Hello friends,
If you would like to read this month’s newsletter then I’m going to tell you about SALES, what they mean to me and why I’ve decided to have them.
But first, let’s take a step back. In a previous article I told you who was for me the conscious consumer and the huge power of realities like ours when it comes to redistribute resources and knowledge of our sector. To show the story of a piece of clothing it’s an honour and also a wonderful way to connect people with the creation process of physical goods. Understanding everything that is needed to create something from scratch it’s the first step to take more aware and responsible decisions on consumption.
It also must be said that when it comes to independent labels that manufacture in a conscious and careful way we’re also talking as a result about limited production capacity and an higher price, ( even if justified ) that make the labour of wonderful things less attainable.
I am aware of this gap and, as a company, I consider to be imperative finding the way to mitigate it.
As a consumer I believe that sales are a practical way to approach to companies that I’m not familiar with and that I’m curious about, but that normally would be out of my expense budget or I don’t feel to invest in before getting to know the quality. As a business I think that lowering my prices and therefore the gain is a form of inclusion, offering the possibility of making myself known even by who doesn’t feel like spending more than a certain amount of money on their purchase.
Being Alloa Casale a label that only makes continuative and on request articles, we don’t see sales as a need to dispose of the storage but they are for us a chance to make ourselves known or a small present for the ones that are already our clients.
Simply said, I took the decision of investing in sales as a marketing and not sell-off activity. When I define that price of a product nearly 35% includes the production costs intended as labour force ( cutting, sewing and packaging products ), materials ( fabric, tags, rubber bands, buttons, adhesive and wire ) and waste ( of tissue and margin of error when it comes to the time frame ).
The remaining 65% is divided into operating costs ( the design of the piece of clothing, shipments and the materials for this latter, shootings, taxes, publicity and office supplies ) and the net profit that I reinvest in new projects and overall in the activity.
For the month of July I decided to halve the budget meant for the publicity and to give up on a portion of the net profit so that I can guarantee for the whole month a discount of 20% on our pieces.
Even if we are a small reality made only by me and my husband, taking account of the costs and of the profit is very important because it allows us to grow without drastically raising the prices, to reinvest in our activity and to manage the discounts in peace.
For a lot of supply chain realities it’s hard to take into consideration the idea of partecipate to sales because they aren’t the one who directly produce, but they rely on third party companies and as a result they are much more bound by the production costs. By directly producing the goods I sell, I’m not bound and therefore i have the possibility to apply a direct discount more easily.
It is important to invest in a wardrobe attentive to the environment and to the rights of those who produce and it is just as important to provide the stimulus to do it.
It’s healthy to invest in pieces that will make our life easier, that welcome our bodies with delicious kindness, it’s wonderful and it is an honour to be able to establish the conditions to afford to do that.
FROM TOMORROW, UNTIL THE END OF JULY, 20% DISCOUNT ON ALL ALLOA CASALE ITEMS AWAITS YOU.
As always thanks for your attention
-Maria-
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