What is the brand stretching?

What would you do? Single Brand or Multibrand retail?

• Hypothetical Situation: Assume there is a small women's fashion brand that currently wholesale's all distribution through other retailers. The owners of the brand are contemplating 2 options: 1 - open their own stores. This would be a single branded environment that obviously leverage's the current brand. This is a slow build as funding a store roll out is prohibitive. 2 - purchase an exiting retailer that currently sells their product  (i.e. a current customer) as well as other brands. The benefit is that it is a quick build but you would lose the brand experience. In this situation the brand will become the retailers house brand. What would you advise? Go it alone or buy the distribution?

• Answer:

  A2A - I really don't have much experience to leverage for this answer. I apologize if I don't get you what you were looking for in an answer. It really depends on what you're looking to do with your brand and the strength of both your brand and the potential customer. How well does your brand sell at the current retailer? Are people seeking it out? Has it made the current retailer a destination just to get your brand? If so, a stand alone store might work for you. Of course, if you don't have the capital to start a flagship store to sell only your brand of clothing, this is a moot point anyway. Your sales aren't stronger than the competitors at the current retailer? Is this because of pricing? Quality? Or just a lack if interest in the brand? These things all point to either a rework of the brand or that it will be smarter to purchase an established retailer and make it your own. Just be wary. Why are they closing? If it's due to weak sales or a bad community reputation as a retailer, this could end up burning you badly. If it were me, I would likely market my products to existing retailers, slowly building my brand, and consumer knowledge of and desire for it, until I was able to begin testing the water, opening my own stores. Small stores opened one at a time to test their ability to succeed on their own. Again, this is assuming I wanted to both manage a brand and run stores. Take a little while to seriously consider this before taking the plunge. Both are a LOT of work on their own. Together, they can be overwhelming. Especially if you are inexperienced. Very few clothing lines survive on their own for long. Most either start and stay in bigger retailers along with other lines or end up gone after a few years. Good luck!