By Anne D'Innocenzio
AP business writer
NEW YORK — When Lands' End Inc. first offered
consumers the ability to customize apparel online late last year, executives
believed it would add mere froth to sales. Now, it's become such an online
standard that the catalog retailer is preparing to roll out more categories
this fall.
 Catalog retailer Lands' End has offered custom-fit jeans online for several months.  Associated Press |
"This is becoming a mainstream part of our business. This will be the customary way of people buying our clothes online," said Bill Bass, senior vice president of e-commerce at Lands' End, the first apparel company to team up with Archetype Solutions Inc., a startup based in Emeryville, Calif., that develops mass customization in clothing.
Bass would not offer specific revenue projections but noted that online sales from customized chinos has well exceeded the 10 percent goal in that category while about 25 percent of customized clothing sales comes from new customers.
Lands' End, which was bought earlier this year by Sears, Roebuck and Co., also will reap the benefits of having less inventory in its warehouses as more of its clothing is made to order.
"In apparel, you either run out of it too soon or you bought too much and you have all this overstock," said Bass. "The nice thing about customization is that you always have what the customer wants."
Still, even with Lands' End's new-found success, some industry analysts are not convinced that customization of apparel is for everyone.
"To be successful, you have to be awfully nimble and awfully sure of your customer base," said Jeff Roster, a senior analyst at Gartner. "Lands' End has a long history with its customers, who are very loyal. They don't mind spending a few extra dollars."
Lands' End's customized jeans and chinos run about
$54, some $20 or $30 more than the regular versions.
Roster added that he believes that customization
will be difficult for mass chains or department stores because they're
not as knowledgeable about their customer base offline as well as online.
Robert Holloway, chief executive of Archetype, disagrees.
"Everyone is looking for a good fit, and the issue
is fundamental to the apparel industry," he said. He said he was seeing
interest in customizing apparel from all kinds of retailers, including
discounters.
A large regional men's and women's clothing chain
will be launching a customization service in October, Holloway said, refusing
to disclose its name.
Lands' End's move into customization marks the first
time that a major brand has offered the service online. For the past three
years, Levi Strauss & Co. has been customizing jeans for consumers at
their own stores, using tailors on hand. It had previously used body scanners
to measure customers.
Bass believes that customization will work for almost
every apparel category Lands' End offers except for stretch clothing items
like knit shirts, which conform to the customer's body type. The company
is also adding more colors and fabrics.
Bass believes part of the company's success is due
to sheer convenience. To order custom-made clothing online, customers
just spend a few minutes inputting a series of measurements — including
height, weight, shoe size and other body shape details, like bra size
— on the company's Web site.
Customers can also select pocket options, fit styles
and colors. Customized clothing is delivered to customers' homes within
two to three weeks. Lands' End is not ruling out offering the service
in kiosks in its stores.
Bass noted that the return rate for customized clothing
has fared better than the industry average, which runs about 6 percent
to 6.5 percent, according to the National Retail Federation. Any unwanted
garments are sold at outlet stores.
But success has not come without headaches, particularly
ironing out the kinks in the manufacturing process, which is far different
from producing mass quantities. Once processed, the order is digitally
sent to manufacturing partners, which individually cut and sew the product
based on a computer-generated pattern.
Bass said the company has had to train its manufacturing
partners, which had to switch to new machinery. Chinos are being manufactured
in Mexico, though company officials are looking at additional capacity
in the Far East. Jeans will continue to be made in Mexico. Dress shirts
and tailored pants will be made in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.
As for the measurement questions on the company's
Web site, there's constant tweaking, Bass said. In the women's section,
Lands' End added the question about waist a few months after the official
launch, and may change it to seat measurements, which could be a better
gauge of fit.
Overall, the goal is "to try to ask questions that
people already know," Bass said. "That is why we are so successful. You
can do this in a couple of minutes."
Instant Messaging
Lands' End's Instant Business
Davide Dukcevich, 07.22.02, 12:00 PM ET
NEW YORK - Despite its clean layout, attractive models and snappy clothes, a Lands' End catalog will never be able to tell you if those chinos will fit your hips.
Pose the same query to the Landsend.com Web site, and Randi or Diane--or one of their colleagues--will answer you within seconds. Clothing retailer Lands' End is one of the few companies that has been able to make money from one of the most popular byproducts of the Internet: instant messaging.
Lands' End uses real-time communication to help online shoppers find what
they're looking for. Surfers visit the company's Web site (see Forbes.com's
review) and click on the Ask Us button if they have a question about chinos,
T-shirts or jeans. After typing in their names, they are greeted by a
cheery representative, whom they are introduced to on a first-name basis.
