New Lawless Offerings

I disagree because you'll get an item you like eventually or a refund.

Not sure where this should go (the LD threads/topic are all over the place, kind of LD is
When did LD shirts jump up to $168? At 50% of that's $85 plus shipping.. I'll just buy a $120 shirt with no waiting or screw ups.
I thought I'd gamble on a light chambray for $50/60 and hope if get it in the 8 weeks there saying it'll take (I know, with 6 shirts ordered and 3 delivered in the wrong size it's really really stupid of me!!!)
But Hell No! Not at $85 now!

I think I predicted early on that they wouldn't be able to maintain pricing. I used an anecdote from a completely different industry as an example. When my professional services proposals get undercut by 50% I know the client will get terrible service and/or change ordered to death. We are currently in the terrible service stage with LD and moving to the price increase/change order stage.

Yeah, as I say, why would anyone pay the increased price? The frustration and quality issues are not worth it at the sale prices.

julian. It's an interesting idea to generate short term cash. I like deeply cynical explanations. Have a deep sale, make customers wait forever, hold the cash, let them cancel, and treat it as a short term loan with no real "lose leaders" actually going out the door.

But as you say, those customers who cancel after such a long are all lost as repeat business. Here's the problem: I can't imagine burning up a portion of your customer base for a cheap short term loan. The denim world just isn't that big. And then LD would get slammed on forums for the rest of time (like now). You want to lock in a customer base. It's too cynical and such a terrible long term model to generate cash that I suspect simple mismanagement is a more likely explanation.

I am not the synical. Plus the damage to the brand image is irreversible. I think this was a best intention thing.

Get the word out and have a sale.

Wow more orders than we thought this is gonna take off let's expand a bit to crank out these orders and keep up!

Darn we grew too fast, ran into issues we didn't take into account for machines breaking, fabric issues damage or running out of stock, logistic snd time issues with a ton of options. (notice I said were unexpected because i feel they should have been).

julian: I guess your theory could make sense only, if they are actually just heading for the local market (as a brick & mortar shop) and basically using online orders for those interest-free-loans ... but here again we are back in conspiracy theories, which are rather fruitless at this stage ...

seth: I am fully with you in re: customization. If you think about it, frankly, customizing trousers (or shirts for those who consider work shirts) based on some rather blurry pics on the internet has no advantage to ordering something pre-set (other than the very short lived subjective feel of ordering something made for me ...). I have ordered one pair pre-set and one pair customized (just to play around), but honestly, even if they were using other stuff than I ordered, I couldn't care less (provided they don't send the pinky lining ...) .... what I did like though, was the mention of the mill, even though I wouldn't know Kuroki or Kaihara even if the tenno himself sent it to me. somehow that appeals to me as (want to be) conscious consumer ...

I will preface this post with this. I am not being negative I'm just asking a real question.

Do you really care what Lawless has for new arrivals at this point?
Is anyone honestly thinking about ordering, at full price, anything from Lawless?
100% price increase and still most people waiting for items is this just a matter of time before they close down?

Honestly they made decent products, snaps are cheesy, but not earth shattering products. $35 all day but now $168! I'd pay $65-120 for the jeans I received. That's it.

With respect to Goethe, he died in 1832. The world is a rather different place now. Can anyone say, 'Internet'?

Still, for clarity, I'm not suggesting that Lawless are shysters. My personal belief is that they just don't quite know what they're doing and what they are managing to do they are doing with something of a 'it'll all somehow come good in the end' type of approach.

I was sort of thinking out loud, or typing relatively quietly, about how these kinds of 'opportunities' may possibly be used by some people. After all, it's really only the last year or two where things like this have been easy and quick to put in place. The Net has opened a fissure in commerce that had long since previously been closed. Sending off large(ish) chunks of money up front and to people you don't know/will never meet in the hope that they might one day send you a product that doesn't exist at the moment you pay for it?

Now, about that London Bridge I've got for sale... who's in?

I agree.. many of their business decisions appear to be made with little consideration for the consequences and result in corrective actions, again, executed with little regard to consequences.

Without the pretty much universal discount codes, they can't be considered the best, or even among the best, values in denim.

Someone should plot a cost to quality/experience chart with some of our usual suspects.. hmmm...

I don't anticipate buying any anything from LD anytime in the future, but find it strange how many people commented on how their low prices were contributing to the backlog and overall cheapening the brand. Now the prices have gone up (no doubt with 50% off on the heels), and the commentary is also negative. Can't have it both ways.

Well, you sort of can.  They did cheapen the brand by putting out sale after sale, and then not follow through on the quality and projected time lines, making their merchandise worth exactly how much they cost from that initial sale.

If they had started with maybe completing all KS orders with proper QC, followed by dropping a "come to our new website" invitation sale, then their brand wouldn't have been so devalued.  But, correct me if I'm wrong, their 50% off sales made their products lower priced than their KS orders, and they did that sale for a good month or so, and allowing complete customization, creating a crazy backlog that they are suffering 20 weeks later, and still has yet to be resolved.

So they then increased the price without showing they were worth that kind of amount, making it ridiculous for anyone to purchase their products.

I'm not against increasing prices.  Increasing prices makes sense if they had shown value and quality.  If Ciano increased prices, people wouldn't go bonkers like they do with LD.  Gustin has had issues, but they were so good for so long, that increased prices only caused mild protest.  They're still doing well, even after increasing prices.  But increasing prices at this point for LD is very similar to how I've seen many failed businesses increase prices.  Because they didn't focus on how to keep the customers they had, they lose a ton of customers.  But the ones that they do manage to keep, they charge more to try to make up for the loss of customers.  I've seen too many Asian small businesses fail in this way.

So, yeah, you sort of can have it both ways.