I heard a rumor about owned brands and am wondering peoples thoughts. I know everything is rumor so who knows but I heard owned brands design may be very impacted. Has anyone else heard anything?
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@ee that is the opposite of what they said
@dv Thanks for the insight. So is it safe to say that anyone in tech and design should probably be looking for work on the vendor side in the future?
Owned Brands has been impacted significantly with monthly layoffs in everything from Tech to Design and Tend since 9/24. There was a big one of 40+ T5s and above in October last year.
Owned Brands has been gutted and everything from Merchandizing to planning to Trend, design and development outsourced to Vendor "partners".
Tiered Engineering and Business Partner Accreditation programs were stood up to have current OBPDP Technical Developers and Engineers train Vendors to do their jobs in everything from concept development, planning, Merchandizing thru to sample reviews, Product QC and Post delivery analysis.
Last year Bill Foudy gave away the game when he ranted I na meeting (where he didn't teeth is way) that OBPDP needs to "...behave and act more like Private Equity than a brand." focusing on speed to market and a drive to create the "Minimum Viable Product"--most value for the Guest with least cost and greatest margin.
By eviscerating OB and outsourcing development to Vendors, that's accomplishing the vision.
@af There are a few non "anchor" brands that are high performing in sales (well not right now but in general) so I question that hunch.
My hunch is non-anchor brands will be cut
I am worried about Owned Brands too why are people saying that will get the deepest cut 😭
What did you hear about own brands?
Michael’s note in the WSJ literally called design and style our North Star. Gutting the department responsible for turning this ship around makes no sense.