STORES

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When Melodie van der Baan owned her own fashion boutique in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, the biggest expense on her balance sheet was unsold inventory, which in her case were piles of top-notch branded merchandise.

The only recourse at the time was an informal network of “jobbers” who would drop by the store and offer 10 cents on the dollar for excess inventory. The buyers would then consolidate those items with purchases from other boutiques and sell them to an off-price retailer. The problem was that the economics of this arrangement were hard to justify.

“A lot of times at that price, you might as well just bring it to the consignment store, which is actually the No. 1 thing that an independent retailer will do, especially if the jobber won’t take it,” van der Baan told Retail Brew.

The alternative is keeping goods in the store and steadily marking them down in hopes of reclaiming a little more of their original investment. The problem with this approach is the opportunity cost of time. “They might get more like $30, $40, $50 for that same $100 item, but it could take them six, eight, 12 months [to sell it],” she said.

This experience in the trenches of the boutique fashion business inspired van der Baan to begin a multiyear experiment. In 2020, she launched Max Retail with the goal of finding a more profitable home for excess inventory, a key ingredient in the current off-price boom, which van der Baan is trying to redirect away from the bargain bin.

Keep reading here.—AV

      

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MARKETING

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They’re mad as hell and they’re not going to open your emails anymore.

That’s the message for brands that send promotional emails too frequently and that miss the mark, according to a new report from Validity, an email marketing software company that surveyed 1,000 US adults ages 18 and older in September.

When consumers were asked how they typically manage promotional emails from brands during the holiday season, 1 in 4 said they mark them as spam. Even more unsubscribe (26%) or delete without reading (28%).

Getting reported as spam “should be particularly worrisome for marketers,” because it’s a “negative signal to mailbox providers that jeopardizes future inbox placement,” the report warns.

Keep reading here.—AAN

      

COMMUNITY

Ben Lewis

On Wednesdays, we wear pink spotlight Retail Brew’s readers. Want to be featured in an upcoming edition? Click here to introduce yourself.

Ben Lewis is CEO of baby and kids food brand Little Spoon, sold at retailers like Target and Wegmans.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in retail? I started Little Spoon in 2017 after spending time in the food industry and seeing that, despite this massive shift toward fresh food, baby food had barely changed in decades. Today, we’re building the go-to food platform for modern parents, from infant formula through the big kid years. My job is to keep us obsessed with that parent—what’s stressing them out, what they don’t trust, what would make their lives easier—and make sure everything we build stays anchored to solving those problems. At the simplest level, my job is to keep us moving toward one goal: making parents’ lives easier and kids healthier.

One thing we can’t guess about your job from your LinkedIn profile? How much of the job is controlled chaos. There’s an incredible amount of context switching and range, sometimes literally hour to hour. One minute we’re working through a regulatory or legal issue, the next I’m pitching a retailer, then reviewing brand campaign creative, talking with a manufacturing partner, or taste testing a new product our team just developed in the test kitchen. I think that range is one of the most energizing parts of the job. You have to be able to zoom all the way in, zoom all the way out, and constantly reset your brain for a completely different problem.

What’s your favorite project you’ve worked on? Little Spoon’s retail launch last fall, in which we debuted at Target nationally.

Keep reading here.—EC

      

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swapping skus

Today’s top retail reads.

Package deal: UPS CEO Carol Tome said the company expects to make more money delivering a lower volume of packages this holiday season. (Reuters)

Sweet and sour: Holiday candy prices have reached scary heights this year. (the New York Times)

Open and clothes: Aritizia laid out a five-year growth plan that includes new store openings and expansion of its digital business. (WWD)

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