Personally, I’m not a big fan of fashion rentals (not great for the industry) but I hate seeing people lose their jobs…
I disagree. First of all, fast, disposable fashion is destroying not only the environment. It’s souring people to the entire industry. it’s cheap and doesn’t last. People are strapped for cash right now. They’re not going to waste any money. If you lose a person’s trust, you’re never getting it back. If someone buys something from a brand and it doesn’t last, they’ll never buy another thing from that brand again. Exposing people to high quality pieces who normally wouldn’t be able to buy them, at least not right now, generates good will and when the person can, they will buy.
Rent the Runway’s issue is that they grew too quickly and didn’t scrutinize outflow as closely as they should have. It was just about short term cash flow (it almost always is) and not long term health of the company.
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So many companies fail because they want to “scale” quickly, before they really understand the demand for their product, how much $ it will cost them to produce the inventory, and the time gap between producing that inventory and actually selling through all of it. There is a cash vacuum & burn rate exceeds net income. Better to grow more slowly, keep the customer a little hungry to keep gauging demand, and avoid negative cash flow.
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