I wrote this and posted it on my blog back in August or early September. I just read it again and decided I still liked it. Since Transworld Business has graciously given me space to write pretty much anything I want (so far) I thought I’d throw it out there and see what the response was.

Transworld Business’s highlights its main story in the August issue on its cover by stating “Everybody Hates Hollister.” But the subtitle is “What You Can Learn….” And that, indeed, is what the very well done story is about. I recommend it to everybody.

The thing is, I don’t hate Hollister. I admire the hell out of them. Back around 2000 (before that actually, as the first store opened in 2000) somebody at Abercrombie and Fitch actually recognized a market opportunity/niche nobody else had spotted and they’ve taken amazing advantage of it. My hat’s off to them. I like how they’ve done their stores for all the reasons the story discusses.

The actual title of the story is, “How Hollister Stole Surf.” I’m not quite so sure they stole it. In fact, I’m worried we gave it to them. Because we wanted to be “core” maybe? Because we’re a little too incestuous as an industry and talk to ourselves too much? Because if an industry company had opened a clearly “fake” Hollister style store, the rest of the industry would have been mad at and laughed at them?

Even in 2000, we knew that most surf customers didn’t surf and we were counting on that non participant customer for growth. When you think about it like that, what Abercrombie did with Hollister just makes sense.

They are apparently giving the customer what they want. And the customer always gets what they want. Somebody makes it for them if enough of them want it. Ask the snowboard and skate industries.

As an industry, surf made a decision, implicitly or explicitly, that the market segment represented by the Hollister customer should want what the traditional surf customer has alw

ays wanted. Or maybe a better way to put it is that we believed our aura of legitimacy, as the official representatives of surfing, was what all customers and potential customers should want. There’s a tiny hint of arrogance in there that I’ve seen in just too damn many industries when they are on top. Microsoft? General Motors? Customers have a funny way of not listening to an industry tell them what they should want or where they should shop.

Without the Hollister type of customer, where does growth for the surf industry come from?

There’s a sense in the article that Hollister is attacking “our” market. And there’s the usual question asked about, “How can the endemic market defend itself against such a powerful opponent.

Three comments: First, if all we can do is “defend ourselves” then we’re too damn late, aren’t we? Second, the industry can’t defend itself, but individual companies can and will and are adjusting their strategies to account for Hollister. Don’t wait for “the industry” to do something. Finally, I’d note that nobody, not one damn person in the whole article from the endemic market, suggested that maybe we should consider learning from Holllister and even (gasp!) think about adopting some of their ideas. The implication is that we don’t want the customer they have.

The exception, I guess, was PacSun, whose recent changes are clearly being made with the Hollister model in mind. I hope our “core” shops will consider thinking like that

Jeff Harbaugh is a consultant for the action sports industry and works with companies to identify and focus on critical business issues and opportunities fundamental to the bottom line.

For more information, visit www.jeffharbaugh.com.

Tags: Hollister, jeff harbaugh, Market Watch

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 12:52 pm and is filed under Data & Statistics, FEATURES, Market Watch. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.