Questions are answered promptly and courteously, with a healthy dose of
exclamation points. To help illustrate the answers, reps can even redirect
a user's browser to new Web page.
The online TLC has translated into higher sales. Lands' End, which was one of the early adopters of both Web retailing and instant messaging, saw online sales rise 5% last year. Web purchases now account for 21% of Lands' End revenue, which totaled $1.46 billion in fiscal 2001. The company, which was acquired by Sears (nyse: S - news - people ) for $1.9 billion in May (see "Sears Goes Back To The Future"), says that 20% of new customers come from the Internet and that 14.7% of its online visitors end up buying something. Perhaps even more impressive, the Lands' End Web site is now more profitable than its catalog business.
Instant messaging has bolstered Lands' End's Web success. The company says that the average value of an order increases by 6% when a surfer uses its instant message technology. An online visitor who uses Lands' End's IM is 20% more likely to make a purchase than a customer who does not.
But while your teenage daughter pays nothing for IM, companies that need a product that works well with their Web sites and other IT functions don't have it quite so easy. Lands' End bought its system from Webline, which is now owned by Cisco Systems (nasdaq: CSCO - news - people ), and introduced it in the fall of 1999. Lands' End wouldn't disclose how much its IM cost to implement and maintain, but one statistic gives a glimpse: Several hundred of the company's 2,500 customer service representatives have been trained to answer both phone and IM queries.
Still, Land's End's approach could be a model for other retail chat applications, and for other companies' interactions with consumers. AOL Time Warner (nyse: AOL - news - people ) and Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ), both of which have been searching for ways to pull pennies from the more than 60 million people who use instant messaging, must hope they'll see the fit.
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Lands' End Launches Ambitious Customized Apparel Line on Web Site
Sep 05, 2002 (Daily News - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX)
--Put away the too tight chinos and the jeans that need hemming. In a
first for amajor apparel brand, Lands' End is about to roll out a full
array of customizedapparel on its Web site.
The ambitious Lands' End move comes amid dark times for recession-batteredretail
industry, which has seen slowing apparel sales this year.
A barrage of ads featuring this year's new styles failed to boost sales at chainstores, which according to two reports published yesterday slipped in August.
Uneasy about the nation's faltering economic rebound, consumers appear to haveheld off on major back-to-school shopping sprees.
Chain store sales fell 1.7 percent over the four weeks of August, according toInstinet Research's weekly Redbook report, with department stores hurting mostas parents clamped down on new clothing purchases.
During the last week of the month, sales rose a modest 0.5 percent followingthree straight weekly declines.
The nation's leading retail chains are expected to report their official resultstoday.
Looking forward, there may be more bad news on the horizon for the upcomingholiday season.
Ron Hutchison, chief restructuring officer at bankrupt discounter Kmart, toldReuters he expects sales for the last three months this year to come in belowlast year's already weak levels.
Lands' End parent Sears, Roebuck could see a sales decline of 12 percent,analysts said -- one reason for adopting more innovative devices to getcustomers in the door and keep them coming back.
Offering made-to-order fashions online is the device chosen by Lands' End, thevenerable retail direct mail retailer.
"When times are tough and spending is slowing, retailers have to differentiatethrough product selection," said Carrie Johnson, retail analyst at ForresterResearch. "Those companies thriving online are the ones that are offeringconsumers the ability to buy something online that they can't find anywhereelse."
Lands' End decided to expand its custom-made offerings after launching a testprogram in April when it began selling made-to-order jeans and chinos.
In short order, more than 10 percent of its chino customers began opting fortailor-made pants -- even though they came with a price tag of $54, $20 morethan its regular-sized slacks.
"The sales have exceeded expectations," Lands' End spokeswoman Jody Lau said.
Starting this fall, Lands' End will begin offering custom shirts and morevariations in pant fabrics and styles. Over the course of the year, it'sexpected to roll out other product categories to fit any body type -- evenswimsuits and men's suits.
"We are changing how people shop," said Bill Bass, Land's End senior vicepresident of e-commerce. "No longer are shoppers pushed into a pre-fabricatedbucket of 'size 10' or '32-34.' They can now buy 'size: you.' "
While Lands' End is the first big brand to try this online, others have pushedinto custom clothing. Three years ago, Levi Strauss began tailoring its jeans toindividual needs -- but customers have to trek to Levi's stores for the service.
To buy custom clothes online, Lands' End shoppers must first answer a series ofquestions about their measurements. "It takes about five minutes," saidspokeswoman Lau.
The information is then put into customized software that creates a personalizedpattern that is sent to the retailer's factories. Customers can expect to waitbetween two and three weeks for the finished product.
By Phyllis Furman
