When Saturday Night Live shows a family using your menswear company’s products to sop up orange juice spills and pet urine because they’re cheaper than paper towels, and people actually find this funny, that’s a sign that maybe it’s time to reconsider your promotions strategy. Jos. A. Bank is trying a new strategy, which involves promotions with suits in more reasonable quantities than in the past.
Historically, the company has made money by marking their suits up more initially, and then offering large and impressive discounts periodically to clean out their closets. The chain’s leaders have apparently come to realize that “buy one, get three free” promotions are “unnatural,” which is the actual word that their CEO used in an interview with Bloomberg News.
“There’s a fair amount of evidence out there that there aren’t enough customers who want to buy four suits at a time or want to buy that quantity to get a deal,” notes CEO Doug Ewart. Instead, they want to make more sales more often instead of bringing customers in periodically to buy a bushel of suits.
They also plan to offer more types of suits: expanding their slim-fit and big and tall options to suit up a wider range of men, and adding shoes.
Jos. A. Bank’s Makeover Will Dial Back Discounts, Update Clothes [Bloomberg News]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist