Representing more than clothing for many, Everlane has found success with a truly thoughtful consumer who appreciates the brand for its purposeful design, beautiful functionality and conscious craftsmanship. Moreover, these conscious consumers know the strength of their purchasing power and the influence they have to support personal values, which is why so many choose to embrace Everlane’s transparency for the true cost of every product.
But to stand by that transparency, a brand’s strategy is mission-critical. How will you land on the right price for the right product at the right time for all of your stock keeping units consistently?
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To break down how Everlane builds its strategy, Kelly Wang, director of merchandising at Everlane, and Jade Huang, vice president of Centric Market Intelligence at Centric Software, joined Arthur Zaczkiewicz, executive editor of strategic content development at WWD, in a WWD-hosted webinar. During the discussion, the group shared insights into the methods used to transform the way Everlane works to be efficient and profitable while remaining true to their mission: a brand that’s transparent, ethical and designed to last.
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“Everlane uses three pillars and those are so ingrained into the team,” Wang said. “They are to keep the earth cool, keep the earth clean and to do right by people. And these commitments we’ve made to ourselves we’ve made to our customers. They include broad-scope commitments that are things like being net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Our radical focus on these goals don’t say anywhere apparel, but instead are broader mission statements that make us unique and connect us to something bigger than just clothing.”
This uniqueness, she said, also ties back into how Everlane thinks about products. For example, around 70 percent of the brand’s assortment is carried over from season to season. In this way, it is inherently more sustainable than a fast-fashion brand because they’re not bringing in as much newness. Using Centric Software, Everlane is also able to monitor newness in comparison to competitors, which provides an understanding and a benchmark of newness contribution within the market. “We know we are under index, but that is inherently tied to our promise and our mission to have a timeless style that is for that conscious consumer,” Wang said.
Further sharing its radical transparency with consumers, Everlane also shares its progress through impact reports for its consumers. These reports, said Wang, share progress while acknowledging that the finish line is still ahead.
“We know we haven’t reached that perfection yet, but we want to share with our customers and our fans the journey that we’re on and so we are transparent about that path of the goals that we meet the goals that we’re still on track for and when we believe we will get there,” Wang said. “We’re also transparent in our pricing structure. So that idea of this conscious consumer wanting to know who made their clothing, how much it cost etc. I think it is very radical to share that level of detail.”
All with the intention of bringing awareness to the quality and the value of a product, these transparent details include how much labor cost for the item, how much transit cost, where it was made and who made it along the supply chain. Everlane even shares stories from its factories on its website.
To effectively put its mission into practice, Everlane utilizes technology including Centric Software. Wang explained that through the software company’s trend radar reports, Everlane better-understood patterns to make better decisions about creating products within certain trends. Having the data enables the ability to validate if something is a sustaining style or a passing trend to ensure relevancy and reduce the creation of waste.
“Inherently there’s going to be better margins when you have more of a core business because it’s stabilized and allows you to buy in more depth and quantities and be able to negotiate further,” Wang said. “it’s something that also helps us ensure that we have the right amount of margin room to then invest in some of the seasonal things.”
Being able to understand demand and timing for when products are promoted and discounted also helps Everlane ensure it is launching the right seasonal product, and the right amount of seasonal product at the right time to meet peak demand to avoid excess inventory and waste.
Data has become a huge part of Everlane’s process and decision-making, she said, “because we look to data to validate some of the things that we are doing that are maybe more disruptive or radical or contrary to what is the norm in the industry, and it helps us better cultivate our future strategies and also understand our historical performance.”
From her perspective and experience working with many different brands with various goals, Huang said that she has seen the data that Centric Software provides enable the practical side of the process design. And there are different ways of doing that. Data can be the assistant to what a brand already knows how to do intrinsically.
Wang and Wang agreed that the level of efficiency that Centric Software’s technology and data provide is critical. Having a framework and then taking the analyzed data against it, helps brands make even better decisions for the future. It’s also an idea that can translate to nearly any vertical or activity as they create a strategy for design, inventory and accurate pricing.