold by IH that I would never wear, but have almost immediately sold out. Does that make me wrong for not wearing it? I’ve seen items that I’ve loved and purchased only to go on discount because of poor sales.
It is impossible to predict sales and as @Giles said, if he could then he would be rich….or something to that effect.
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@Tago-Mago Don't take me wrong - I am not against core stuff at all, quite the opposite. I'm for making seasonal/limited run that flies away like hot dogs continuous production too. I stress it - not all seasonal/limited run but just the one that sells within a few days
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@goosehd said in Iron Heart Products - What do you think we should make?:
In my opinion, most individuals first IH purchase are one of the continuous items such as jeans or a jacket. Once I made that purchase, then I started buying UHF’s, shirts, etc.
The continuous items gets customers in the door. The seasonal ones keep us here.
That's very true
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@Yoprst I understand, and I‘m sure given the resources IH would look at expanding the continuous section. It’s all a question of do you want to compromise your standard of quality to increase production and sales. I can’t say for sure, but I think I know the answer
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@goosehd said in Iron Heart Products - What do you think we should make?:
@Yoprst That only applies when there are limited numbers of consumers. What I like and someone else does are two different things.
I’ve seen shirts sold by IH that I would never wear, but have almost immediately sold out. Does that make me wrong for not wearing it? I’ve seen items that I’ve loved and purchased only to go on discount because of poor sales.
It is impossible to predict sales and as @Giles said, if he could then he would be rich….or something to that effect.
That's true too. May be it would be worth running some kind of polls before restocking or discontinuing certain product therefore to some extent predicting the demand? The poll seems to be a good tool for that task
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@Yoprst Good thought and something that IHUK used to do with notifications for future releases. They often found that items that people were initially interested in, would not always sell as the notifications indicated.
Many reasons for this such as sizing issues, production issues, or something else became available that they were more interested in.
The dobby shirt is an excellent example of strong interest by the community, but due to sizing issues preventing a lot of us from buying.
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@Tago-Mago said in Iron Heart Products - What do you think we should make?:
@Yoprst I understand, and I‘m sure given the resources IH would look at expanding the continuous section. It’s all a question of do you want to compromise your standard of quality to increase production and sales. I can’t say for sure, but I think I know the answer
Giles has already sounded his attitude towards IH quality standards. We are not talking about increasing production and sales at the cost of quality reduction
We are talking about sufficient supply when there is a strong demand.
And taking into account the relatively limited number of IH consumers comparing to that of say L.S & Co there is no need to produce mega tons of stuff with inevitable loss of quality -
@goosehd said in Iron Heart Products - What do you think we should make?:
@Yoprst Good thought and something that IHUK used to do with notifications for future releases. They often found that items that people were initially interested in, would not always sell as the notifications indicated.
Many reasons for this such as sizing issues, production issues, or something else became available that they were more interested in.
The dobby shirt is an excellent example of strong interest by the community, but due to sizing issues preventing a lot of us from buying.
That's very true as well. The demand is a tricky thing to predict and as consumers we change our mind ten times over within a minute and it is not always towards the certain purchase
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@Yoprst said in Iron Heart Products - What do you think we should make?:
We are talking about sufficient supply when there is a strong demand.
IH have talked about this many times on these pages, elsewhere in the forum, and on the Ironcast (podcast). Long story short, it is very hard to predict what will sell well and what won't.
The FW22 UHF shirts, for example, were heavily overstocked (partly by design as an experiment to see if they would sell out like previous years) with the result that they had a lot of stock that wouldn't shift even at a discount. (In the end, they overdyed the excess stock which rekindled some demand).
And you can't just re-run a seasonal item that sold out in minutes. Seasonal stuff is planned out well in advance so that raw material suppliers, factories, and retailers can all be aligned. If your factories are working on FW24 now and will then be moving onto SS25 as soon as they're done, when are you going to be able to ask them to go back to something from FW23 that sold well? Elevating something to continuous production status is fraught with risk and opportunity costs if you get that calculation wrong.
If you could design an algorithm that could perfectly predict demand (in any sphere) you'd certainly win a Nobel Prize in Economics and become very, very wealthy.