← Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty
Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty
Episode 255: I'm With The Brand (the price is right?), part eight
01:41:46
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Hi, it's me, Amanda. And interestingly enough, this episode actually already has a cold open. But I wanted to tack another message in front of that cold open. So here we go. The cold open of the cold open. Over the past couple weeks, many of you have reached out to get my thoughts on the closure of Remake. For those of you who are like, what in the heck is Remake? Remake is an organization that for the past past 10 years, has been advocating on behalf of garment workers around the world, as well as, you know, speaking out against fast fashion and offering advice for people who are trying to move away from fast fashion. And talking about Remake is really complicated for me. It took me at least a week to really figure out what I wanted to say to you all about this because there were a lot of thoughts to pull together. And so what I'm about to say to you all this is from the part of me that works really hard to be a source of hope and motivation for all of you. And the part of me that cries every time I think about Remake decided to shut itself in the bathroom until I was done writing this and recording it. But both parts of me agree, this is not the end of the slow fashion movement. It's just part of the growth and awakening the many of us have been experiencing over the last few years. Now, to be fully transparent, it's hard for me to be completely neutral about Remake. My feelings are just so complicated. A few years ago, the organization's carelessness became an incredibly traumatic experience for me. It started with an Instagram post shared without my permission that heavily implied that my bipolar disorder had led to shopping addiction. And the content of this post implied that we had worked in partnership on this post. The fact was, I knew nothing about it. It was a surprise to me. And, you know, I probably wouldn't have okayed a post outing me as a person with bipolar disorder to all of Remake's hundreds of thousands of followers. Or at least, I don't know. No, I probably just wouldn't, period. I don't know any of those people. And, you know, being publicly designated as the person in the slow fashion movement with bipolar disorder is, well, it's a risky place to be. The moment I got the push notification about the post, I was excited at first because I was like, wow, Remake is finally noticing my work and giving me a boost. And then I looked at the post and I felt so sick. I didn't know what to do and kind of put my phone away until. Until the number of times I was being tagged and dmed about this were too much for me to ignore. Now the organization could have just pulled the post and apologized but instead it turned into a full on nightmare that included bullying via email and zoom from the CEO of the organization and a follow up Instagram post that painted me as a fame hungry liar behind the scenes I was well 1. I had shingles at the time, which you know, a miserable place to be on top of all of this. But I was also. This was really really hard. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. I was engaging in self harm as a coping mechanism because this, this whole experience was so traumatic and I still can see the marks on my left arm for it that remind me every day of Remake. And honestly at that moment it was all so stressful. The last thing I wanted was to deal with this kind of bullshit. The last thing that I wanted was to actually be famous on the Internet for anything good or bad. And I was very seriously considering ending Clothes Horse because you know, I know people say this a lot, but this was just not what I had signed up for and that experience changed me forever. I still feel very nervous standing up for myself online. I have a great deal of paranoia about my work being stolen or copied, and I have been intensely distrustful of anyone involved with Remake, which has made me turn down opportunities and potential friendships. I still find myself intentionally separating myself from those who are involved with the organization. And that's got its own sad, painful aspect to it. However, despite all of that, I know that all of this work advocating for humans that Remake has been doing, that work is being done by humans. And that means it will sometimes be imperfect. People make mistakes and they hurt one another accidentally all the time. And what Remake did to me does not, and I mean does not cancel out the years of impactful work done by the organization and its ambassadors and its larger community around the world. While Remake has been an integral part of many campaigns and projects over the years, its most important legacy is the community that developed around it. So many people found purpose, connection and personal growth via Remake's community organizing. And from afar, I have watched so many of you literally change the course of your lives after getting involved with your local Remake chapter. And I do not want that to end that community that you've all built out of it, it needs to stick around. However, I will say this. I do think, and I say this as a person with a podcast literally called Clothes Horse, that a lot has changed over the past few years, both in the slow fashion movement and the world at large. We can no longer view the fast fashion system and its human impact as a separate, specific issue. Fast fashion is part of a larger set of interconnected issues that threaten our planet and our future. Uncontrollable greed, the rise of fascism, widening wealth inequality, lack of oversight, and repercussions for the wealthiest in our world. And technology wielded as a tool to divide us. It's no coincidence that we see fashion and cosmetics billionaires like LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault or Ronald Lauder supporting Donald Trump. It's no coincidence that Les Wexner, who is behind so many mall brands including Bath and Body Works, it's no coincidence that he's all over the Epstein files. It's no coincidence that we see executives from fast fashion conglomerates like urbn, which you know is the parent company of Anthropologie, Free People, Urban Outfitters, and Nuuly. We see those executives donating to Republican candidates. It all makes sense when you view it all together. I think that we get so hung up on the shopping of it all that we forget to zoom out and see that fast fashion is just one piece of the puzzle. And we need to address it all to make change. Because the thing is, fascism and fast fashion, they're just fruits of the same poisoned tree. And it's a tree that grows from unchecked GRE and disregard for other humans. It's a tree that regards humans merely as workers and wallets. It's a tree whose roots suck up all of the water resources and sun, leaving little for everyone else. It's a tree that ultimately destroys everything and everyone as it grows and grows. And it's a huge tree that seems to be growing so fast you cannot take your eye off of it for a moment. But the thing is, we can cut down that tree. It's not easy for sure. The ax that we need to cut it down is super heavy. It's going to require a lot of chopping. It's going to require a lot of time. And one person or one organization can't lift that axe. It's easy to get tired from all of that chopping. It's going to require patience and hard work and time. But most importantly, we need everyone helping to get the job done. Everybody needs to be taking their turn with that axe and chopping away. And what that means is extending our work and our community beyond slow fashion, politics, human rights, anti racism, feminism, animal rights, environmentalism, child care, small business, education, research, healthcare, food. We must join forces with everyone who cares about these things. And even more that I didn't list because this is not a comprehensive list. Basically, people who care about things, we need to work with them. That's how we get the work done. Community and solidarity are the way forward. And yes, I do worry about who will be the connector now that remake is gone. But I'm also excited to see how we can build even larger communities when we extend our work and passion beyond dismantling fast fashion. When we work on all of these things with the larger group, do you know what happens? All this other great stuff and and fast fashion gets dismantled because it's all connected. I always say that slow fashion is a way of life. It's being a concerned citizen, it's voting, it's organizing within our communities, educating others, running for office, sharing our time and expertise, showing up for our neighbors, and of course, changing our own relationship with shopping, clothes and stuff. It's all connected. And all of us who care about dismantling fast fashion, we want a better world. I know that we can make that happen. I believe in us. All right, Dustin, let's get some cute music in here. To transition into the episode. Foreign, Let's do a little hashtag buyer's life imagination exercise. Okay? Shake it off. Close your eyes. Do whatever you need to do. Imagine this. You're sitting at your desk at your buying job at any brand. Pick your favorite or your least favorite. It's all about the same. After you work there long enough, it can be any brand selling just about anything around the world. If you've decided that you're going to work specifically in fashion, you're probably wearing a full face of makeup. You're hoping your bangs aren't parting themselves down the middle. Again, you're wondering why you made the foolish decision to wear a strapless bra to work today. Raise your hand if you've been there. I've got both hands in the air right now. And of course, if it's summertime, you're freezing your butt off, possibly wearing a desk coat while wrapping a blanket around your legs. You've just taken a break from Vlookup formulas and emails to eat an underwhelming $15 salad. Although it's inflation, so maybe it's more like $20 now, you're simultaneously scrolling Instagram while wondering if you've been drinking enough water today. And while you're reassuring yourself that yes, salad without dressing is good, someone thrusts a sweater in front of you. Or it could be a necklace, throw pillow, pair of socks, lip balm. Really anything you look up to see one of your co workers and she asks, how much would you pay for this? By now you've been working and buying long enough to know what this person is really asking you. How much would the customer pay for this item? Not necessarily how much you would pay because you get an employee discount or you know that that sweater is acrylic or that pillow isn't washable and you wouldn't actually buy it. No, you're trying to figure out what the customer, the target customer for your employer's brand would pay for that item. And that really depends on what your employer's brand is all about. The price that your customer is willing to pay is called the perceived value. Meaning the price a customer is willing to pay is based on their interpretation of an item's value, the impression that item is making on them. All that to say perceived value can be rooted in tangible quality. 