Saturday, September 20, 2008

Bitch Switch

September is a crazy time to be in New York. Everyone knows about Fashion Week of course, but for buyers, designers and agents (and unwittingly - the consumers) , the crucial part of the fashion season is Market Week, which happens right after Fashion Week. This is when buyers hit the showrooms and trade shows and decide which pieces actually hit the stores.

It must be the hectic, highly charged atmosphere, burdened by bottom line pressure from the business heads that flip on the bitch switch at times like these. Check out this exchange between a buyer and the sales director of a clothing label:

Buyer: Oh my gosh! Your collection is fabulous! What's your minimum order?
Label Rep: It's 50 pieces...
Buyer: But our store is real small, we're looking at 30-35?
Label Rep: Sorry, we can't accept anything less than 50.
Buyer: Is there any way we can negotiate this?
Label Rep: No, we can only do 50, no less.
Buyer: Oh ok, thanks anyway. We love your clothes, here's my card, just in case.

Buyer walks away, label rep talks to one of her staff...

Label Rep: 35 pieces?! That's just, like, my personal order!

2 comments:

The Bag Hag said...

Man, what a bitchy label rep.
It's these people who never give small and medium enterprises a chance to flourish.

And that's the death of the economy right there. If I was there, I'd have given that label rep a mouthful hahaha. I support SMEs all the way :D :)

cd_mfo said...

I know Mrs. T! My thoughts exactly! I was thinking at this time, and with this economy, they should be happy with whatever business they could get right? This didn't make sense to me at all!

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