So a lot of turbulence in retail as some of it was caused by the pandemic.
Supply chain problems, inflation problems, things like that.
Where are we today? Is it coming down any.
Well, I don't things are calm at all. Not even close.
These are all my personal opinions. Big issues are
inconsistency. SALES are up and down in my experience
anyway. And I call them a group of friends of
mine who who were in the business. Where we're today is uncertain.
And I don't think anyone has a crystal wall who will tell you what spring will
be like, what summer will be like, or next year is a lot of speculators.
I'm not a forecaster and I'd like to meet someone who can tell us what's
going to happen. There are a lot of factors besides
uncertainty, and a lot of people have too much inventory, including Alex M.
That's leftover from last year and they'd probably have to liquidate that.
Now, I assume discounting, so I'm not sure where it is.
The other issue is inflation. You know, the government has figures
that say it's down this. But look at a year ago the price of
eggs, which it's incredibly well known at itself.
Milk, gasoline, airplane tickets, hotels,
food in general. And it reminds people every day that
they're there. Things are all much more expensive at
the same time. People have jobs, more people have jobs
than they've ever had before. And that means there is income being
generated. Does that help?
Retail particularly got a lot of those jobs are not the high paid job.
Right. I always wonder how they know how many
people every week get a job. That's just a little pet peeve of mine.
They have jobs, but I think the huge amount of layoffs and the publicity they
get has to have people worried about their job security.
And there's so many unknowns going on in the world today.
You know, internationally in America. So I don't know what the onion the
employment means. And I don't know what income, as you
mentioned, those jobs are paying. So as a retailer, do you think about
competing for essentially the wallet share of consumers, that is to say, how
much money they're paying for eggs, for gas versus what they're paying for
apparel? Or you may be competing as other
retailers? You know, we're competing against
ourselves. I've always done that in the other
experiences I had. It was a little harder because we were
so we grew so large. But right now, I really don't pay much
to eat. Of course, pay attention.
Alex M. product.
I look at other retailers both for ideas and getting a sense.
Alex Mills pricing, which I think is very advantageous to the market.
And so I am. But I'm always competing with whoever.
And that's not going to stop the other issue affecting the way that the
consumer world. And I don't know about other sectors is
that so much of apparel sold today is on sale
and it's ubiquitous. And so you have companies for disc good
discount companies, T.J. Max always comes to mind who make the
you'd have to be concerned in my purse slipping sell brands that are
distributed, you know, in many, many places.
Do you have any pricing power at all that just safe to feel that I'm not just
going to take the cheapest one, I want the Alix Steel one or whatever the brand
is? Yes, we my own experience give value no
matter what it is. We don't price goods to put on sale.
And if you look at a lot of competitors and what don't, they take very large
markups so that 70 they might go 80 plus and the
designers can do that. They are very unique and special
products. But then the sale aspect.
Oh, I can get this for this. I can get that for that.
Go online and look at the products. So I think that affects a lot of people.
Our pricing, we're told, is very fair. Pricing is an art, although a lot of our
business is an art, not a science. What will a customer would be willing to
pay for that? So last week, put a a handed out
hand, crafted the.
Artist makes two a day and we said, what's this worth?
And we put a price on it that didn't meet our markup standards but met our
marketing standards, and it's very special and unique.
People like that. So.
So here in what are we we try to address particularly big investors.
This is one of us. I know that's not your business.
That's not what you used to be. But no.
5 investors are looking for gold and make money.
Given the difficulty of the business you just described, Haidi Lun make money in
this business. Well, you have to be.
Product is number one. If you have good product, that's the
most important thing. Good value
and good style. And of course, communications.
You make money by high sell through. Was people loving your goods.
That's how you make money. You know, at Apple, they made a fortune
in money cause people and they actually, in my opinion, developed kind of a
monopoly with the iPhone. But I've never really
I've always been involved in making money and sometimes and not the
companies I was with. You hit a wall.
Fashion is never guaranteed not to go this way.
And the other factors. I like small.
I think the smaller companies I know are all doing very well.
Focus and a niche and a point of view. Can you get people to love your goods
online? Well, that's all we do is online.
I mean, we have two small stores with a little person out there, I always say
with a little engine that could I kind of.
I'm having fun. Of course, I worry about things because
it's only 25 of us. It's a it's a small office.
And, you know, I serve a microphone, a pager at J.
Crew. Now, the pages, me hollering through the
office and. But I like small and and it's much
easier to be small and not a big public company where every quarter.
Well, then it was monthly sales. The comps I member Gap's went from
seventy eight to 18. Along with that August million, 1987.
And then the stock market crash and long term.
And it's not it's not quarterly, although I find a lot of investors for
people I know investors fall in our companies now.
We have no outside investors more mercenary than this.
And that's okay, too. It's the way the world works.
But for you, it's the product, the end. It's the product.
It's the people in the team. No one does it themselves.
And it's a point of view and of pushing very strong operating partners.
That's not what I do either. I understand it, but I don't have time
between all the other students. But in weekly meetings, you look at the
numbers, your financial look at the debt and whatever else we have.