Tough Times: A Look Into the Current State of Streetwear
Arthur Chmielewski – HAVEN
What is your current strategy to keep busy and continue surviving given the current economic conditions?
Honestly, despite the times we haven’t changed up our strategy too much. We are still experiencing a great amount of growth. We find ourselves busier than we have ever been. I find myself working lots of overtime, which is a good thing.
How have sales worked out for you, how important and necessary of a retail tool is it? What sort of effect will these massive sales throughout retail affect the consumer when things pick-up again?
We try not to have too many sales, but it is inevitably part of any retail business and sometimes we want to give our loyal customers a break. We do offer free shipping promos and promotional codes once in awhile to keep things rolling online as well. Our product selection is pretty unique so we have a bit of an advantage, as we are one of the few outlets for many of our brands in North America. I think that shops that have brands that are more readily available are going to have to be very competitive with their pricing. With online shops becoming more and more prevalent as of late it is becoming a very global market place. Customers are becoming more knowledgeable and are searching out the best deals they can find.
Have you been more keen on certain types of advertisement or more willing to open up if you traditionally didn’t advertise?
We have done a little more print advertising in the city. However it is still very minimal, word of mouth is still our main marketing tool. We concentrate most our efforts online. We try to keep our customers updated using the latest online tools such as Facebook, forums, blogs, and regular email newsletters. These are all free forms of marketing and are very effective. We also try to keep our website updated regularly to keep customers checking back frequently.
What sort of lasting effect will the current situation have on your business/direction down the road?
We are being a little more cautious but still expect to grow at a good rate despite the times. We continue to stick to our long term strategies with expansionary plans this year. I’m excited to see how things pan out.
What sort of positives can you draw from this economic downturn if anything?
Shops/brands are forced to adapt and become better in order to survive. Overall I think quality across the board will improve. Better shops, better brands, and better quality overall.
In the current economic landscape, what sort of styles do you feel are an easier sell, has buying become a little more commercial?
People are looking for more classic items and want their purchases to be quality. They want their garments to last them season after season if they are paying a premium. We still have to be conscious of trends, but we stick to our buying principles.
We have never been “commercial”. We continue to stick to our niche brands and want to grow with them in the long term.
How do you approach risk-taking in this environment?
This past season we have cut down on some fringe brands. We need to always evolve our brand list but also want to be able to support the brands that have been with us from the get go. We’ve also concentrated our resources into brands that have proven to sell through, good quality and good partnerships with us. We want to be able to work with brands closely and work together on building up the shops image as well as the image of their respective brands. I think this year we will dedicate more energy into branding unique products and collaborations that our customers can appreciate.
With many people stressing that through hard-times emerges new creativity and opportunity, how true is this?
This is totally true. Survival of the fittest. I have a feeling a lot of stores and brands are going through some rough times especially stateside and unfortunately a lot of them might call it quits this year. Those that see the need to evolve and have the available resources will make it through and prosper, and those that stay the same and not really change with the current environment will unfortunately be swallowed up.
For small start-up brands, do you have any suggestions given both saturation and economic factors breathing down their neck?
It’s a very tough time to start up a new brand I think. As a buyer I like to have a little bit of a proven track record. I want brands with global recognition and growth potential. New brands will have to go all out guns blazing. The market is over-saturated and there a very few brands that are providing something exciting and different. I think the days of starting a t-shirt line and evolving into a cut-and-sew program are gone. Myself, I am looking for something that I can say “Wow” that’s fresh, different, and exciting.
Although a relatively general question, what has had the biggest impact on you from a business and personal perspective?
The biggest impact for us has been the very volatile exchange rates. We import a lot of our brands and unfortunately the Canadian exchange rate has dropped quite a bit in such a short period of time. We try to provide the best pricing we can but unfortunately as of late we have had to increase a lot of prices quite significantly. We had placed a lot of orders 6 months ago thinking that our Canadian dollar would remain on par with the USD, but that hasn’t been the case. Local customers feel the impact the most unfortunately. Hopefully our Canadian Dollar can rebound, but for the time being we are being a little more careful with how much and what we bring in after factoring in customs and currency exchanges.
Any closing notes you’d like to finish off with?
Thanks to all our Edmonton/Canadian and customers worldwide for supporting us this past year and thanks to Hypebeast for including us in the feature.
