Ask Giles and/or Alex Anything

[A Former User]

@DeeDee85 said in Ask Giles and/or Alex Anything:

Will the 13oz serge shirts make a return at any point? @Alex

big fan of these too. an overdyed one would be great

[Aetas]

@endo said in Ask Giles and/or Alex Anything:

when is this patch from?

This is a beautiful patch. First time I saw it on the IHJ-25 - Blanket Lined Chino Cloth Tanker Jacket around 2014. But as Giles said, it is quite a bit older @endo.

[endo]

now I want this jacket

[Bridger]

Is that the jacket Pete Mitchell wore at Miramar?

[truby]

Yo,

Do you even think about competition in business? Like do you view other Japanese denim brands as competitors?

[jordanscollected]

@Alex do you view your retailers as more of a distribution channel than a showroom/physical store/ for your products? It seems like in the U.S., most of the product releases rarely hit the store shelf at the retailers and may even be seen as a "disappointment" if they do.

The retailers advertise the drop just like IHUK, set a release date and time and go live online and lots of stuff sell out instantly just like IHUK releases.

My first example is ISP selling the N1. Having both locations in Southern Louisiana would make it hard for them to sell in store to local customers.

not sure if i'm wording this correctly, and not trying to sound like a dick, just curious on the business model

[Brandrea]

Further to a couple of the posts above …

Do you ever think about opening flagship boutique stores? Obviously you’d have to assess the demand but I’d think by now you might have some decent data by sales region. Purely a selfish though on my part, but I wonder if a market like Toronto would support it?

[Alex]

@truby sorry I missed this before - no, not really - if all the small Japanese denim brands grow and succeed together, its better for everyone. The biggest competition we face is large (non-Japanese, non-denim) brands wanting to make Japanese selvedge denim because it's now 'cool', and the pressure that puts on the mills we also want to use.

[Alex]

@jordanscollected hi Jeff, sorry for the slow reply - was flying back from Japan.

No, that is not how we see the retailer business at all, that is definitely how it seems at the moment, given the relative speed of sell-through everyone has, but not the intention. Far better for us to sell directly to an American than to sell to them via a retailer from a profit margin perspective, so it is certainly not the intention to just have them essentially act as drop shippers for us.

I think the demand for Iron Heart is higher then we all anticipated, and we are spread a little too thinly currently with total volume across all the outlets we sell to. We need to work out how to improve things so that the shops that stock iron Heart, and we ourselves, can carry at least core product for longer, rather than having this rapid sell through model

[Alex]

@Brandrea its not something that we have considered much recently, purley down to the fact that we don't have enough supply to service the demand of a new outlet, let alone an Iron Heart flagship

[Brandrea]

@Alex That makes sense. Sometimes “bigger isn’t better”. The Iron Heart ethos really resonates with your customer base. The scarcity factor may just be a small part of that

[jordanscollected]

@Alex I know there are certain things i wasn't able to purchase to do release timing and availability. It's somewhat frustrating, and somewhat a relief depending on the item that slipped away. We don't have much time to contemplate an item, and that can be a help or hinderance.

Thank you for the thoughtful response as always.

[Karol]

@Alex said in Ask Giles and/or Alex Anything:

@jordanscollected hi Jeff, sorry for the slow reply - was flying back from Japan.

No, that is not how we see the retailer business at all, that is definitely how it seems at the moment, given the relative speed of sell-through everyone has, but not the intention. Far better for us to sell directly to an American than to sell to them via a retailer from a profit margin perspective, so it is certainly not the intention to just have them essentially act as drop shippers for us.

I think the demand for Iron Heart is higher then we all anticipated, and we are spread a little too thinly currently with total volume across all the outlets we sell to. We need to work out how to improve things so that the shops that stock iron Heart, and we ourselves, can carry at least core product for longer, rather than having this rapid sell through model

Yes, Yes and Yes, strategy wise!!!

[truby]

@Alex pressure on the mills huh. Why don’t you guys with all your success buy the mills?