14 karat gold versus surgical steel. Alpaca versus acrylic. The amount of RAM a computer has. Learning that one the hard way these days, serving size like a small drink versus a large drink. And yes, we will pay more or less based on those criteria, but ultimately, what we are willing to pay is based on something far less tangible. Vibes. And as I have said before, 95% of the reason we buy anything, where we buy it and when we buy it is purely psychological. And how much we are willing to pay is also part of that. That's the thing about pricing. Sure, it needs to math the math, right? The cost of producing that product needs to be covered. It needs to hit the margin target your employer has set for you. And that margin target account for the company's total overhead expenses and leaves room for net profit that will drive stock prices and pay shareholders and cover executive bonuses. But no matter what your margin target is, if the price you need to charge to hit that target and to make the math math isn't what a customer is willing to pay, well, then it's back to the drawing board. And when you know what a customer's perceived value of that item is, you have to engineer that item to make the price work and of course hope that the customer still likes it. This means potentially bringing down the cost of the item so that you can price it lower. You might change up the fabric, the yarn, the ingredients, etc. You might make it smaller, make a maxi skirt, a mini skirt, turn it into a crop top. A big pillow becomes a small pillow. A lip balm just shrinks a little bit. Maybe you cut out some of the details you know you like. Remove, remove the pockets from the dress. You reduce the embroidery on the pillow. Now the lip balm doesn't come in the box. It's just floating free in a tube or a pot. There are so many of these little changes that you can make to shave off every cent to make the math, math. But the risk here is that after all of these changes, it might no longer be desirable to the customer. The perceived value might drop or even disappear entirely. The other approach is to say, hey, maybe we can make this product seem more expensive, raising the customer's perceived value of it. Of course, the catch here is that you have to make the item seem nicer without spending more money to make it. So it's all about creating the illusion of value, right? Because the physical value of this product has not changed. But we're going to make some little changes that make it seem more expensive. For example, maybe the packaging colors change, the box switches to a matte card stock. The graphic design gets tweaked to align with current graphic design trends. Or maybe the design mimics a more high end brand. You will see this a ton in cosmetics and personal care products. Drugstore brands are always trying to mimic the color palettes, fonts and designs of more high end brands, like Glossier's minimalist Millennial pink and white design has been copied so many times at this point that glossier no longer feels unique or even premium. And by the way, premium is a word you're going to hear me use a lot through this episode. And I mean, there are a lot of different definitions for premium, but in the world of buying, in the world of fast fashion, really in the world of retail and branding, we use the term premium a lot to speak to a higher perceived value. So if something seems premium, it implies that the customer is willing to pay a higher price for that, whether it's a brand or a specific item. And the fact of the matter is, everybody knocking off Glossier for like, I don't know, five, six, seven years now has made the brand seem a lot less premium. And I do think it has caused a lot of troubles for that business, which we will talk about more in a future episode. If it's jewelry or other metal items, you can take a page out of the Urban Outfitters Playbook book antique the metal to make it less shiny. Yeah, I know that sounds so silly, but that's what we did with every single jewelry piece and hair accessory when I worked there. Yes, it was the same $1.90 jewelry that Forever 21 was selling. We were literally buying it from the same vendors and factories, but by just making the metal less shiny, a little bit less true gold or true silver, or we could charge $18 or even $28 for it. And we would, like, I don't know, every three months or so, maybe a little bit more often, the UK buyers for urban would come to the office and, you know, we'd have to take a turn with them, walking them through everything we had on order, seeing if there was anything that they wanted to buy into alongside us. And when we would go for jewelry and hair accessories, really anything that was made of metal, they never wanted to order anything that we were doing in those areas because the UK customer, at least at that time in the aughts, preferred very shiny, very yellowy gold, very bright silver. And we were antiquing everything. And it was just so interesting to me, like, how to us, the antiqued gold looked more like brass, felt more valuable, but to a UK customer, that would actually seem dirty and cheap. That's how complicated perceived value is. If it's a textile item, maybe you can do an extra wash on it or tweak the color slightly, because something that feels a little softer, it also feels more valuable. The same goes for color. Even turning the saturation down a little bit on a color can make it seem more premium sometimes, especially with sweaters, scarves, and hats. I actually found in my experience, that you can actually increase the perceived value of a knit item by swapping into loftier, even more synthetic yarn, which is actually way cheaper, but people would pay more money for it. Once again, none of these changes improve the quality of the item, yet they fundamentally change the the value of that item. They increase the vibes, the positive vibes. And when you get down to brass tacks, perhaps they've been antiqued, these brass tacks. I don't know. This idea of perceived value is all an illusion. There are two phrases that I find super triggering from years of working in buying departments, and yet I catch myself saying them all the time. One is, oh, my God, that is so cute. And the other is, ooh, that looks expensive. Always in reference to something that is not in fact expensive, but has been tweaked to seem expensive to increase that perceived value. That's the thing about perceived value and pricing. In this century, more than a decade into the fast fashion era, it's all about building an illusion of value. And that illusion is part of the larger mega illusion that a brand creates. You know, like the emotional connection with customers, the identity that it lends to its customers so they will continue to show up. Yes, pricing is just another part of emotional branding because we all have a lot of emotions wrapped up in price and value. Wait, did someone say branding? Did they say emotional branding? You know what that means. It sounds like it's time for another installment of I'm with the Brand, and this time we will be asking, when is the price truly right? Foreign. Welcome to clotheshorse, the podcast that costs a lot of money to look this cheap. I'm your host, Amanda, and this is episode 255, part 8 in an ongoing series about brands and how they influence our identities and drive consumerism. If you're new to the podcast or need a refresher because I took a little break from this series, go back and get started with part one. In this episode we are going to unpack the vibes and strategies around the number you see on a price tag. Because pricing is so complicated. If you're feeling skeptical about how the price we are willing to pay for something is influenced by vibes, I guarantee you are going to feel very differently by the end of this episode. And I just want to announce two more things before we jump into the episode. One is that I have 10 postcards remaining and they are already stamped and ready to go. So if you have not signed up for a postcard yet, this is your last chance. I just took a stack to the post office yesterday and I have just this little tiny bit left. We already put the stamps on them so I really want to use them. The link to get your card is in the show notes. For these last few cards it is limited to US addresses because I'm out of international stamps and they are so expensive they cost me like a $50 a piece. So I'm cutting off the international ones. I guess I've been really amazed by how global clotheshors so wow, I feel very international now. Second, I have a ton of merch inventory, iron ons, stickers, pins, all left over from the tour and I really want to get it out of the house and recoup some of the money I spent on it. So for the next month, you elite podcast listeners get 50% off everything on the website with the promo code. The price is right and I will share that in the show notes. Yeah, come and get some stickers and iron ons and do cool stuff with them. Years ago I had a friend who was working on a pretty daunting project turning drugstore brand Wet n Wild into a more premium brand. If you're unfamiliar with this brand. I'm pretty sure that means you were never a teenage girl or a teen goth. I will say that Wet N Wild made black lipstick that cost $1 when I was in high school and it was a very important part of my development. Well, Wet N Wild has been around since the late 70s. It is usually the least expensive brand of cosmetics found in drugstores and mass retailers. Just about everything is under doll with most of the products being under $5. My first lipstick was without a doubt Wet n Wild, and you bet it was glitter color changing. I remember it was green, but it turned pink on your