Very few brands have held the title of “American Brand”.
Levi’s did it.
Gap did it.
Ralph did it.
Maybe Supreme?
A cultural trend that is seen in malls, high schools, country clubs.
The power of a brand that is for everyone.
But how can you be for everyone, forever?
You cant.
I often say “Fashion isnt tech”.
Like fucking duh right?
But what I mean is- you cant raise VC money and burn your way to market dominance.
This isnt uber. You arent providing a service.
You are providing a path to self expression.
The bigger you get, the shorter you live.
There will never be one winner. And the biggest winners eventually lose.
That is the lesson of GAP.
GAP VS RL
These brands have a lot of overlap.
Both are actually multi brand retailers.
Both are publicly traded, with a market cap of billions.
But they did things differently
GAP sections off their brands.
You can swap between sites with a nav bar, but they try to make each brand have a unique identity.
Except… they feel identical.
Gap is suppose to be mid tier, old navy low tier, Banana Republic high tier, and Athleta purely athletic.
But price points across all sites are muddy.
Gap has shit on sale for $19, same price as old navy and Athleta.
The sites are stuck together, without differentiation or cohesion.
The styles look good, identical to everlane, but also identical to each other.
This is so offensively average that it goes form being for everyone, to no one.
RL does this differently.
One site experience, one shared BRAND.
Sub labels separate shopping experience and price point.
You can buy a $60 polo or a $400 polo within 4 clicks.
BUT!
By being under one house brand, they separate church and state.
They dont compete with each other.
You can see a design and know which brand it belongs in.
By being under one banner, they actually keep their identities more intact.
Its why Ralph is trading at 1.66x last twelve month revenue, and the GAP is trading at .66x.
They kept the wholesale customer, the outlet customer, the adventure customer, the luxury customer, the western customer all happy.
All bought in under the same banner.
Now lets tie this all in with Ridge and MARKET DOMINANCE:
This is interest over time for 4 different topics:
- Watches
- Rolex
- Wallets
- Ridge Wallet
So category of product vs brand in that product category to get a score.
What we see is:
Rolex has a market dominance score of 55%.
Ridge has a score 37.5%.
Ridge is quickly gaining market share in the wallet category, and if trends continue we will reach Rolex level dominance by 2026.
While at the same time growing the entire industry.
Wallets are just less mature than watches, so every dollar we spend, drives total market growth.
HOW IS THIS RELATED TO GAP OR RALPH LAUREN?
Ridge is a long ways away from being the next “American Brand”
But, we are very category dominant.
I need to be thinking about how to continue to grow without becoming a GAP.
How do we channel our inner Ralph Lauren?
For us, it is category expansion and then market expansion.
Ive been so open about this:
SELLING WALLETS IS HARD.
So many brands try to copy us, and I see their numbers:
Layoffs. Growth flat. No EBITDA.
The next 5 years for Ridge is category expansion.
And then Market expansion.
Follow Ralph Laurens lead.
We are all just trying to be Ralph.
Very interested to see how you expand market as it sounds like you are aiming to upscale the brand. This is very difficult. I prefer an expensive leather wallet and would never buy a ridge in 1000 years (no hate, it’s just not my style, but I think I am indicative of a consumer segment you are trying to capture). Once you defined yourself as a $100 price point, it’s hard to convince consumers the brand is worth more. I could be way off base with my assumption but interested to follow along nonetheless. If you can get me to ditch my saint laurent for a ridge I shall bow before you