Logistics and customs nightmares in China nearly bankrupted Suitsupply early on
Fokke de Jong · Suitsupply: Fokke de Jong · May 1, 2023 · at 41:42
Suitsupply founder Fokke de Jong discusses early operational bottlenecks and customs delays following the company's decision to shift suit manufacturing from Europe to China.
0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.7s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“So everything was, you know, the quality was great, the craftsmanship was great, but everything else around it was a nightmare. I almost tanked the business with it.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Fokke de Jong
De Jong forged municipal zoning blueprints to save first Suitsupply store
“And so then I thought, ok, I took a pen, I practiced as long as I could, To, you know, have almost the same handwriting as the unit where it was store written in, and I just penciled store in my unit. And then I went back to the municipality and said, but guys…”
Suitsupply hired actors to pose as customers for its initial London store
“So then I started hiring actors to be in the store, to sort of browse around, and sort of, we had some dynamic happening”
Italian luxury suit factories skimmed excess fabric for unbranded secondary sales
“And he made this sort of deal where the factory in Italy was producing suits for some of the bigger brands, right? And they would tell these brands yeah, well, you give me this cloth to make you a product, and we need 3.1 meter to make this product. But in rea…”
De Jong estimates 60 percent of corporate effort goes to internal politics
“50, 60% of the effort in an organization like that goes to the political process, right? Positioning yourself well and all that kind of stuff. It's not just doing stuff, right?”
Dutch luxury retailer Oger sued Suitsupply over a cheeky directional advertisement
“And then we had an ad that says, For a beautiful suit, you go to Auger, and then you'd take a left and a right. All right, basically just a route to go to our store. And it was sort of a little bit of a pun and we're joking. And it was a little tongue-in-cheek…”