lips. It smelled like. What I later came to recognize is the smell of beer. I don't know. I don't know. Science guys. Okay, Wet N Wild is cruelty free and most products are vegan. So if you've also ever had a membership to PETA or you love animals, you've definitely bought some Wet n Wild. If you were a teen goth, aspiring animal rights activist like myself, you bought a lot of Wet n Wild. But I will say on top of, you know, being cruelty free, primarily vegan, very affordable, the quality is actually pretty decent. And the brand has won a lot of awards over the years for their formulations. Well, in the mid-2010s, when my friend was brought in to work on this, Wet N Wild was having a bit of an identity crisis as company leadership was wondering, we have this good product, it's cruelty free, there is a loyal fan base. Why can't we raise our prices to be more in line with Revlon or l'? Oreal? I'm sure they were also motivated by customer loyalty to Sephora's own in house brand of makeup. The thing about that Sephora brand makeup is, yes, it was the least expensive option in a Sephora store, but the prices were still significantly higher than what Wet N Wild was offering at that point. Why couldn't Wet n Wild capture the same fan base? Right. People who care less about the bigger picture of like, aspirational branding, but would care a lot more about like quality, consistency and would see that as value. Right. The problem, as my friend figured out pretty fast, is that Wet n Wild just has a lower perceived value, even though the product is decent and as good, if not better than more expensive drugstore options. There were just a lot of issues that made an increased price seem impossible. What was keeping its perceived value so low? Well, first, it's the elephant in the room here. The brand name. It was kind of cute in the 80s, but in an already Saturated market. It sounds cheap and out of date. I mean, try comparing it to glossier Tarte Mac Nars. I found a post on Reddit from eight years ago discussing the brand name and someone called it, quote, silly and porny. Another person added that Wet N Wild is also the name of a chain of water parks, which also feels like a complicated issue to me. Right? So the name is a problem, right? It is reducing the perceived value of this brand, like right out of the gate before you even look at the products. But there's even more to unpack because Wet n Wild has always been associated with teenagers. And even the current Wet N Wild about page declares quote Wet n Wild starts as everyone's first beauty brand. And for an ageist culture that glorifies you youth, we don't actually think of teenagers as an aspirational brand. A brand that is associated with younger people is expected to be less expensive. So once again, another thing that is reducing the perceived value of Wet and Wild. But then there was the packaging. It just looked and still looks kind of cheap. Which is not to say that the packaging costs any less than any other drugstore brands, but. But back then, and even now, it's shiny, the graphic design is a little stale. Other drugstore brands like Elf and Nyx were actually making a jump in terms of perceived value back then because they were using the right cardstock and they had matte jar lids and minimal art and font. They were even doing something as simple as using black palettes instead of white palettes, which made the contents seem more expensive. Were Nyx and Elf any better than Wet N Wild? Probably not, but they just looked more expensive. So so far we've got, okay, the brand name affecting the perceived value, the association with teenagers, also a strike against the brand, and then the packaging just looking and feeling kind of cheap strictly because of this sort of like art direction and design. Then there was the in store experience. Like a lot of drugstore brands, Wet n Wild was and is on a special fixture designed just for the brand. And in many stores back then and still now, it is often at the far end of the makeup aisle. You know, that liminal space where you find nail files, tweezers and polish remover. If it wasn't there, it was on an end cap of another aisle sort of set aside from the rest of the makeup. This alone made the brand seem less desirable. Like I said, a lot of our perception of the value of an item is strictly psychological. Right? And having a brand away from the other cosmetic brands could raise the Perceived value, right? Like if it was in a case in the front of the store, maybe you needed to ask for assistance to test things or, I don't know, just had a really elaborate display element, okay, that could increase the perceived value, but when it's actually just on another aisle at the back end of an aisle, it just feels like it should be cheap. If you don't believe me on that one, how many of you have ever been to Target? A lot of you, right? Hopefully not in any recent days. But if you have, I'm sure you're minimizing your spending there for a lot of really good reasons. But the thing that Target has always done, and I say this as a person who's always looking to see what's on sale for a lot of different reasons, is they always put the clearance products on an end cap at the end of the aisle, right? Because we look at that place as a less premium location, right? We expect things to be deals there. It's kind of hidden. You have to round the corner to see it. You have to go the end of the aisle. It's like a whole thing, right? That placement of Wet N Wild in stores at the end of an aisle kind of turned the opposite direction makes Wet N Wild seem like a cheaper, less desirable product. Even though, once again, the quality of Wet N Wild itself is not lower than just about any other brand at the drugstore. And in many cases, these items are actually like a really good value, right? And worth buying. And I find them on like holy grail lists on Reddit all the time. So people do love Wet n Wild. The product is good, it just has a lower perceived value. So ultimately my friend's advice to the brand was this. Forget about becoming premium. Instead, be this hidden secret, this super value that only those in the know get to use. Lean into the cruelty free and the vegan aspect, talk up the awards and formulations, make people feel like they are getting this extra special deal, like they are smarter than everyone else who's been paying 10 times more for something similar at Sephora. When you say all that out loud, it actually sounds a lot like, say, the TJ Maxx strategy that we discussed all the way back in the beginning of this series. Making people feel like they're part of this secret super smart club is a highly potent form of emotional branding. Okay, like, not to brag because to be honest, this is a depressing thing to brag about, but I am really good at taking something kind of cheap and making it feel more expensive, raising that perceived value. And I have to say I learned everything I know about doing that that from the years I worked at Urban Outfitters, because all of the urban brands, Urban Outfitters, anthro free people and even nuuly are making fast fashion and really fast everything look like it's not fast fashion. Now. They're not the only brands that do this. And certainly I applied everything I knew about creating the illusion of value and elevating fast fashion at every single job I had. How do these brands make things seem more expensive and more valuable than they really are? Well, as you probably guessed, it's all about the branding. It's all of these little things that add up to make you feel something about the company that is about to sell you something. And these tiny little things will make you pay more. And as I mentioned in the intro of this episode, sometimes it's just about making some tweaks to the product that make it seem nicer even if those changes don't actually change the quality of the item. For example, antiquing the metal of a cheap necklace to make it seem nicer. Changing up the finish on buttons and rivets One thing I have done hundreds of times in my career is ask my production person to find find a button that costs the same price but looks more expensive. And it's hard to explain what that means, but I know it when I see it. Trust me, I've looked at a lot of button cards and been like that one seems like the most expensive. It's just these little things. Maybe the buttons should be less shiny. Maybe it can be a little bit more of a richer brown or, you know, more of a gunmetal versus a bright silver. These little tiny things like buttons and rivets and metal will change your perception. What about washing a T shirt fabric so it's a little bit softer? Or washing a graphic tee after it was screen printed to fade the print. And don't even get me started on screen prints that actually have the distressing built into the screen to make a tee look worn or vintage that is like visual nails on a chalkboard for me. I like to think that doesn't trick people, that they know it's not real. Really a distressed vintage tee, it was just printed that way. But unfortunately sales data has indicated otherwise at some of my jobs. Another thing that I would do a lot as a buyer, and trust me, brands are doing even right now, is changing up the fiber on a textile item. For example, in the aughts, heathered tees were all the rage. Still Kind of are. And that's. That's thanks to American Apparel. I really believe that. And the thing about those heathered teas is they were actually a poly cotton blend, more prone to pilling, less breathable, inherently a lower quality product. But we found that we could charge more for a heathered tee than we could for a standard 100% cotton tee. Yeah, it's all about the perception here. Right. One more thing about the American Apparel era of knits is that we found if we put a contrast drawstring in a hoodie, you know, instead of a black hoodie having a black drawstring, we put in a white drawstring or some other contrasting color, we could charge minimally $5 more for that item, if not more. And changing up the color of that drawstring did not change the cost of making that item at all. It really didn't change. It didn't elevate the quality of that item. Right. Even just tweaking the color to be a little unique can increase the perceived value of an item. I know that also sounds silly, but it works. We tend to think of more saturated colors as cheap unless it's a specific trend color. We value less saturated, more neutral shades. They seem more expensive. One of my painting