No Turn On Red

The other day I talked about the use of educational content in e-mails versus the use of strict promotion/sale content. Customers may go to your site to find a specific product, but they are more often going to your site to fill a need or find a solution to a problem. Educational content is needed, especially on the web, to guide customers to the products that they seek based on the problems they are trying to solve.

With this in mind, I’m impressed by the simple homepage feature that Lands’ End has on their site. The concept is simple: customers are looking for outerwear and the site is guiding them to the type of outerwear they need based on the climate that they live in. It’s a real simple concept that works well, from the user perspective:

I think apparel retailers often over look the types of problems that they are actually solving with their clothing. Focusing on fashion, trends and styles is very important but don’t overlook the utility of what you sell.

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Came across this press release from Wet Seal announcing the launch of their online fashion community. Simple concept – users browse website and put together outfits that they can share with friends. Site makes it easy to view, rate, and (most importantly) buy other outfits that people have created.

They have a screencast on their site showing how it all works. (Caution: intended audience is teenage girls, so female narrator says “sweet!” after the competion of a few steps.)

The site seems slow this afternoon, but I was able to check out the functionality earlier and I like how it is put together. This is a pure win for the retailer – increases time on the site, increases awareness of different fashion offerings, and will ultimately drive sales. Would love to see more retailers incorporate this kind of technology.

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The Channel Checkers are reporting that Kohl’s has started selling Vera Wang merchandise earlier than the advertised street date of September 9:

We have been surprised so far in our survey. 12 of the 25 (48%) stores we have called this week have told us that they already have the Vera Wang line and are selling it. We were told there is a Vera Wang perfume on sale at Kohl’s now too. Many of the stores that have the line appear to be in the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast. Stores in Washington and Oregon and South Carolina and Georgia provided the bulk of our positive responses. We called one store in New York City and they claim to be stocking the line already as well.

Read more at their site under: Vera Wang Line Sneaking Into Kohl’s Early.

In the past, Kohl’s generally rolls out their national branch launches in highly coordinated affairs, unveiling the new line in all of the markets on the same day. We saw this in 2005 with the launch of Candies, as an exclusive Kohl’s brand, and we’ve seen it through the past few years of growth in the Chaps brand. These launches, from new fixturing to promotions to actual merchandise are all tied in to hit the stores on the same day, with major national ad campaigns behind them.

There are exceptions to this: Casa Cristina rolled out in the Southwest in Q4 2006 prior to a national launch in early 2007. More contemporary lines, such as Elle and Stamp 10, have seen staggered growth after successful launches. The retailer has also tested new products and concepts on smaller levels before rolling out nationally – case in point is the recent addition of a private-label tuxedo line to the menswear departments of their stores in a slow rollout.

It does surprise me to hear that Kohl’s may have let this merchandise out early. It seems to be against their past behavior. Is Kohl’s really selling Vera Wang merchandise early in an attempt to reach out to some test markets? This is the largest brand launch in the retailer’s history – so perhaps it is time to do things differently than they have in the past.

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This morning, Dell announced new styles of their Inspiron series of laptops that will be available in a range of colors. Available in 8 colors (pink, yellow, white, red, black, blue and espresso), the laptops will start out at $749. While this isn’t a typical retail-related post, it is interesting because Dell chose to make this announcement with the backdrop of Macy’s Herald Square.

In addition to the new laptop colors, they’ve unveiled the ultra-thin XPS M1330 laptop and have extended the Inspiron line (traditionally a laptop line for Dell) into desktop PCs and monitors. The new Inspiron desktop line will feature “clean arctic white and silver design”.

One of the secrets to Apple’s success over recent years has been in providing consumers with well designed and exciting devices. Dell has lost market share, in the PC laptop field, to HP and they are trying to reclaim it by employing a tactic similar to what has been successful for Apple. By using Macy’s, as part of the unveiling, they are trying to reach out to a fashion-forward customer (who wants a pink laptop).

More information on the Inspiron notebooks is available on the Dell website.

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In one of the odder pairings of retail giants in recent memory, Dell computers has announced that they are going to be unveiling new consumer products tomorrow morning at Macy’s Herald Square location:

In a unique event at Macy’s Herald Square in New York, Dell executives will unveil several new and exciting products that deliver a hi-def entertainment experience, true mobility with broadband connectivity anywhere, and style and self expression.

Interesting combination of retailers. Speculation from CNBC is that this could be the announcement of a new line of image conscious laptops that has long been speculated by Engadget (see CNBC’s Margaret Brennan’s blog for more information and Engadget for photos of in-development Dell laptops).

I’m looking forward to see how Macy’s is playing in to this. Will they merely serve as the backdrop for the announcement or is there something more coming out that will surprise a lot of people?

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It has been a long time coming, but we are all one step closer to seeing Vera Wang’s new collection in Kohl’s stores. A preview night was held last week, were the press and the public got to see the first glimpses of the collection, known as Simply Vera. WWD released some preview photos of the collection:

This style is much more fashion forward than anything else Kohl’s is currently offering. But I’m excited to see what the individual pieces look like when the line rolls out in September.

