Unique hype collection buy6/22/2023 Items selling at such a high premium only adds to the cachet of the brand. Then once someone buys Supreme on the resale market often the person who was once a buyer becomes a reseller generating an even higher markup for the merchandise. This fuels an ongoing cycle in the resale market that makes the brand even more exclusive and popular. Resale and social media growth provide free marketing and more exposure. Resale clothing is one of the fastest growing segments of the apparel market with the market for secondhand apparel growing from $28 billion in 2019 to an estimated $64 billion by 2024. Many of the customers that race to get their hands on a Supreme drop often resell their merchandise online for as much as ten times the original retail price. Once more and more hip-hop fans saw their favourite artists wearing Supreme it expanded Supreme’s each.ģ. These collaborations helped to elevate Supreme’s status while giving the brands it partnered with more street credibility. Celebrities, especially those from the hip hop culture have also helped to generate word of mouth for the brand with celebrities such as A$AP Rocky, Tyler the Creator and Kanye West wearing the brand. Supreme has also collaborated with Lacoste, Nike, Timberland, Louis Vuitton and Burberry. In the early days of Supreme’s existence Jebbia noticed something interesting. Customers that shopped in his store in Soho in New York were often wearing designer clothing along with Supreme clothing. Then Jebbia realized that customers liked shopping high low by paring clothing from Supreme with brands such as Louis Vuitton. Since its early days Supreme has collaborated with other brands but it was a collaboration with designer brand Comme des Garcons in 2012 that was one of the first ones that significantly increased the brand’s exposure. Collaborations that create a bigger audience. Speaking about in-demand streetwear brands, Adam Alter, a marketing professor at NYU Stern School of Business has said: “if you want to create a scarcity frenzy, and your brand has a strong following, all you need to do is release a large number of different products, but very few of each one.”Ģ. With consumers often driven by FOMO – a fear of missing out, traffic to Supreme’s website during one of its drops can increase by up to 17,000%. The effectiveness of Supreme’s approach should not be underestimated as habits are central to human nature. Supreme’s customers automatically check the company’s website each week at 11:00 am on Thursdays to see what is new and exciting. Having the drops occur at a specific time reinforces this habit. Customers do not have to guess when new merchandise will be available they know the exact times and are always ready to shop.Įven more impressive is the fact that once merchandise is gone it is almost never sold by Supreme again. This creates a heightened level of desire since customers know that if they do not get their hands on a piece of merchandise they will never see it in a Supreme store or on its website again. This turns all of Supreme’s drops immediately into limited edition collections. This approach is different than the one taken by brands that drop an entire collection all at one time. Scarcity that heightens demand. With a level of precision and discipline that is characteristic of the widely popular streetwear brand, every Thursday morning at 11:00 am during the summer/spring and fall/winter seasons Supreme drops a limited collection of merchandise. Demand for Supreme’s drops greatly outstrip supply with merchandise often selling out within seconds. The carefully crafted drops have created a habit that keeps customers coming back to Supreme each week to see what new merchandise is up for sale. In 2020 VF Corporation, which owns The North Face, Timberland, and Vans bought Supreme for $2.1 billion. What has led to Supreme’s ascent and dominance in the clothing market? It can be traced back to a carefully crafted strategy that has capitalized on (1) the scarcity of its products, (2) the credibility of brand collaborations, (3) the growth of the resale market and the power of social media and (4) ever evolving fashion tastes.ġ. The deal was significant because it was the first time such a large private equity firm invested in the streetwear market. The popularity of the brand which sells jackets, hoodies, t-shirts, and other accessories online as well as in its stores caught the eye of private equity firm The Carlyle Group which made a $500 million investment in the brand in 2017 valuing the company at $1 billion. British-American entrepreneur James Jebbia started Supreme out of a skateboard shop in New York City in 1994. Streetwear brand Supreme is one of the most sought after apparel brands in the world.
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