STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Alegria · Kate Spade

Huh????

trixie · Kenneth Cole

With a bricks and mortar store, product like clothing is a lot more perishable. My guess is that Anthro stores are trying to move through as much of their fall/winter product as quickly as possible. Resort and spring product is about to come in and they need to transition their floors cleanly and efficiently. This is for the stores to look good to the customers. With an online store, product is less perishable - they can hold on to it longer and at less of a selling cost. Online stores don't need to worry about how "clean" or "spring-like" their selling floors look. This is a general retail thing, so I'm not sure how much of it applies to Anthro, but this is my guess at why the stores have taken deeper markdowns. HTH!

lsubatgirl · Gucci

I see this all the time with B&M stores versus their online store. Urban outfitters is another one who has lots of stuff on sale online but when you go to the store the stuff is full price. They are also bad for having stuff in the stores not online and vice versa so when I see stuff I like I usually suck it up and buy it since I don't know if I'd even see it online. Drives me nuts since I don't have an UO in my town.

Elle · Hermes

On most things, I find that you can get better prices in the store than online. Also, many chain stores buy their merchandise and discount it accordingly depending on what sells best in that area. For example, a pair of awesome wool trousers that would fly off the shelf at full price in Minnesota would have to be discounted (maybe multiple times) in Florida for the company to sell the same amount of pants as they did in Minnesota. They also rely on their online stores to get their merchandise to people who are not close to one of their B&M stores - Why discount it to 50% off online when you can still sell it for only 20% off?

luckylily · Gucci

I think this is pretty common, but Anthropologie is particularly strange in regards to the relationship between the stores and the website.

I went in a few weeks ago hoping to try on a coat I had seen on the website. The salesgirl told me that the store, website, and catalog are completely unrelated. They don't carry all the same products and they don't coordinate on prices at all either.

FashionPrincess · Hermes

I asked about this at Anthro one time and they told me that the store and website are actually two separate companies, so they don't always have the same pricing, items or sales.