I first talked about this collection last August (here and here) and personally, I think this is a huge move for Kohl’s. When it was announced, it may not have seemed like a perfect fit between the designer and the retailer. Why Kohl’s? But as Kohl’s has unveiled other brand launches and grown their contemporary fashion offerings over the past few seasons, it now seems like all the wheels are in motion for a very huge launch.

After announcing a very positive Q1 results on today’s conference call, the retailer outlined some of their future merchandising plans:

The launch of the Simply Vera collection and the new housewares line by Food Network will be supported by new fixturing. This is on top of new fixturing that most stores already received this year for the expansion of Chaps into the Home and Plus Size areas.

Intimates will see much growth in the so-called contemporary and updated areas with the launch of Simply Vera, the expansion of the Daisy Fuentes line into more doors, and the launch of a new private label Intimates brand called Moments. The new line will launch in 200 doors in June with further growth in the Fall and will be available in all stores by Q1 2008.

Also on the growth front, they say that the launch of the new Elle line in Misses is going so well that they are ramping up the rollout with an additional 250 stores receiving the product in September and all stores carrying the line by Q1 2008.

Like I said before, it may have seemed that the match between designer and retailer may not have seemed to mesh with the core Kohl’s shopper. But as I look across the ‘blogosphere’, I’m seeing a lot of early positive reaction to these preview photos. Judging by the comments, Kohl’s is attracting attention from people who previously hadn’t shopped at the retailer.

Just a few of the blogs that I’m seeing activity on: Miss Lovely, The Budget Fashionista, Catwalk Queen, nitro:licious, MTV Style Blog, and FabSugar.

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The New York Times is reporting that, today, the trade organization Shop.org will release a report saying that, in 2006, apparel outsold computer hardware online while still offering tremendous room to grow sales:

In 2006, revenue from skirts, suits and shoes reached $18.3 billion, surpassing that from PCs, printers and word-processing programs, which totaled $17.2 billion, according to a report to be released today by a major trade group.

The surging popularity of clothing on the Web defies predictions that fashion — which is hard enough to buy in stores, with the aid of sales clerks and fitting rooms — would be difficult, if not impossible, to translate onto the Internet.

[...]

Consumers are still largely reluctant to buy clothing online, at least compared with products like computers. In 2006, they made only 8 percent of all clothing purchases on the Web, compared with 41 percent of computers, 21 percent of books and 15 percent of baby supplies, according to the Shop.org report, which was prepared by Forrester Research.

This is great news for apparel retailers and very good news for e-tailers (does anyone still use that term?). Since the overall saturation percentage is still low, online, that means retailers still have tons of room to grow their interactive marketing.

With the rise of web sales, I hope that more brick and mortar retailers further their commitment to e-commerce and continue to realize the power of the Internet not only for sales, but also for a means to interact with consumers.

More from the New York Times (see: Less Risk Is Seen in Buying Clothes Online).

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A search on monster.com for “sephora manager” comes up with four opportunities at JC Penney in San Diego, Pleasanton CA, Northridge CA, and Columbus OH. During JC Penney’s Q3 conference call, they said that they were looking to add Sephora locations to 50 JC Penneys in 2007. Could these four stores be the next four to get this new shop concept?

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WWD had the scoop at midnight, but now the official press release is out: Kohl’s and Vera Wang Announce Exclusive New Collection.

The Very Vera by Vera Wang brand is licensed by a subsidiary of Vera Wang Group to Kohl’s under a long-term agreement. Kohl’s will be the exclusive provider and marketer in the United States of all Very Vera by Vera Wang merchandise such as sportswear, intimate apparel, handbags, leather accessories, jewelry, footwear, linens and towels.

“The Very Vera by Vera Wang brand will retain my personal design sensibility of a relaxed effortless approach to fashion,” Vera Wang states. “I am thrilled to create a collection of creative lifestyle and apparel products for Kohl’s. This new partnership with Kohl’s, a company with incredible integrity and trust in the marketplace, is a true honor.”

I guess in about a year we will see how this line will fit in with Kohl’s, both within price and lifestyle classification, and what exactly is going to get shuffled around to make room for this new line.

And before this, I didn’t know that Vera Wang has a deal with Serta to make matresses using her name. Nice.

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I don’t have a subscription to WWD, but there is a teaser for a new article up now:

NEW YORK — After a courtship of almost two years, Vera Wang has finally said “I do” to Kohl’s Corp.

The designer and Kohl’s said Wednesday that they will team up to create a premium fashion and lifestyle brand called Very Vera by Vera Wang, which will be available at more than 900 Kohl’s moderate department stores and kohls.com beginning in fall 2007.

I’m sure more information will come later today, but this has got to be a huge win for Kohl’s. Great name designer and a new exclusive line to strengthen their “Only at Kohl’s” strategy. I can’t wait to find out more about this deal.

Much like Issac Mizrahi’s line with Target, this is a great way for a high end fashion designer to become more accessable and reach the public at large. The Wall Street Journal had a great article last year providing some background on the working relationship between Mizrahi and Target (see Class to Mass).

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