- Università: Bocconi
- Docenti:
Fabrizio Zerbini
- Studenti:
Cosimo Cigna, Giorgia Davi, Claudio Gericke, Ioanna Liakou , Moran Romjin, Yilei Xu
The market of fast fashion is nowadays characterized by three main components: its focus on trendiness, affordability and the disposable nature of the clothing. In fact, when combining the last component with the high number of collections launched annually and the difficulty of accurately predicting demand we arrive at the extremely detrimental impact of fast fashion to the environment. The fast fashion industry is one of the biggest environmental polluters with textile waste, water waste and global emissions values that are exorbitant and only increasing over time. On the other hand, consumers themselves have reduced the number of times they wear a garment of clothing before throwing it away, thus further contributing to the problem.
Through our innovative retail store, we wanted to focus on contributing in our own
way in solving this problem and so, the idea of EVOLV CUSTOMS was born. EVOLV CUSTOMS is a retail store bringing together the worlds of fashion, sustainability and art, leveraging the increasing demand for customized goods. Our main offer consists of upcycling deadstock from fast fashion brands that can be rendered unique thanks to our one-of-a-kind customization process. Our mission is to help consumers find their unique way of self-expression through fashion, while minimizing the massive waste generated by the clothing industry.
In order to develop our idea, we first focused on market research to understand the business context as well as the macro and micro-environment to factors influencing our store. We understood that there is a positive political environment surrounding eco-conscious businesses, while the sociocultural attitudes of Italians are favorable to our idea, since offline shopping is the most popular activity to do in Milan, especially for fast fashion. Our analysis of the environmental context only strengthened our belief that there is a need for our business. Deep-diving into the clothing industry in Italy, we identified an upward trend of interest in second-hand clothing and personalization from consumers, and an increasing interest in sustainable yet affordable options. Additionally, the current offering of competitors in the market for customized clothing lacks 1 on 1 interaction with the customers as well as variety when it comes to the customization process and the clothing items available. This evidence further convinced us that there is a gap in the market we
can exploit.
The target of EVOLV CUSTOMS are Green Consumers and Brand Loyalists, consumer segments we identified through elaboration of primary data gathered by the team. The segments consist of mainly females under 25 with a high willingness to pay for clothes, either due to a focus on sustainable options or because of their preference towards known brands. To win over these consumers, we placed our business in a competitive-pricing and easy-accessibility position along with a unique in-store experience and various choices on both price and design.
Focusing on the retailing mix of our store we first tackled the issue of location, determining that such a store would have great potential in the Porta Venezia zone of Milan, a place where our target customers spend their time and a strategic location to attract traffic flow. The layout of the store will be divided into two parts, the front and the back. The front part will consist of two custom work districts at the entrance surrounded by transparent glass for consumers to observe the process of customization, the reception and places for waiting or observation. The back part will include racks for both standard and custom clothes, four fitting rooms, a storage room and employee bathroom. The main decorative tone of our store will be minimalistic. Through the window displays of the store designed clothes as well as the offices of the artists will be visible to catch the attention of consumers. With respect to our promotional efforts, both an online and offline strategy were developed. Online channels will be our main methods to advertise our store and raise consumer awareness. However, as part of our launch strategy we considered participating in the East Market Milan, a large vintage and artisanal clothing market that could be a great opportunity to introduce our store to our audience.
About our pricing strategy, our products will be divided into t-shirt, hoodies, trousers/jeans, and tote bag segments and set prices for our products and services in accordance with the budget and demand estimation. Consumers can buy the designed clothes in our store or the 1-1 design with the artists. The price will be determined by the type of cloth they choose. With regards to financial performance, a detailed budget was made which included all the costs needed to operate a store and a business and the estimated demand from interested segments and traffic flow. All appeared to be stable growing trends after the first operating year. Thus, we believe under dedicated operation and careful strategic plan, our store will have a significant outcome financially and socially.