professors called this process of changing up a color, she called it browning it down. And you would do that by mixing just a dash of a complementary color in it. Add a hint of green to red, and suddenly it becomes, you know, a little bit richer and you can charge more money. I'm obsessed with color theory, whether we're talking about panting or clothing. And let me tell you, these little tiny shifts in the color totally change the perceived value of an item. Once a brand has exhausted every little product tweak, they are really leaning into branding to create the illusion of value to ra that perceived value. And once again, the urban brands are essentially a master class in doing this. Remember, it's all fast fashion clothes made of the same fabrics and fibers as stuff you can buy at any other store at the mall. And it's made in the same factories as all of those brands. But the urban brands can get away with marking it up five to six times the cost of making it it because of the branding. I want you to think about it, right? First, there's the stores, all of that dialed in. Visual merchandising, cool displays, the smell of the stores, the music playing in the background, the aesthetically pleasing, well dressed employees. I swear that what really made anthro and free people develop such a devoted following was not the actual stuff that they were selling, which tended to and still tends to fit poorly and not last very long. It's about how the stores looked, especially Anthro. None of those stores are using ugly metal grid like you might see at a Forever 21 rip or an H and M. And the fixtures aren't shiny. Once again, the finish of a metal matters. You're going to see more tables and whimsical found furniture. Nice lighting. All the signage is kind of low key. Printed on high quality cardstock and glued to wood boards. It almost blends in, right? And the mannequins, they aren't hard plastic and weird poses with faces. They're really nice dress forms on custom metal stands. And when I was a store merchandising manager for Urban Outfitters, we literally had a wood shop in the back where we built built every display you see on the floor. I was back there weaving, macrame, dyeing, painting, building flower walls and so much more. We took scrap materials and turned them into something beautiful. My display artist James and I were literally out driving around before dawn looking for abandoned pallets so we could have more wood for flooring and risers and more. And we he made so much cool stuff. I was actually like recently looking through some photos of my past visual merchandising installations. I was like, wow, that's how we got people to pay $28 for plastic shoes that cost $1. So you think about these stores like Anthro or Free People or Urban Outfitters and how they feel when you go into them. Right now I want you to think of a place like TJ Maxx or Ross. These stores have extremely utilitarian fixtures and signage. Shiny racks, tons of wall grid signs that kinda just do the job of being signs. Even the shoe area is just a bunch of shelves and you kind of help yourself find a size. You're literally digging everywhere you go in the store. And certainly no one is burning a bougie scented candle, right? That merchandising is to cut costs, yes, but it also works because you're looking for a deal and you expect lower prices. TJ Maxx even explains this on its website saying, quote, our lean, no frills way of working helps us pass spectacular savings onto you. So don't expect fancy extras in our stores. Just amazing merchandise at fantastic prices. Another part of the store experience that can affect your perceived value, how much product is on the floor. Because if racks aren't stuffed to the gills and shelves aren't overflowing, then we expect items to be more expensive. I know it's so silly, but to be honest, when I look into the window of a boutique and I see a few sparse racks and tables, I worry that I cannot afford that store. So I'm often too nervous to even walk in and check it out. So there's kind of a balance here, right? Like if you're not actually charging a lot of money for stuff, then you probably should make the store look a little fuller. But if things are really expensive, sure, spread it out, because that's what people expect. Now this idea of how much product should go on the sales floor was a problem that we were always struggling with at Urban Outfitters where we would receive massive shipments of everything. There was this tremendous pressure from management to get everything out on the floor. The saying was, and I quote, stack em high, watch em fly. So we were getting that pressure from management. But then the corporate creative team was like imploring us to please put more stuff in backstop. Leave the floor a little empty. Meanwhile, think about a place like TJ Maxx or H and M. The racks and shelves are bursting and it feels right because those stores are all about deals. Just like a thrift store, right? Actually think about a thrift store and the merchandising, the racks, all the display or lack thereof, not dissimilar to a TJ Maxx or an H and M. Because that is what we expect when we're value shopping. I'll tell you, when I worked for the Feminist brand, there was this massive tension between myself and the creative director. And not just because she sent weird Thirst Trap photos to my vendors. That was weird, sure, but it was because she wanted the store to be sparse and therefore premium. Right? So not a lot of stuff out on the floor. Just a couple of things hanging here and there. A table with just a few items on it. Well, here's the, here's the deal. A high end boutique can get away with less inventory on the floor when everything is 500 or a thousand dollars or more because they don't have to sell that many items to pay the rent and salaries, right? But when most of Your sales are $40 feminist tees, you need to sell a lot of them to break even. And you also want customers to come in the store when they're walking by because they look in and they see enough product on the floor that makes them think there are things in there that I can afford. Right? It's like this weird balance. But furthermore, when most of your stuff is a lower price, Point, you need to have a lot of stuff on the sales floor to sell, because you have to sell a lot to cover your expenses. And so this was like a constant push pull with us, where I was like, 1. This is making the store look too expensive and is absolutely turning off the person who's actually our target customer, because the person who wants to go to a really sparse bougie boutique is not interested in a $40t shirt and would think a $128 pair of pants is cheap. Cheap, Right. So they are not going to be. They're going to come in and be disappointed. And customers who are our target customer are going to keep walking by because they're going to assume everything in there is like $500. There's so much strategy involved in pricing, inventory and overhead expenses. Stuff I think about all the time. And I have spreadsheets to prove it. Okay, so we talked about what the store looks like, right? But there are all these other little things, like hang tags. Are they a good cardstock? What color is the ink? The sew in labels, are they woven? Okay, well, then you can definitely charge more. Are they screen printed? Unless the art is good, they might seem cheap. And with hang tags and sewing labels, we're talking about a few pennies here. But those few pennies can translate into tens of dollars in perceived value. But also the shopping bags, are they fabric, like at free people? Are they nice, sturdy paper? Are they plastic? Do they even have the brand's name printed on them? Each progressive option I've offered you here, that store has a lower perceived value. And if they don't actually have lower prices, then they need to rethink some of their bag choices, which I know is so silly, right? It's instant trash, but yet it is a big part of what people think something should cost. What about if you order something online? Does it arrive at your house in an unbranded plastic mailer or something nicer? Is there an unboxing experience? I see a lot of people in the Selkie Facebook group talking about how they will order a $500 dress only to receive it in a poly bag jammed inside a plastic mailer. Their expectation is that a $500 dress should be more of an unboxing experience. What do you think? At what price? Does the packaging become a bigger deal? And does something feel more valuable to you when it arrives with tissue paper and stickers or other swag? It's all part of that perceived value proposition. Now, when it comes to packaged goods, whether it's food, cosmetics, cleaning products, even pet food. You're also going to think a product is higher quality if the packaging is nice and the art direction, you know, like the font, the color, the graphics are in line with current design trends or even better one, one step ahead of current design trends. In fact, I would say if something's product design seems behind the trends, we expect it to be cheaper. Wet n Wild is a great example of that. Right? If it's currently exactly on trend, we think it's a little bit more expensive than that cheaper stuff. I'm thinking like Mrs. Meyers for example. Mrs. Meyer's packaging once looked a lot more premium than it does because so many people have copied it, right? But it's so it went from being a more premium product to being sort of this mid range product. But products that are like ahead of the design trends are going to seem so much more premium and therefore have a higher perceived value. Even if we're not actually thinking like, oh wow, yeah, this maximalism is really like ahead of the design trends. Trust me, it's having an impact on our sort of like mental price calculator. For example, in the early 2000 and twenties, product design focused on minimalist packaging, smaller, cleaner fonts, one to two colors, lots of negative space. This trend was called blanding. And when it first arrived on the scene in the late 2010s, it felt very premium. In the 2020s began to move into that middle space as more and more brands adopted it. And now it feels kind of old because in the past few years, more premium products have become more maximalist with bold whimsical fonts and bright colors, cute graphics. And I'm totally curious to see what happens next because now that design direction is becoming more saturated across the market. So it's sort of moving into the middle