Brands In Sportswear Are Cutting Out The Middlemen

Shoppers did not need an invitation to New York Fashion Week to get the feeling that they had special access to the Coach brand. During a period when conventional merchants are having difficulties to go after consumers, Coach is among many brands that progressively skip the malls to sell their purses, sneakers, and clothing directly to shoppers through many channels and mediums such as Instagram live.

Nike’s ‘PHOTOiD’ Designs Sneakers With Instagram Photos

That direct connection – via websites, social media and sometimes their own brand stores – helps businesses establish customer loyalty, get more management around their images and increase profits by beating the middleman. And as more department stores and boutiques close their doors or locations, direct links to customers can also help with fashion and keeping good brands at home.

Sneaker giant Adidas has two apps that allow fans to reserve limited-release shoes that are available exclusively in their own stores. Customers viewing Nike Instagram feeds for their favorite Nike Shoes like “Nike Soccer” or “Nike Women” can make purchases at Nike.com through links that brings customers directly to the site.

Connect with customers directly

An important tool in reaching customers is the Instagram shopping function, launched last year, which allows a user to click on the branded post or on the ‘shop’ button and then buy the shirt, cosmetics or pair of shoes that catch their attention to pull. More than 200 million Instagram users worldwide watch one or more company profiles every day.

Due to features such as that and more, brands from the top 100 online clothing retailers who sold their products directly to consumers through their websites had a 31% increase in sales last year, according to NPD’s Checkout E-commerce Tracking Index. That is in comparison with a 24% increase in sales at retail websites that offered products from multiple brands.

“Since the introduction to Instagram shopping, we have observed solid acceptance in the US,” said Susan Rose, director of Instagram for product marketing.

For starters, the common question would be – how do I get more followers on Instagram (hoe krijg ik meer volgers op Instagram?)? There are various strategies for targeting the right audience for your brand. Once you learned these strategies you will have more control over the flow of your brand on the IG platform.

The coach began to have more control over the sale of his handbags and accessories. Now it progressively depends on its own websites and a worldwide network of stores.

Looking for loyalty from younger buyers

To make the competition even fiercer, Millennials and also the Generation Z teenagers are not as attached to brand names like their parents. Because of this, brand names need to perform harder to generate an emotional connection with them.

Nike increasingly sells sneakers like its LeBron line directly to consumers. Nike has also made direct sales to consumers a priority. It says that the sales of Nike.com and the company’s apps last year amounted to $ 2 billion – nearly double what the company contributed to those channels in 2015.

The sportswear company does not leave external sellers. But it will “shift” from stores that have no premium service or experiences, said Trevor Edwards, departing president of Nike, during an event in October. When regular stores don’t present exceptional consumer experience, it eventually becomes less profitable because customers lose interest over time.

To deal with the excitement of brand names heading straight to shoppers, several merchants are more and more building their very own private brand names to develop their very own merchandise.