The primary message it sends me is that if you’re selling a thousand dollar sweater (or any luxury goods), half the value is in the spin. People love stories. They want to feel good about having purchased your product. They are looking for reasons to justify having spent that kind of money.

Another intangible is transparency and provenance. The more open you can be about your process, the more reassured your consumer will be. Provenance matters. People want to know that much of the value of the product is implied to be of benefit to those who made it. For example, the meal plan. That’s common in many factories. It’s so commonplace as to not be worth mentioning. And nice meals too, I’ve had plenty of them (also breakfasts and end of the day hot snacks). Obviously this sweater maker knows enough to weave the story well, imbuing the value of it into his product.

I think luxury goods sell for three key reasons. One is rarity. Second, consumers can feel exclusive, having the means to buy something others can’t. With provenance, they can feel superior to others if the product is implied to have greater social accounting.

Perhaps germane (from the article):

And 25% of the factory employees are devoted to quality control.

This always impresses consumers but this is never a good thing. If you have one quarter of your staff working on quality control, it means your processes are so dicey that you need them. It means there’s a lot of slop in their manufacturing making me wonder how much of what I’ve paid is the cost of waste and inefficiency.

Regarding the “shabby factory” scenario you describe, I’m interested in hearing your thoughts about this article Style Showdown:$1,000 Sweater Faces $100 Rival that appears in today’s Wall Street Journal (free access).

With friendship,
Lisa