Iron Heart in the Press or on other Sites
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Fascinating exchange. I've enjoyed hearing both sides. Being new I'll keep my input to myself. I preordered the jeans, but didn't start ordering until really digging into the forums. It has to drive a lot of business.
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I'm sure that Iron Heart is growing but is it really that popular? I'm not going to comment on supply/demand stuff, I'm just wondering if you dudes actually see anyone that you couldn't recognize from the forums wearing it on the street.
Also, I'm not sure if there are so many newbies. There are a lot of old posters that don't come around anymore and it's the nature of such an accessible forum to fill that void; I don't think it indicates any huge shift from old to newcomers. Anyway, just wanted to get into the convo
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Well, it's 2700+ members round here now. Remember the 1000 member draw? And when you look at other forums like Sufu, IH is among the most popular brands and for many the first real japanese jeans. Same goes for Samurai. But I have only met one guy with IH on the street so far.
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@Max:
But I have only met one guy with IH on the street so far.
Zero for me. IH and other quality products are a personal philosophy. To everyone else they're "just" a pair of blue jeans.
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Anyone get any ideas of how we could improve?
Pre-ordering is not a solution as people change their mind or size.
Completing a form giving an indication of what people want in advance is useless, because everyone completes the form "just in case" and we get left with loads of stuff that is hard to get rid of.And Max, I take a load more of each item now (if available) than I did in the past. I probably brought over no more than 12-15 IHSH-20's. With the IHSH-72, I probably got in about 80 (and I restocked at least twice when I realised I had under estimated demand). Plus there are more retailers now who take the stuff as well.
Here's another issue. We all hated it when shirts would pop up from another brand made in the same fabric as an Iron Heart shirt. So now, in the main, we design all our own fabric. We have to estimate total demand and then get the fabric woven, if we run out, we are really stuffed as we can't just pop down to the mill and buy another roll.
I'm not defending my position or my approach, I spend long sleepless nights trying to solve this dilemma.
i think for the most part you guys are doing a bang up job
the only items i have ever missed and been bummed were due to things like really limited numbers like the black chino selvedge western ihsh69
but i believe that was a production issue and not a ordering issue
the one thing i think could help ih more is a more consistent cut across the shirt rang, every shirt has a different cut to it and i understand that some of its due to materials and how they act differently but that cant account for it all
some shirts in almost the exact same material come out completely different (20-72 for example)
just my 2 cents -
Looking back over the 3+ years of the forum, Giles has said time and again that one of his biggest headaches is trying to predict demand and sizing. It's a total crapshoot for the most part. The recent run of TW shirts sold in a couple of hours, but other things that should have sold easily still linger on, even after hefty discounting (Forum tee shirts leap to mind). I don't doubt that the issue has been a constant source of debate for the Iron Heart crew, with no easy end in sight.
Sadly, I'm not smart enough or experienced enough in retail sales to try and tell Giles and Haraki how to do it better. I wish I could.
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According to his wiki page he currently lives in Berlin, so maybe he shops @DC4 … IH suits him very well...
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