What criteria do buyers use to select their brands ?
Our articles bring together market insights drawn from interviews featured on the Wholesale Is Not Dead podcast.
Tell me what you buy, and I’ll tell you who you are
Because professional buyers meet countless designers, attend numerous trade shows and receive a flood of lookbooks, they are uniquely positioned to assess a fashion brand and their opinions are highly valued by sales teams.
Some have a talent for spotting hidden gems, betting on emerging labels that could become tomorrow’s international fashion houses.
Others apply their own precise and often very personal criteria when making their selections.
We spoke to several of them to try and answer the question every sales rep asks before the start of a new season :
What criteria do fashion buyers use to choose the brands they invest in?
From gut feeling to strict criteria…
At Birdy, it’s all about taste and aesthetic.
Alexandra Makowski, who owns seven designer jewellery shops in Paris, has developed a boho-chic style that reflects her personal world from the furniture to the designers she features.
She chooses designers who spark her imagination and complement her universe.
Alexandra explains: “I have to like it the idea is that every piece of jewellery that comes into Birdy must be something I love and would want to wear.
I’m drawn to that bohemian-chic spirit, I love stones, what they symbolise and the energy they carry.
A brand that only offers gold-plated jewellery, or doesn’t work with stones, just won’t appeal to me it has to fit with the concept of my shop.”
This view is shared by Roman Martinez, from the concept store Gloriette and the boutique Roman Prat in Caen, who puts emotion first : “We focus on the first impression what the brand evokes in us emotionally.”
He also reminds us that this emotional response needs to align with a balanced brand mix : “If I like something, I then ask myself: does it resemble something I already have in store? Will it bring something new? And will it spark an emotion in my client?
It’s very personal. First comes the heart, then the mind, and finally the stock.”
Good curation allows brands to thrive rather than suffocate
At Printemps.com, the e-commerce platform of the iconic Parisian department store, the approach is as strategic as it is poetic. Anissa Draa, women’s ready-to-wear buyer, wants to help brands grow and for that, they need space to do so.
“We ask ourselves which clientele a brand will speak to, and whether it can truly flourish within the existing environment,” explains Anissa Draa.
“I often talk about a bouquet of flowers each brand is carefully picked to become part of a composition.
It needs room to bloom and thrive.
If there are already one or two brands targeting the same customers or offering similar products, then we can’t really give that young brand a chance to join the adventure.
That’s also why our curation process is very rigorous, and why we look for a strong sense of uniqueness in the brands we welcome today.”
The crush, the emotion, the first impression, they talk about buying as if it were a love story
Present in Paris, Deauville and Saint-Tropez, Serge Muller, manager of the jeweller Mad Lords, speaks of those all-important coups de cœur, but his precise and uncompromising approach reflects the high standards of his selection process.
“A product crush is important. The connection with the designer is important too, we meet every designer we work with.
Materials matter : we reject anything that isn’t gold or silver.
The quality of the stones is crucial, and they must be natural.
And above all, there is an absolute requirement: no plagiarism.
This is how we defend creativity and stand behind the designer at the point of sale.”
Having strict selection criteria can help change mindsets
Having strict selection criteria can help preserve the exclusivity of a point of sale like Mad Lords, but it can also drive a shift in mindsets as the team at We Dress Fair demonstrates by scrutinising their suppliers almost scientifically.
“We focus on three key things,” explains Marie N’Guyen from her eco-friendly boutique in Lyon.
“First, raw materials.
We only stock a product if over 90% of its final material is eco-responsible such as organic cotton, tencel, linen, or hemp.
Second, since we don’t focus on a “specific product”, we select brands committed to this approach throughout their production chain, and for at least 75% of their products.
We look at the brand as a whole: what is their action plan? How many products have they changed to eco-friendly materials? Only then do we select individual products.
We also require proof of certifications, traceability of factories, and the names of these factories.
Not many brands meet our criteria, but our goal is to drive the market forward.”
To convince a buyer, you need to understand their vision of fashion and their store’s selection
From artistic and personal coups de cœur to strict eco-responsible guidelines, buyers’ selection criteria are numerous yet strikingly similar.
A piece of advice for our friends in sales and emerging designers embarking on the great wholesale adventure: just like this article shows, the first step to convincing a buyer is to understand their vision of fashion and the curation of their retail space.