ground. And my guess guess is that in order to stand out in an AI art world, especially with more and more brands using AI for everything, premium products are going to have a more handmade seeming packaging. Things will seem hand lettered, they'll be maybe painted in watercolor or ink. And the boxes and hang tags will seem more like they're made of handmade paper, you know, with like the little bits of leaves and flowers and seeds in the them. And these brands will embrace the imperfection of human made art and design. That's where I think the premium space is now. And here's the thing, once again, the products in any of this packaging are going to be all pretty much the same, right? But what we're willing to pay for it is going to be a direct reflection of where that graphic design is is in the trend cycle. Okay, so let's talk about the website, which by the way, website design is also super trendy. Okay. One thing you're going to notice right out of the gate is that there is a stunning difference between lower priced brands and more in quotes here. Premium brands when it comes to website design and user experience. Go look at Shein or Temu or Amazon. Weird color palettes, timers, multiple banners, pop ups announcing discounts. The photos tend to be smaller and there's just a lot more stuff to look at. It's actually kind of going back to the in store experience that we just talked about. The store with less stuff in it seems more premium and therefore we're willing to pay more for what's inside the store that's jammed with stuff. We automatically assume things in there must be cheap, right? Furthermore, if you look at a Shein or a Temu or an Amazon, the photos themselves might be AI generated or strangely photoshopped. The clothes might be photographed on a dress form instead of a model. Right? It just is. It just all feels cheaper to us. It's how we've been trained. Now go to a nicer brand site, larger photos, always on a model, and the photos will feel similar to something you might find in a nice magazine. They feel more editorial. The site itself will feel cleaner, more sparse, more copy, less clutter. Even the use of color and fonts is often more in line with current design trends, which once again is like large photos, smaller fonts, smaller blocks of content, and that alone being on trend from a design perspective, that will increase the perceived value of everything on the site. We expect that cheap brands like Shein will have ugly websites and it makes sense to us. But we will gladly spend more when the photos take up half, half the page and look like maybe they were taken with film. The same is going to apply to any emails we receive from these brands. And I will just add this. I think that as more and more brands are using AI to write product copy and emails and to create photos and social media content, I think that looks cheap and I think that our perceived value of these brands is dropping and will drop, drop because all of that copy and imagery feels not premium. It's sort of like going back to the idea of color theory. Tweaking the color of something slightly makes it feel more thoughtful and special. And yet another AI caption or email just feels mass produced and cheap. As we talked about in previous installments of the this series, a lot of the strategies of emotional branding are intended to create a personality, a Persona for a brand, right? Make it seem like a small business or some friend that you can relate to. And I think that personalized, that personal touch in terms of writing and photography and art direction is going to feel more and more valuable to us. I mean, I, when I get an email that is clearly written in AI or I see an Instagram caption that is clearly written with AI, I don't even continue reading it. It's just such like a deal breaker and a turn off to me. And it makes me, I don't know, it makes me think that that brand's just like not as good. I would be less willing to pay a more premium price for anything they're selling. And also like, when you really get down to it, I'm like, oh suit. You like to steal from like artists and writers. Okay, so like you probably suck as a company anyway or many of us are probably feeling that subconsciously even if we're not thinking that thought right? And I think that really is going to affect the perceived value of all of these brands. And I'm gonna tell you, if you are a small business owner, please, please stop creating AI emails and AI flyers because it's, it cheapens everything you do. And I don't want people to think that about you. I want them to think that you are like awesome and worth supporting and worth paying a living wage to. We'll get to that. I will say, like, I think one of the silver linings that's coming out of this AI era is the work of humans, the creativity of humans, things being made by humans, it becomes more valuable. And so the perceived value of all things that we make increases while the value of all these things that are AI generated decreases more and more every day. Let's take a moment to thank some of the incredible small businesses who keep clotheshorse going via their generous Patreon support. Slow Fashion Academy is a size inclusive sewing and pattern making studio based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Designer and fashion professor Ruby Gertz teaches workshops for hobbyists and aspiring designers so that anyone can learn the foundational skills of making, mending and altering their own clothes several times per year. Ruby offers her flagship Sloper Workshop an in person two day pattern making retreat where you will learn how to drape a set of basic block pattern that capture your unique shape and proportions. You can also use these basic block or slipper patterns as a foundation for infinite styles of garments that are custom made to your body's one of a kind contours or compare your sloper to commercial patterns to see where you might need to alter the shape. No more guessing at full bust, flat seam or sway back adjustments. Start with a foundation that fits. Ruby also provides professional design and pattern making services to emerging slow fashion brands brands and occasionally takes commissions for custom garments and costume pieces. She has also released several PDF sewing patterns for original designs under her brands Spokes and Stitches and Starling Petite plus. I just want to also add here on a personal note that right now Ruby is actually working with me to create a one of a kind unique to me special dress that I will be wearing for all future clothes horse events including live episodes later this year in the Pacific Northwest. I am so excited to work with Ruby because she is so talented and so knowledgeable about all things clothing creation. Check out the schedule for upcoming workshops, download PDF sewing patterns and learn about additional sewing and Design Services at www.slowfashion.academy. and it's important for me to tell you that that slowfashion.com academy Selena Sanders a social impact brand that specializes in upcycle clothing using only reclaimed, vintage or thrifted materials from tea towels, linens, blankets and quilts. Sustainably crafted in Los Angeles, each piece is designed to last in one's closet for generations to come. Maximum style Minimal carbon footprint. Republica Unicornia Yarns Handmade yarn and notions for the color obsessed. Made with love, love and some swearing in fabulous Atlanta, Georgia by head yarn wench Kathleen. Get ready for rainbows with a side of giving a damn. Republica Unicornia is all about making your own magic using small batch, responsibly sourced, hand dyed yarns and thoughtfully made notions. Slow fashion all the way down and discover the joy of creating your very own beautiful hand knit, crocheted or woven pieces. Find us on Instagram @republicauunicorniarns and at www.republicaunicornia.com. cute little ruin is an online shop dedicated to providing quality vintage and secondhand clothing, vinyl and home items in a wide range of styles and price points. If it's ethical and legal, we try to find a home for it. Vintage style with progressive value. Find us on Instagram. Utelittleruin Deco Denim is a startup based out of San Francisco and it sells clothing and accessories that are sustainable, gender fluid, size inclusive and high quality. Made to last for years to come, Deco Denim is trying to change the way you think about buying clothes. Founder Sarah Mattis wants to empower people to Ask important questions like, where was this made? Was this garment made ethically? Is this fabric made of plastic? Can this garment be upcycled? And if not, can it be recycled? Sign up@decodenim.com to receive $20 off your first purchase. They promise not to spam you and send out no more than three emails a month with two of them surrounding education or a personal note from the founder. Again, that's Deco denim. One of the most important elements of our perceived value of an item is location, both literally and more figuratively. And the figurative aspect of it is how it relates to other items around it and where it exists on the competitive landscape. And in the next installment of this series, we're going to be tackling how Browns watch. Well, smart brands create a hierarchy of products and prices called a product matrix. They do this based on a strategy first developed by department stores in the middle of the last century. It's called the pyramid of merchandising, and it's one of my favorite things to teach small business owners. So we're gonna talk about that in the next installment, but to finish up this episode, we're gonna unpack these other two location related concepts, like actual, actual physical concept and that idea of the competitive landscape. First is the actual physical location. I want you to imagine that you're in an H and M or a Zara, and you stumble across a dress that cost $500. You would probably assume that it was a mistake, right? Like maybe someone had messed up printing the price tag. And then you go ask a sales associate like, hey, I think this is wrong. And they're like, actually, yes, that Item really is $500. You would probably be pretty annoyed. Like, who does this brand think it is? It is freaking Zara. But let's say you were at Chanel. I don't know what you're doing there, but somehow you're there and you pick up something with a $500 price tag and you're like a Chanel shopper now. Okay, you would think either that's a really good deal because things here are way more than $500, or