Project RE:LOVE & The Outlet
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Something we’ve struggled with over the years is how we move stuff that just isn’t selling quickly enough.
Of course, one argument is that we should never reduce anything because our clothes are timeless and don’t go out of style. Whilst that’s on the whole correct, we don’t have infinite storage space and definitely don’t have an infinite amount of cash to tie up in stock!
We have always been uncomfortable with the concept of “specials” and the way we’ve handled them because having discounted items in main categories both messed up and probably “cheapened” the website. But without an alternative route to market, we have had to work out a way of moving stuff that needs clearing in the least inelegant way possible.
We are going to give the following a try and see how it works. We have created an Iron Heart “Outlet”. Product we’ve decided to reduce in price will move to the Outlet and will no longer appear in any other category on the website, so our main categories don’t get muddled with reduced items.
The sort of items that will go into the Outlet will be:
• Products that for whatever reason just aren’t selling. I wish that we had perfect vision and never made stuff that does not sell, but we don’t.
• Products that did sell, but we have an erratic and/or incomplete set of sizes left.
• Certain sizes of an otherwise great selling item: for example a pair of jeans where we have about 15 x tag 36 left , but zero tag 33 and 34. We need to shift the tag 36 so that we can justify initiating another production run to backfill the other sizes.
• Superseded products, where a new version has been released with slight differences in design and/or fabric.
• One-off cock-ups (for instance where we have hemmed a pair of jeans to the wrong length).
• Occasional slightly imperfect and/or worn returned items.
From time to time, the Outlet may be closed for a few days for maintenance and updates, re-opening with new stock and possibly some amended prices.
As ever, your feedback is welcomed.
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Very cool @Giles. Excellent way to handle the products that aren't moving. Well done.
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a) Reduced items used to live in the "Specials" category AND their original "home" category. We did not like reduced items living along side full priced items, we felt that it was messy. They now only exist in Outlet
b) We also felt that "Specials" may encourage clicks to something that people thought was special rather than reduced.
c) We certainly do not have a monopoly on good ideas. What we have done may be a bad idea, but we won't know until we've tried it. -
This is a good idea. IHM-11 @$400 is a great deal. Makes me want to buy it & I've already got one.
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Iron Heart Outlet has reopened for business!
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I'm assuming if there's an item with a specific size in the label (e.g. IH-816 - Navy 17oz Duck Work Pants (tag 30)), but the size has an X over it when I go to add to the cart, it's sold out?
Other items say "sold out" but I wasn't sure if that was a manual change or not…
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