Thursday 8 July 2010

2011 is not that far away. Part 2 - Children

I realise that some of our decisions we have made for 2011 are not going to be popular. And the least popular decision will no doubt be our decision to stop hiring suits for children. So I thought I would address this one first and try to explain our thinking.

So why are we not going to hire for children in 2011? ...

Well over the last 3 years we have become a successful little business. Our customers now expect all of our suits to have an excellent fit, to be made from the best fabrics and to be made using the best factories in Europe.
This is obviously what our customers now desire, but this does not translate well into children's sizes.
To manufacture a childs suit in the same styles and fabrics as the adults suits cost 10% less than the adults, which then requires us to charge only 10% less than the adults for hiring. "We are willing to pay this price" you may think. However the risk of hiring a childrens suit is greater than hiring an adults suit.
Children will and do have accidents. Suits will be stained, knees will be worn through and at times things are ruined. So to cover the risk the prices would have to be at the same cost as an adults suit. Again you may think "We are willing to pay" but the price is not the real issue. If a suit is stained or ruined it can take up to 12 weeks to have a replacement made. This causes issues with stock control or a lowering of our standards when hiring suits. Lower standards is one thing which will not be tolerated at Jack Bunneys.
The other issue when hiring childrens suits is the size. As we all know children grow at different rates, so two 6 year olds may have completely different sizes. This is why quality factories do not make suits in ages but rather chest sizes and waist sizes, in the same scale as an adults suit. However children do not always grow in scale. At times a childs arms may grow and at other times their legs, some times children develop shoulders early in life and sometimes not until their teens. It can be extremely difficult to fit a childs size. More so than adults, this again requires a lowering in our normal standards. We normally prefer all of our hire suits to be an excellent fit, this is not always possible where children are concerned.

So in conclusion there are a number of reasons why we will not be hiring childrens suits in 2011.
1. Price
2. Risk
3. Stock Control
4. (most importantly) Size.

I do apologise for the inconveniance this will cause and we are aware that this decision will not be popular with some of our potential customers. I hope I have explained our reasoning and that you can appreciate that our small business is trying to do our very best to offer the very best service we can.

Marc

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