you would just be like, yeah, that feels about right. Even though you and I both know that even luxury brands have adopted the fast fashion business model, meaning that everything is just kind of shittier than it used to be. And honestly, that $500 item at Chanel may not be better quality than the $500 item at Zara. We can do that exercise again because it's, like, so silly. What are we doing at Chanel let's say you're at the dollar tree and you find something for $50, and you're like, OMFG, inflation has gotten really out of control. Like, and also, what is the dollar tree even thinking that they can sell a $50 item? And you're also, like, this $50 price tag for this item is probably a scam. I'm getting ripped off. Like, this is so greedy, right? But then you go on over to Anthropologie and they have something for $50, and it feels. Feels like a pretty good deal to you. Like, maybe this item's on sale. And then you're like, huh, okay, well, this is maybe a deal, so I'm just gonna buy it without thinking, right? You're like, you know, that's how we are with deals. They flip that switch of, like, urgency, and we're just gonna buy it without thinking too hard. Because what if someone else comes up and takes that $50 thing away from us while we're thinking about it? Now, it's hard for me to imagine what would be $50 at the tree, right? But here's what I will say as a person who has worked for all these brands where we sold a lot of things for $50 or marked down to $50, is that inevitably the quality was not dissimilar to things you might find at the dollar tree and was frequently made by the same vendors in the same factories. Huh? Location matters. And yes, your perception of those prices being ridiculous, right in line or a hot deal. They all stem from the branding that these brands have created. The stores, the packaging, the store staff, the websites, the kind of press they get, get the influencers they do or do not work with, even what their logo looks like and even what their icon like on their social media profiles looks like. Because I see, I will tell you, I see really beautiful stuff being made by small businesses on social media all the time. But when I look at their profile, I'm like, oh, why they have such a terrible logo, you know? Or why are they taking such bad photos? Or I go to their website and it's all busted. And I'm like, I mean, I know why all these things happen, right? Because running a small business is really hard. But I'm like, man, if only they had the resources that these big brands have to help them create the illusion here, right? To dial in that branding. I would say that not only is branding, an emotional branding, all about getting you to spend money, branding is about getting you to spend the right amount of money. I Spend a lot of time working on pricing with small businesses. What seems like a very simple, straightforward project is actually super complicated. And it's not just making the math math. It's also finding a price that customers are willing to pay that perceived value. You know, we've talked about all of these things that impact our perceived value, but one of the biggest factors in our perceived value of any product, any service, it is the other prices and products swirling around us. And when you know that, it's easy to see how a world of $20 dresses and $3 tank tops can make all of us think that everything should be super cheap. The problem with these low, low prices, as you know, if you've been listening to clotheshorse for a while, is that they're built on exploitation and low quality, right? $20 dresses don't make sense unless. Unless someone isn't getting paid to make them. And the quality is really terrible. Don't even get me started on a $3 tank top. But both of those items exist in the world. I mean, I think it was like a year or two ago when I did that series about the evolution or de evolution. You decide which, which you prefer of fast fashion into, like the ultra fast fashion of the sheen era is that I found hundreds of dresses on the Shein website. There were under $10 and many of them were less than $5. Now, anyone who's listening to this, who's ever sewn anything or ever bought any fabric knows that, like, it just doesn't make sense, right? It's like, talk about an illusion here. Like, how could a dress be $5, right? You have to really buy into that illusion to believe that the dress you get is going to be good. Never mind how much compartmentalization you have to do to not think about the human impact of a $5 dress. Right? Here's another problem with these low prices, okay? It's forcing small businesses to underprice, too. So about a week ago, I stumbled upon a post on Threads and I had a lot of feelings about it. I did a whole Instagram post and a substack about this. This. It was a post showing a photo of a really lovely, like, maxi dress made of linen, really well fitted, beautiful, on a model in a beautiful room. Like, the branding aspect was really dialed in. And here's what the post said. People ask, why $150 for a dress? Well, here's what you're actually paying for. Eight hours of my hand sewing. 100% European linen, not polyester. Custom fit to your body. French seams that last forever. No middleman, no markup, straight from my studio to you. And yes, I get the $150 dress is significantly more expensive than a five dollar dress from Shein. Yet I have a lot of serious problems with this $150 dress dress. Here's what I said in response to this person. I said, sewing is highly skilled work. Even if you somehow got the fabric and trims for free, which we know this person did not. Charging $150 for eight hours of sewing plus cutting and other labor is not paying yourself a living wage. You deserve better. This dress should be at least $300. And anyone who says that is too expensive can try to sew it themselves. Literally. How could someone ever make a living selling a dress like that for $150? The answer is no one could make a living selling that dress for $150. Let's think about the expenses associated with making and selling that dress. Okay, first, eight hours of sewing. Next, the fabric. Now, people on Instagram and threads who have better knowledge of buying linen fabric were saying that that was minimally $100 worth of fabric. I can't like, speak to that clearly, but that sounds right to me. I actually think it could be more depending on the fabric yield of that garment. Thinking about the cost of the fabric alone, I'm like, this person didn't make any money off of this. Okay, then there's the trims, right? Zipper buttons, hook and eye elastic label, etc. Right? So that's also going to cost money. There's the packaging to ship that dress in. There are the platform fees, because whether it's sold on Etsy or Shopify Square, any other platform, someone is taking a cut. There's the time spent creating the listing and doing customer service, posting on social media, sending out marketing emails, taking photos, sourcing fabrics, creating a pattern, testing the pattern, and so on, right? If somehow the fabric, the trims, the packaging, the platform fees, and all that time were free, which is just not possible, that means that someone was paid $18.75 for the highly skilled, physically demanding work of sewing that dress, and that is not a living wage. And if you think 1875 is fine, I want to ask you, are you willing to sew all day doing highly skilled, physically demanding labor that really takes a toll on your body and your eyes? Are you willing to do that for $18.75 an hour? That's not even including, like, paying for your health insurance and sick time off and everything else. The answer is that you're not. Now, there's this person on social media, on Instagram specifically, who shows up on half my post to just be completely contrary to what I've talked about in the post, no matter what it is. And they said they would be happy to take $18.75 an hour to do this work. And I just am going to tell you, I don't think that's true. You might for a little bit, but after a while you'd be like, this is killing me. I need a raise. I need benefits, I need XYZ. And even still, this whole 1875 number is an illusion because we know that the fabric was not free. We know that the platform took a cut. We know that the packaging cost money. We know that there was a whole lot of extra labor involved. A small business owner selling a dress like this for $150 is probably making minimum wage at best. And we know that is not a living wage. I always say, as you know, it's cheap because someone didn't get paid. But also, sometimes it doesn't seem cheap, but it's still too cheap for someone to actually get paid fairly, even when that price is a lot higher than Shein or Zara. That's just how much exploitation and cut corners are baked into the fast fashion model. Fast fashion prices are really that far away from making sense now. Every single time I post anywhere on the Internet about something being cheap because someone didn't get paid, someone really smart will show up in the comments to say, yeah, but there are a lot of places that also charge really high prices that aren't paying anyone either. And you know, they might cite someone like Anthropologie, for example. And I'm like, yes, you're exactly right. But what I will tell you here is that everything that you buy at Anthropologie or Free People or Cause or and other stories or any of these retailers that are higher price point than what we generally think of as fast fashion, but are 100% still fast fashion. What they are doing, all their pricing that you see on the price tag is really more of a marketing moment, right? Like, we see this price point. It, you know, free people says, this dress is $148. We're like, whoa, that's a nice dress. And we don't dissect whether it really is a nice dress. We don't look at the fabric content, we don't look at the sewing, we don't look at the, oh my God, please stop doing this. The raw hem, you Know, we just take it, we take their word on it that this is a nice item worth $148. But all of these brands are assuming that most of the stuff they sell is going to sell on sale, right? This is what fast fashion has done to the entire fashion industry is that most things are designed to sell on sale from these mass retailers. I'm not talking about from like small businesses, but like, like mass retailers. They are planning that everything they sell for the most part is probably going to sell at 30% off, 50% off, maybe even 75% off the price on that price tag. And