Apparel industry identifies speed as the new luxury
While a majority of businesses think their clients’ expectations have risen, and a similar proportion agree that their customers expect more personalisation, the stand-out metric is speed.
Business today, is about making a shift from service to experience.
On-line retailer Net-a-Porter understands the need for speed
Mark Sebba, the firm’s ex-CEO, believes that speed is very important, as do their customers.
This is a crucial part of its offering: order a dress online by 1pm in London or Manhattan, and have it delivered to your door before the end of the day.
“Our customers are busy people and time is the new luxury,” acknowledges Mr Sebba.
Similarly, for customers who are not happy with the delivered item, Net-a-Porter will collect it again free of charge.
In order to meet the demands of its customers, Net-a-Porter has opened in Hong Kong, so that it can deliver more rapidly on the new demand in Asia. With this new expansion, Net-a-Porter will be able to deliver within 24 hours of any Metropolitan centre in the world.
To put it simply, speed has become a competitive differentiator. Firms that will be able to help their customers save time will leverage this to stand out from their rivals.
The need for speed is seen most obviously in the retail and service industries, but consumers who are used to getting what they want quickly in their personal lives, are also coming to expect the same in their working lives.
Recent research has found that:
- customer expectations have changed dramatically in the past five years
- customers expect a more personalised service than they did five years ago
- customers expect faster service than they did five years ago
For the most part, firms will face pressure to pick up the pace.
The key challenge for B2B is the intrinsic tension between providing a faster service and maintaining quality levels. Companies will have to figure out where in their business process they are able to speed up the service delivery, and meet these new challenging demands.
Immago sets the bar
We began establishing the foundations of our Asia/Pacific footprint over 20 years ago. As the sourcing habits of Australian and New Zealand companies evolve, we continue to lay the groundwork, to further expand our footprint throughout Asia and the Pacific, to meet the demanding needs of time to market.
Our priority is to add value to our customers’ supply chain. There isn’t room for building in additional costs or lead-times.
Speed has become a competitive differentiator
Today, it’s about giving the customer what they want, when they want it and how they want it, or they’ll go someplace else. This means a couple of things:
- we provide tangible benefits through a managed solution that achieves timely and cost effective supply
- we have programs with multinational brands where turnaround from receipt of data to delivery of the label/ticket media is 48 hours
Technology enables change
The old adage – adapt or vanish – remains true in light of today’s digital era.
Retailers understand that falling behind in the strategic use of digital technologies, can weaken their relationship with their consumers.
Just like innovative supply chain technology has powered retailers to deliver products on time to their customers, digital technologies can be a tremendous asset when it comes to taking the customer experience to the next level.
Innovation is what will separate the leaders from the laggards.
But it’s about integrating innovations into digital technologies and supply chain processes that will deliver the ultimate experience to the customer.
At Immago we will continue to help our customers save time, which will leverage us to stand out from our competitors.
Our team offer effective solutions for brand imagery through customised labels and packaging. From design to distribution, our services include clothing labels, RFID tagging, barcode labels and custom retail packaging.
We understand that no two businesses are the same and work with you to create a tailored product design that will ensure a consistent representation of your brand. Supplying the USA and Asia Pacific region, we have representatives across the globe, so call us today to find out how we can help you.