Shopping for new clothes on a weekend is a favorite pastime, even when it's not raining. Around the world, I see marketers adding new twists to what some call the "retail therapy" experience.
In a mall in Kazakhstan, shoppers find an indoor river, and they can ride an indoor monorail, just like the one at Disneyland. At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, there are carnival rides and an assortment of LEGOs kids and adults can use to build whatever they want.
Slip on a ZOZOSUIT from the Japanese retailer, ZOZO, and the stretchy black bodysuit, with the help of a mobile app, takes perfect measurements for a new outfit. In your own home, the 150 white dot sensors covering the suit enable a 3-D scan to make, for example, custom-fit jeans for online purchase at prices starting at $58. But It's only a matter of time before in store customers also might expect to use this innovation to insure a perfect fit that doesn't require additional tailoring.
UK retailer, ASOS, already entices customers with photographs and augmented reality (AR) showing how the same outfit looks on different body types.
Mall customers in Chinese In Time retail restrooms can use augmented reality mirrors to test makeup products before using a mobile code to purchase Lancome, Benefit, or Shu Uemura cosmetics from the vending machine next to them.
Brands have begun to bundle products with services. Adidas sneakers serve as metro passes in Berlin. Nike's NBA Jerseys connect wearers to digital content about their favorite teams and players. A Tuxe bodysuit comes with an offer for free online business and life coaching sessions.
At REI Co-op, customers know the clothing, footwear, and camping gear they purchase meet sustainable business practices.
Combat Flip Flops (combatfllipflops.com) converts objects used in warfare into flip flops and accessories. Melted unexploded ordinance (UXO) become jewelry.
Graphic T-shirts say a lot these days. Keep looking until you find the message that suits you to a "T."
Showing posts with label shoes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shoes. Show all posts
Friday, July 20, 2018
Sunday, May 28, 2017
Keep Closet Rejects Out of Landfills and Oceans
At a middle school reunion we were passing around pictures, when I saw one of me wearing a vest I had made out of an outgrown skirt. For a time, the landfill was spared. Schools where students wear uniforms spare landfills and parents' expenses by hosting back-to-school exchanges to recycle outgrown uniforms to younger classmates. Besides outgrowing clothes and shoes, there are plenty of reasons to get rid of old clothes. Styles change, moths eat sweaters, washing at the wrong heat setting shrinks pants.
In addition to recycling clothes at yard sales or donating them to thrift stores, retailers, such as H&M, are offering new options. Stores have bins and exchange discount coupons for used clothing customers bring in for donations to charities. Some Nike and Converse stores have Reuse-A-Shoe programs that collect any brand of athletic shoes (none with spikes or cleats and no sandals, flip-flops, dress shoes, or boots, however). At facilities in Memphis, Tennessee, or Meerhout, Belgium (whichever is closest), shoes are ground into raw material and used for sport and playground surfaces, apparel, and new footwear. More information about Nike's recycling program is available at nikegrind.com.
There are efforts to keep discarded clothing out of landfills by unraveling sweaters to reuse wool and by turning cotton items into cleaning cloths, insulation, bedding, and home furnishings.
Synthetic fibers are a worse problem, since washing clothes made from textiles, such as polyester and acrylic, with detergents releases micro plastic fibers that slip through wastewater treatment plants and into waterways, where they become "food" for aquatic organisms, such as plankton, and fish. A single fleece jacket can release as many as a million synthetic fibers in a single washing, especially if washed with powdered, rather than liquid, detergent. Fabric softener has been shown to reduce shedding, as does using a short, gentle wash cycle and cool water. Research also has shown coatings like chitosan, a finish derived from crustacean shells, have helped reduce fiber loss. Washing machine devices that trap the synthetic fibers from clothes held in mesh bags and balls that attract fibers also are being tried. When synthetic materials end up in landfills, they can take from 20 to 200 years to decompose.
Overall, the subject of fabric pollution has been slow to attract financing for research and development of recycling processes and ways to reduce fabric pollution. Reducing clothing purchases is one way consumers can instantly help solve the problem.
