What's in a price?

Contributed by Emma Callin

One of the many reasons why I love my job is the personal relationship I'm honoured to have with our Canadian designers and being able to view all of their collections before they reach stores.  The amount of creativity and hard work that goes on behind the scenes of all the clothes and accessories we showcase is quite astounding!  

And yet I'm constantly confused and confounded when I hear stories of our designers being unfairly accused of "exorbitant markups on sub-standard items" - every single piece they make is not only designed in Canada but made with care in Canada from recycled and/or sustainable materials.  Keystone markup is the norm, which leaves a 50% margin to cover business costs and (hopefully) a small profit.  

This manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) is over 5 times that of the wholesale price.

In contrast, we often receive catalogues from Canadian companies (who shall remain nameless) trying to convince us to carry their products without any information available about how or where they are manufactured.  The above image is an example of their wholesale costs versus their suggested retail prices - a markup of over 500%!  Even a "deep discount" of 80% would still yield a large profit margin.

An example of costs from Canadian designer Jennifer Fukushima (see her blog for the full breakdown)

While movies and news media tend to glamourize the lifestyles of wealthy fashion designers, the reality of the average independent designer is quite different.  For them the profit margin you see in the infographic above is not unusual and that margin is the first to shrink in order to give the customer a better deal.

When you support ethical, sustainable fashion designers, you're helping them to continue to do what they love: providing you with quality pieces you'll be able to enjoy for years to come while also ensuring that the people who made those pieces earn a living wage.