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This week we're going to examine a segment of the men's lifestyle market that has, for a while, remained in the “shadows.” The 5 o'clock shadows to be exact. That market being none other than...the men's shaving market.                                                 “Right now,” feels like about the right time to discuss the issue as well because, like so many segments of the men's fashion/grooming/lifestyle market, the men's shaving space is in the midst of a rapid transformation. And, over the course of the next few blog posts, we'll discuss that transformation in detail, including how the market is evolving (business model), who the...

Hello everyone. Everybody knows I love doing contests and giveaways. The new over dye oxfords arrived this week. I couldn't think of a better time to do a contest. One shirt per day will be posted for 4 days.  It's very straight forward and simple. Here are the rules. Give the over dye oxfords a food name. Only foods and beverages will be accepted as answers. The first person to give the best answer that we ( WvG) feel represents the color of the shirt gets a free shirt shipped to them. If multiple people give the same answer it...

So how are these physical retail store, brand building expeditions actually working out for stores? After all, one can't argue with results (not entirely true actually). Well, as we noted earlier, for Warby Parker, less than 10% of all retail sales are attributable to physical store sales. So, one could suggest, it's not going well. But, one would be wrong to do so because it's still very early and more importantly, because the measurable returns on these physical locations are complicated to calculate. As an example, let's jump back to Bonobos (only because they have employed this strategy for a...

So we've discussed the “revival” of the physical retail store and why online first, online only (well at least at first online only) companies are expanding from the cloud to the curb. Furthermore, we've highlighted some of the key differences that separate these modern physical stores from the traditional ones, ones that have put many large retailers in precarious positions. Among those differences: 1) shared, centralized inventory which leads to leanly stocked stores that function more like dressing rooms and brand introduction centers 2) features including layout/design, inventory management, and staffing needs reflect the high degree of analysis performed by...