In addition to recycling clothes at yard sales or donating them to thrift stores, retailers, such as H&M, are offering new options. Stores have bins and exchange discount coupons for used clothing customers bring in for donations to charities. Some Nike and Converse stores have Reuse-A-Shoe programs that collect any brand of athletic shoes (none with spikes or cleats and no sandals, flip-flops, dress shoes, or boots, however). At facilities in Memphis, Tennessee, or Meerhout, Belgium (whichever is closest), shoes are ground into raw material and used for sport and playground surfaces, apparel, and new footwear. More information about Nike's recycling program is available at nikegrind.com.
There are efforts to keep discarded clothing out of landfills by unraveling sweaters to reuse wool and by turning cotton items into cleaning cloths, insulation, bedding, and home furnishings.
Synthetic fibers are a worse problem, since washing clothes made from textiles, such as polyester and acrylic, with detergents releases micro plastic fibers that slip through wastewater treatment plants and into waterways, where they become "food" for aquatic organisms, such as plankton, and fish. A single fleece jacket can release as many as a million synthetic fibers in a single washing, especially if washed with powdered, rather than liquid, detergent. Fabric softener has been shown to reduce shedding, as does using a short, gentle wash cycle and cool water. Research also has shown coatings like chitosan, a finish derived from crustacean shells, have helped reduce fiber loss. Washing machine devices that trap the synthetic fibers from clothes held in mesh bags and balls that attract fibers also are being tried. When synthetic materials end up in landfills, they can take from 20 to 200 years to decompose.
Overall, the subject of fabric pollution has been slow to attract financing for research and development of recycling processes and ways to reduce fabric pollution. Reducing clothing purchases is one way consumers can instantly help solve the problem.
Saturday, March 4, 2017
How to Become an International Entrepreneur
In Shoe Dog, Phil Knight, the creator/founder of NIKE, quotes the maxim, "When goods don't pass international borders, soldiers will." He adds, "Trade is the path of coexistence, cooperation. Peace feeds on prosperity."
Knight's book encourages those who would work for world peace and their own happiness. He frankly presents the ways he handled and mishandled the challenges every international entrepreneur faces and tells them they have a big bull's eye on their backs. He observes trolls everywhere trying to block, thwart, and say no to the entrepreneurial spirit. Elsewhere, I've read entrepreneurs can best avoid discouragement by telling no one, when they first decide to start a business.
Knight's business began modestly. He sold shoes out of the trunk of his car at sporting events and opened his first office next to a pulsating bar.
He embraced a management style of telling people what to do (not how to do things) and letting them surprise him with the results. What did one of his early employees do? He set up a data base keeping information about his retail customers, not only what they bought but also their birthdays so he could send cards. And he furnished a store with comfortable chairs bought at yard sales, shelved books about running along with shoes, hung posters of runners, and gave his best customers T-shirts with the company logo on them.
Knight outlines sources of funding: family and friends; local, regional, national, and international banks; venture capitalists; trading companies; public A and B stock offerings. Each funding option has pluses and minuses. Trading companies, for example, lend money with the aim of buying out/taking over the business unless, at the offset, a business stipulates its unwillingness to sell.
Besides the never-ending need to find funding, Knight ran into other problems. Steve Prefontaine, the famous distance runner who was NIKE's first celebrity endorser, died in an automobile accident. Packing too many innovations into a new shoe led to a recall. Despite a contract, the first overseas manufacturer Knight relied on to provide the shoes he sold decided to dump him and get a new distributor. NIKE would have better luck when it was first to find a shoe supplier in China. In the US, competitors tried to put NIKE out of business by using an American Selling Price customs provision. After making a high priced shoe similar to NIKE's, US manufacturers asked the government to impose a $25 million duty on NIKE imports that totaled 20% of their American selling prices. Even after negotiations, NIKE paid a custom's duty of $9 million.
Setbacks can turn into learning experiences and worldwide benefits. After the media blasted conditions in its overseas factories, NIKE responded by becoming a leader in the factory reform movement. To eliminate the toxic process of bonding shoe uppers to soles in a rubber room, NIKE invented a fume-less water-based bonding agent that the company shared with its competitors.
And, finally, Shoe Dog teaches the cure for burnout is more work, and the Japanese word, kensho, means the aha experience of enlightenment, when you suddenly understand.
Knight's book encourages those who would work for world peace and their own happiness. He frankly presents the ways he handled and mishandled the challenges every international entrepreneur faces and tells them they have a big bull's eye on their backs. He observes trolls everywhere trying to block, thwart, and say no to the entrepreneurial spirit. Elsewhere, I've read entrepreneurs can best avoid discouragement by telling no one, when they first decide to start a business.