so ultimately when that item does sell, it is cheap when it sells and it's still highly profitable for them and people still didn't get paid to make it. In fact, for any of those brands, I'm always like, you would be be doing yourself quite a disservice to any time pay full price for anything from them because you are getting ripped off. Your perceived value might be there, but the actual value is in no way related to the price on that price tag. I have been working with small businesses for five years now as a coach and advisor and sometimes a teacher. And the problem that I encounter most often is business owners who are not paying themselves or paying themselves so little that it feels cruel. And yeah, sometimes when you're starting a business, you can't pay yourself. I get that. But what I see happening is this. The business starts off with pricing that will never accommodate anyone getting paid to do the work of running that business and making the products it sells. And at some point it begins to feel too late to fix that, right? Or you risk losing all your customers or getting just like a wave of shitty comments on social media and mean emails. And yeah, I've seen it happen to so many people I know and work with. Why are businesses offering these unrealistically low prices? Well, you can blame the fast fashionification of literally everything because fast fashion has turned our perception of price and value completely upside down. Customers have a new baseline for price expectations and everything above that is deemed too expensive. Of course, here in the slow fashion community we know that fast fashion prices are built on human exploitation and low quality. But we are still in the minority and we need more people to know the truth about those prices, that they are actually a bad deal for everyone. The plan is it the workers and the customers. And in that case, when they start to really understand that their perceived value is going to shift once again 95% of the time, what we buy, where we buy it when we buy it and what we're willing to pay for it is completely psychological. And if we understand that humans are suffering to make something, it's a lot less valuable to us, right? That said, there are many small businesses who are in the slow fashion community who know the truth about fast fashion pricing and how it's like melting everyone's brains. They don't know what to do, right? Because they still feel that pressure from customers to keep things affordable. The problem with these affordable prices is that they are great for customers and bad for everyone else. What makes it even more complicated is that many small businesses are community minded. That's why I like love small businesses, right? They want to keep their products accessible to everyone. And in a world where everyone except for billionaires and executives is feeling underpaid, overworked and well, broke, that means that prices need to stay low in order to be accessible. And the implications of these low prices, these like fictional artificial low prices, they are all around us. If one small business underprices their products, then every other business has to follow suit or lose out on sales. So now everyone is unable to pay themselves, much less pay someone to help them. These unrealistic prices from small businesses just reinforce the validity of the artificially low prices that fast fashion offers. And even worse, these low prices just devalue the work made involved in making products and running a business, reinforcing the illusion that this work is unskilled. It's something that anyone can do and that helps fast everything companies get away with continuing to underpay and exploit workers all around the world. Now I'm going to tell you this. When small businesses suppress their pricing, keep it artificially low because they feel that pressure from their customers who are learning this, who are developing their perceived value based on fast fashion pricing, right? What really happens is not only is the work of all those small businesses being devalued, all of our work is being devalued. And I think about this a lot because I'll tell you, people all the time want me to work for free for them. They want to just like pick my brain for an hour about business questions. They want me to make an Instagram post specifically so that they can share it. Never mind that me creating a post for them is going to be like four, six, eight hours of unpaid labor. They want it and they want it now, right? I feel that pressure even coming from some listeners of this podcast sometimes times because they are pushing on me to give them more and do more for them when I just can't right? But all of our work collectively, whether it is sewing, writing, painting, child care, healthcare, clerical work, accounting, all of these things, right, have been collectively devalued by the Fast Fashionification of of everything around us. If making an item that you can buy has low value, right, of course, then any services you can offer also have a lower value. And so really, if you feel like people try to pay you the least amount for your work, get free work out of you, no matter what it is that you do, you can thank Fast Fashion for melting everyone's brain and collectively devaluing everything that we do. What happens as these small businesses are forced to lower their prices thanks to this lower perceived value is that they go out of business, they can't make enough money to stay in business, or the owner gets so burned out from working 247 and they still find that they can't pay their bills at the end day of the the month. I talk to people who are struggling with this on a regular basis. I'm going to tell you something really depressing, which is that in the past couple weeks alone I have read posts on Instagram from small businesses announcing that they are closing their business or taking some time off to just sort of reorganize, reevaluate and come back to the table with a bit a of business that works financially. And it's not because they're not making nice stuff that people want to buy. And it's not because people aren't showing up and buying it. It's not because the business is a bad concept. It's that they have been underpricing themselves for so long that they haven't been able to pay their bills right? And so they're in some cases racking up debt. They're basically subsidizing these artificially low prices for their customers by not paying their other bills, by running up their credit cards, by not having health insurance themselves or getting health care or you know, being able to pay their rent or do nice things for themselves or you know, go on vacation, anything. They can't do anything. They are basically sacrificing the their quality of life and their financial health so that their customers can have low prices. And it makes me so angry. You have no idea. It makes me angry at the people who show up in comment sections on social media when I talk about pricing to talk about how they don't pay themselves because they're doing this good deed for the world world by I guess, volunteering their time and talent so that they can sell low priced stuff to people. And I'm just like, every time I see a comment like that, I am like, okay, so like, what do you have a wealthy partner? Do you have a trust fund? Are you just really, really bad at managing your finances? Like, because no matter what the story is, you are ruining it for everyone at else by charging these artificially low prices that actually benefit no one. Right? I also just get super angry when I see people showing up in the comment sections on a really nice product made by a small business owner, usually a one person micro business, and they show up to complain about it being expensive. Like, you just don't even know. And I used to try to like talk to people like this. And then I realized that I actually don't have enough time in my day to, I don't know, set everyone straight on the Internet. I have to like cut my losses on it. But perhaps you and everyone else you talk to about this conversation can chip in and start talking some sense into people on the Internet because, because once again, these low prices, whether they're being offered by fast fashion or your favorite small business, they're not actually helping anyone. And we need to stop framing low prices as some sort of like good deed or community. Give back. Like, if you have the resources to give, give to your community. I, I think that there are more effective ways that you can do that than just starting a business where you never get paid for your work. And if you're really angry at me right now and you want to write me a spicy email, that's fine, I will read it. I may respond to you, I may not. But I really want you to think about this conversation. Maybe it's not something you want to hear right now, now, but at some point you'll be glad that you did. And when small businesses close, that pushes customers towards the same fast everything mega corporations. Although we could also call a lot of them MAGA corporations if you want. And we wouldn't be wrong. These companies have built their businesses off of human exploitation and low quality. So this all just exacerbates economic inequality. And our work gets devalued even more and more and we get sold crappier stuff and more people suffer and the landfills fill up. And every human deserves a safe, happy, healthy life. And in a capitalist system, that means they need to be paid enough to afford food, shelter, healthcare, clothes and fun. Furthermore, they need to be able to take time off to rest, to get inspired, to spend time with loved ones, to stare into space, whatever they want to do, to do all of that they need to be paid a living wage for their work. And to do that, we need to stop underpricing and undervaluing everything around us. Well, what's the solution? How do we fix this disconnect in pricing and customer expectations and perceived value? I wish I could say it was something simple like do XYZ and voila, everyone gets paid. And no one ever leaves a comment on a small business post about something being too expensive. Yeah, that's not going to happen. That said, there is a path forward, but it involves work from everyone, small business owners and customers alike. And this work is worthwhile because our current expectations about product price are super unethical. So if you're a small business owner listening to this, what can you do? Well, first you can take the