How Cheap is Cheap Enough

𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐬. 𝐈𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐟𝐮𝐥.

I recently joined a gym after many years of working out at home and outdoors. A few factors influenced me. I got hooked by the shiny new toy idea that I saw it would be, my love of working out most every day of the week, and the convenience of an easy walk from my house, With the idea that I like to #buylocal outside of my incurable Amazon addiction. But that’s another story.

After much anticipation, I walked in on day seven after opening and proceeded to cancel the same day. Why you might ask, did I make such a drastic and quick decision? Well, it’s because I know a little something about how this story goes. I have seen the red flags way too many times in our industry with brands whose focus is not where it needs to be. 

Here are 3 takeaways from my experience and how they pertain to our world of fashion design and development. I want to make sure that you see the red flags too so that you can prevent them from happening in your brand. 

𝟏. 𝐃𝐎𝐍’𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐘 𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐋 𝐘𝐎𝐔’𝐕𝐄 𝐁𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐊𝐄.

Months before its opening there were amazing promises of complimentary massage chairs, infrared therapy ( whatever that is) and the like to draw potential members in. These sounded like great additions to a normal gym experience. Unfortunately, after walking in on the first day, I came to realize they were not meeting the basic standards. There were no towels. There was no shower soap and there were rolls of paper towels with some nondescript spray to clean the equipment.

The gym had every machine one could want, a smoothie bar, weights of every sort but there was no sense of who they were catering to. The everyday athlete, the weight lifter, or the newbie trying it out. The bottom line is that more is not always better and neither are the fancy add-ons. What is better is a quality product. As a mentor of mine used to say, a bargain is only a bargain if you are getting more than you pay for it. Not to mention that for someone like myself who was not joining because of the bargain in the first place, it was doubly disappointing.

𝟐.𝐁𝐀𝐃 𝐅𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐃𝐎𝐍’𝐓 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋.

In retrospect, for all the money that they paid multiple groups to stand outside every weekend in the months before opening, they could have put this into the real product which was the gym experience to make it better. (I could have given them a good resource for said towels 😉)

Of course, you need to market your products. And you need to build anticipation for your brand. At the same time, that hype should not preclude your time or efforts to work on making a superior product. This is a common story in every industry. A recent one in the world of fashion was the demise of a fast fashion lingerie brand. They talked so much about the founder, the stories, and the range of sizes. Yet missed the one fundamental that brought it all together. The product was terrible even for the age group and sizes that they were targeting. 

𝟑. 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐒𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐀𝐈𝐃

Maya Angelou said it best. 

"𝐈'𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝, 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥."

I felt cheap. Honestly, I did, and even while I was breaking a good sweat I couldn't get away from the feeling of this. That sweat could have also been because the space was incredibly warm from the minute I walked in. Additionally, the top of the waste paper basket was dirty. There was no one in sight cleaning anything. And it was quite empty for being prime time on a Sunday morning. All these and more rubbed off on the way I began to feel about myself in this atmosphere.

My story has a good ending though. While I had a visceral Hell No to that place, my inner fitness pal screamed a big Hell Yes to joining another. So I immediately began to think of options that I had not considered and would make a decision to join one of them.  Sometimes you have to waste some time and money on the duds to find the diamonds. 

𝐁𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐦 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐞 -  𝐀 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭-𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐞 𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭 𝐚 𝐇𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐘𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞!

𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬.

So, there you have it – 3 strategies for preventing a quick exit from your customer. If you have any questions about a specific quandary in your own fashion design or product development consulting journey please reach out. We are happy to help. 

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