Knight's business began modestly. He sold shoes out of the trunk of his car at sporting events and opened his first office next to a pulsating bar.
He embraced a management style of telling people what to do (not how to do things) and letting them surprise him with the results. What did one of his early employees do? He set up a data base keeping information about his retail customers, not only what they bought but also their birthdays so he could send cards. And he furnished a store with comfortable chairs bought at yard sales, shelved books about running along with shoes, hung posters of runners, and gave his best customers T-shirts with the company logo on them.
Knight outlines sources of funding: family and friends; local, regional, national, and international banks; venture capitalists; trading companies; public A and B stock offerings. Each funding option has pluses and minuses. Trading companies, for example, lend money with the aim of buying out/taking over the business unless, at the offset, a business stipulates its unwillingness to sell.
Besides the never-ending need to find funding, Knight ran into other problems. Steve Prefontaine, the famous distance runner who was NIKE's first celebrity endorser, died in an automobile accident. Packing too many innovations into a new shoe led to a recall. Despite a contract, the first overseas manufacturer Knight relied on to provide the shoes he sold decided to dump him and get a new distributor. NIKE would have better luck when it was first to find a shoe supplier in China. In the US, competitors tried to put NIKE out of business by using an American Selling Price customs provision. After making a high priced shoe similar to NIKE's, US manufacturers asked the government to impose a $25 million duty on NIKE imports that totaled 20% of their American selling prices. Even after negotiations, NIKE paid a custom's duty of $9 million.
Setbacks can turn into learning experiences and worldwide benefits. After the media blasted conditions in its overseas factories, NIKE responded by becoming a leader in the factory reform movement. To eliminate the toxic process of bonding shoe uppers to soles in a rubber room, NIKE invented a fume-less water-based bonding agent that the company shared with its competitors.
And, finally, Shoe Dog teaches the cure for burnout is more work, and the Japanese word, kensho, means the aha experience of enlightenment, when you suddenly understand.
Friday, June 10, 2016
Clothes: A Platform to Address Global Issues
Sure, clothes are a platform to advertise brands. Interlocking "C"s say Chanel, and red soles mark Louboutin stiletto heels.
Angela Luna, a student at famed Parsons School of Design in New York, realized clothes were a platform that could do more. Like the peasant dresses and flowered hair wreathes that contrasted peace with war in the Vietnam era, she began designing the clothes today's war refugees need in order to carry their homes on their backs.
Luna created a line of seven, unisex, one-size-fits-all ponchos and jackets that convert into tents, sleeping bags, flotation devices, and baby carriers. (You can see her designs at ecouterre.com.) Her clothes are versatile, durable, and waterproof. Reflective on one side, jackets and baby carriers provide visibility at night and turn inside out to blend in for daytime wear. Being a design student, Luna added contrasting tapes and as much styling as possible to her functional clothing.
Citing the TOMS shoe program that lets everyone know that, if you are wearing a pair of TOMS shoes, you have helped give a pair of new shoes to a needy child, Luna sees clothes as an unexpected platform to start a discussion about global issues. Seeing a little girl wearing a stylish jacket made out of white faux fur can remind others lots of bunnies have been saved. How can more clothes start a discussion?
Angela Luna, a student at famed Parsons School of Design in New York, realized clothes were a platform that could do more. Like the peasant dresses and flowered hair wreathes that contrasted peace with war in the Vietnam era, she began designing the clothes today's war refugees need in order to carry their homes on their backs.
Luna created a line of seven, unisex, one-size-fits-all ponchos and jackets that convert into tents, sleeping bags, flotation devices, and baby carriers. (You can see her designs at ecouterre.com.) Her clothes are versatile, durable, and waterproof. Reflective on one side, jackets and baby carriers provide visibility at night and turn inside out to blend in for daytime wear. Being a design student, Luna added contrasting tapes and as much styling as possible to her functional clothing.
Citing the TOMS shoe program that lets everyone know that, if you are wearing a pair of TOMS shoes, you have helped give a pair of new shoes to a needy child, Luna sees clothes as an unexpected platform to start a discussion about global issues. Seeing a little girl wearing a stylish jacket made out of white faux fur can remind others lots of bunnies have been saved. How can more clothes start a discussion?
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