SSENSE carries mainly luxury brands. These include not only the standard large fashion houses like Gucci and Fendi but also newer and less known designers and brands such as Craig Green who recently did costuming for the newest “Alien” film. The products are carefully curated and cover a wide range of high fashion styles. SSENSE places as much importance on the formal side of fashion as they do on tech and street wear. The average price of an item on SSENSE is somewhere in the range of 400-500 dollars but somehow they still manage to attract an remarkably young audience. This could have to do with fashion’s prevalence in pop culture today as a result of the increased influence of hip hop artists like Kanye West, but nonetheless, it is still impressive that
SSENSE is a Montreal based physical and online retailer. The use of these two revenue streams puts them in the category of a multichannel retailer, meaning they sell product on multiple platforms. Currently, SSENSE makes the majority of its sales through its globally available online store but it still retains its original physical location in the Old Port area of Montreal Quebec.
Founded in 2003 by three brothers: Bassel, Rami, and Firas Atallah, SSENSE was always destined to be an online or e-commerce retailer. The online store was always at the center of the business model put together by the three brothers who started the company when the oldest of them was just 25 years old. In the early 2000’s the internet was still in its adolescence and there were many untapped markets “[We] saw a big opportunity in luxury e-commerce,” Bassel told Elle Canada in early 2017. The brothers used the physical store to build confidence with many luxury brands for three years before launching the SSENSE online store in 2006. The company remains privately owned which sets it apart from the industry’s competitors.
According to Bassel Atallah “[SSENSE] cater[s] to a millennial audience.” The fact the company is catering to a target market that includes themselves increases their influence and awareness of the market. According to a figure from Elle Canada published in early 2017, 80% of all SSENSE sales were to people aged 18-34 which is exactly the market the Atallah brothers are intending to penetrate. Their awareness of their own brand allows them to focus their efforts on reaching their desired markets. Based on its product lines, one can assume that SSENSE is targeting people at the forefront of fashion trends. An aspect of the target market they are pursuing also has a lot to do with the luxuriousness of the brands they carry. They know exactly the target market they wish to reach are doing so incredibly successfully.
80% of all SSENSE sales were to people aged 18-34
a company younger than most high school students is reaching exactly the market it wants to.
To reinforce the luxuriousness of its product and marketable brand, things are rarely discounted on the SSENSE online store. Each year there is a sale around the halfway point of each season, be it fall/winter or spring/summer. SSENSE uses this sale to make room for new arrivals for the next season. There are two sales each year with markdowns of sometimes up to 70% but there are no discounted prices in any other capacity on the site. SSENSE makes each sale an event and uses them in a very smart way. They keep the brand on a high pedestal while still allowing for discounts to be allocated.
“[We] saw a big opportunity in luxury e-commerce,”
80% of all SSENSE sales were to people aged 18-34
The visual aesthetic of SSENSE is undeniably minimalistic. Their online store uses lots of negative space and simple layouts. Nearly all the text on the website is written in a font similar to Arial and the simplicity of the design puts the focus on the clothes instead of the website itself. With that said, the website is still extremely pleasing to look at. Perhaps the most important aspect of SSENSE’s visual merchandising is their styling. In their online store, if a customer selects a product they can quickly view the full outfit being worn with it and see a list of each product. Nearly every product is styled with other purchasable products on the site. This feature will increase sales because it allows a customer to purchase multiple things they know go together. SSENSE places the most importance on its online store so it makes sense that they put effort into the way they display the product on that platform.
SSENSE uses extremely focused advertising. Because they are a mainly online company, they use Google to distribute curated advertisements to people likely to shop on their site. As someone who browses their site frequently, I can say that the more you browse, the more specific the product suggestions get. Something I have also noticed is that I see their advertisements the most when I am on other related sites. Most SSENSE advertisements I see are either on other ecommerce sites or won sites like GQ. Another aspect of the business is the editorial section of the site. Instead of making the website design a destination, SSENSE uses their editorials to attract a returning audience and often embed links to products featured in their editorials so that the reader can shop without even meaning to. This brilliant tactic not only further builds upon the SSENSE brand but brings customers back to the site repeatedly and on a regular basis.
I have personally purchased merchandise from SSENSE on three occasions and I can say first hand that they have excellent customer service. The return policy is straightforward and reasonable for a company selling merchandise like they are. There could potentially be issues with the fact that they are quite strict with their return policy but if it is respected, returns are painless and easy. It was an easy process to print the return label and ship the item back to SSENSE and there is an added benefit of them being free in Canada. There have been mixed reviews online about the quality of SSENSE customer service but for the most part the comments are positive. The state of the company is enough to prove that whatever they are doing is working as they are continuing to grow and reach a broader audience.
It is difficult to comment on the personal selling without having been to the physical location in Montreal. It is, however, possible to speculate based on their brand image that it would be somewhat of an experience to go to the SSENSE physical retail location. It’s not unlikely that there is a lot of salesmanship involved in this space because the pieces they sell are so high end. When fashion prices cross a certain threshold, the sales techniques used are more comparable to a car salesman than someone working in Forever 21. Many of the products available on SSENSE could be considered small investments and for this reason it is likely they are pushed by salespeople. With that said, the more important aspect of their personal selling would be the aforementioned personalized ads. These ads don't just show a customer products they’ve previously viewed but also similar products or more by the same designer.
For many years the luxury online retail sector was dominated by the Net-a-Porter company whose holdings include Mr. Porter. They would probably have been considered SSENSE’s main competitor but in recent years, Net-a-Porter had been running in “the red” and having difficulty turning a profit. The main advantage Net-a-Porter would appear to have over SSENSE is that it is US based. This would appear to give it an advantage on the global market but this, however, is not necessarily the case. According to figures published by The Globe and Mail in 2016, only about 18% of SSENSE online sales are Canadian with nearly 50% coming from the US, 10% from China, and the rest globally. These figures illustrate the uniqueness of SSENSE as a luxury fashion retailer. Not only this but the Mr. Porter website is difficult to navigate and seems too cluttered. The SSENSE site remains free of ads for the most part while you shop which makes it feel more like a physical retail store than its contemporaries. They’ve successfully penetrated global markets, continue to turn a profit, and have plans to open a second retail location with nearly eight times the sales floor space of the original brick and mortar store. Even though SSENSE is a small, independent company, it is growing and has a stronger presence than larger online companies. It resonates with its customers and creates a relationship with fashion that not all retailers can supply.