time to sit down and work out how much a product actually costs you to make. If someone were being paid a living wage to make it, and that's going to include materials, platform fees, packaging and labor. Does the price you are charging customers actually cover that? If the answer is no, now is a good time to create a plan to get there. And it will never happen if you don't start working toward it now. I'll also just say that increasing prices is actually a great opportunity to educate your customers about the work that goes into making your product and running a small business. Remember, most people just don't know fast fashion has warped their perception of price and value. And a lot of people think robots and machines are just making most of the stuff we buy. Is it fair that you have to do the work to educate people around this? Oh hell no. But this is where we are. And if you're stuck on how to market your business, sharing this kind of information about the real cost of things, the real work that goes into things that can turn into a lot of social posts and emails that, you know, you don't have to invent. Now you know what you want to talk about. I'm going to tell you I said this earlier in the episode and I'm going to say it again. I think in an AI world, we are starting to value human work a lot more. Right? We're still not there yet and there are a lot of people who are still making all their art on ChatGPT and then placing an order with Shein. For sure it's happening right now out as you're listening to this, but other people are sort of coming out of the haze of all of these artificial prices and AI rendered art. Art being in quotes, obviously, and their perceived Value of human work is gradually increasing. This is a really good time to demonstrate the humanity of your work. Let's talk about accessibility here. Okay? Anytime I have ever posted about pricing or taught a class about pricing, at least one person says, well, I keep my prices low so people can afford it and I just don't pay myself. Or they say, I'm afraid that if I charge the right amount of price to make a living, no one will buy it. And these are both said with like all chest out confidence. And I'm going to tell you this is bad. Unless you somehow have this massive trust fund or a partner who supports you financially. Why are you working for free? How are you getting by? Seriously, why would you do this to yourself? And I'm going to tell you, your customers don't want you to work for free. Your small business should not be a volunteer job unless you are in that rare situation in which you don't need to make money because you already have plenty to survive. Fine. I'm so jealous of you. Definitely if I won the lottery, I would be doing a lot of like, different work with my life. But you know what? I'd probably still be charging people money so I could funnel that money into more community outreach anyway. You've got to pay yourself when it comes to being afraid of people not being willing to pay a larger price for the item you're selling. A price that pays you for your work. I mean, I would ask you to like unpack that a little bit. Is that maybe some imposter syndrome? Is that maybe you feeling unconfident about the product that you're selling? Is that you maybe, maybe also having fast fashion boiling your brain when it comes to pricing when you underprice things and can't pay yourself for your labor. I want to be clear with you. To you, I'm going to say this again, probably multiple times in this part of the episode. When you underprice, you're holding back every one of your peers who now can't price high enough to pay themselves. And when we lift ourselves up by charging the right price, we lift up everyone around us. And that is very important because I know that you love your community. But I get the accessibility question right? I want people to have access to high quality ethical stuff. But I often see small business owners not paying themselves enough or not paying themselves at all so that they can offer the lowest prices. How is that fair? Even if you're listening to this and you're like, that is what I do right now and I stand by it, I'm going to promise you that long term it is not going to feel fair to you, but it's also not going to be fair to the customers who will watch the business business disappear when you're burned out and can no longer continue. There are a lot of different ways you can approach this problem. One is that you can reserve a portion of every drop or collection for sliding scale pricing. If that's something you can even make work with your pricing. There are a lot of other things you can offer. You know, you could also do giveaways periodically or offer coupon codes to people who are struggling. Donate some of your time, whatever. There are a lot of things you can do. You also don't have to do any of this, right? It's up to what your vision is for your business. But you need to be getting paid once again when you're gone because you can't, don't want to run this business anymore. And you had to go, you had to go get another job or you were broke or burned out or all of those things. Now what's going to happen to your customers, right? If you really believe that you are in service to your customers and you bring something invaluable to them, then you want to stay around for that them. And that means paying yourself. I know I said this like a couple minutes ago, but I'm going to say it again. When one business underprices, it forces everyone to underprice. And so pricing your products to cover a living wage actually lifts up every small business around you. We have gotten used to the artificially low prices of fast fashion because we are surrounded by cheap, low quality goods. We can get used to paying ethical prices when they are the rule, not the exception. Okay, so that was what small business owners can do. What about the rest of us? I mean, we have to rewire our own perception of price and value. We gotta raise that perceived received value. And once again, the prices of Fast Fashion, Fast everything only work because they're built on a foundation of human exploitation and low quality. Just about nothing we buy should be this cheap. These brands are not doing us a service by offering low prices. Instead, they are making us complicit in wage theft and forced labor and human exploitation. They are making us sign on to dangerous and unhealthy working conditions. And in exchange, they are giving us low quality stuff that won't last very long. And when I encounter something from a small brand that feels too expensive for me because yes, even I have had to do this work to Rewire my brain. I ask myself, what price would make this affordable to me? Does that price make sense? When I think about the time to make something, the materials involved, the work of running a small business. And most times I realize that, no, it actually does not. So if I can't afford that item new, I look for something secondhand or I wait and save my money. The thing about moving away from fast fashion is we have to slow down. The process of buying fast fashion relies on us being impatient and thoughtless. We can and we will do better. You know what's another aspect of our behavior that fast fashion has changed? It has made us think that we need a steady stream of new trendy stuff. And guess what? We actually don't. One good dress is better than five unsatisfying dresses, even if those five unsatisfying dresses cost cost $5. And when we prioritize quality over quantity, suddenly the higher prices of small businesses don't seem so wild because we need less. And yes, this change is so difficult, but it's actually how we lived our lives before the fast fashion era. I mean, I'll tell you, I was a teenager before fast fashion existed, and I had very few clothes in my closet. I started to have a lot more clothes when I got really into thrifting and even still, far less clothing than I had at the peak of my fast fashion life. We just need to change. And I know it's so hard with everything else going on in the world right now. It's like, why can't I just buy as many cheap clothes as I want? And that's fair. But like I said at the top of this episode, all of this is so interconnected. Fast fashion is not doing us any favors. In fact, it's making the world a worse place to live for everyone. And you know that. So another thing you can do is spread the knowledge. Most people don't know that fast fashion pricing is one big exploitative scam, ripping off workers and customers. We have an amazing opportunity to create a better future. And it starts with talking to the people around us. And lastly, I'll just say, don't be a jerk. If you see something cool that feels too expensive, just walk away. Saying something about it to the seller or in the comments section is not only rude, it actually reinforces those artificial fast fashion prices for everyone who hears or sees your comment. And it means you're inadvertently doing free PR for fast fashion. Why would you do that? You would never do that, right? That's. No. No. Okay, well, that's where we're gonna end this installment and the next part of I'm with the Brand and in the next part of the I'm with the Brand series, we're going to explore the following the Pyramid of Merchandising Seriously, one of my favorite things to teach small business owners, students, and just people who've been on my teams at previous jobs. We're going to talk about how the trend cycle is a part of a product's perceived value. We're going to talk about compare at pricing. That's for all of you who love a TJ Maxx hacks. And we're going to talk about how price and value is a part of emotional branding and how we kind of find our identities in it. So we have a lot to talk about in the next installment and I can't wait to see you there. Thanks for listening to another episode of Closed Source Written, researched, Hosted, Edited all the things by me Amanda Lee McCarty if you liked what you heard, or maybe you really hated it, please leave a rating and a review. Subscribe Tell your friends do all those things so that more people will listen to Close Horse. If you'd like to support my work financially, there are many ways you can do that, and you can find all of that in the show notes and in my bio on just about every social media platform. Lastly, but of course, never leastly, thanks to my other half, Mr. Dustin Travis White, for our music, music and audio support and I will talk to you all next week. Bye.