Shop Local - Done Right!

It might be news to those out there who haven't seen me in person, but I'm not really a small person. I've been overweight to one degree or another for most of my adult life, and the lockdown didn't really improve things. I'm not quite at the point where an event horizon forms around me, but there's certainly some gravitational lensing going on. This also means that shopping for clothes is a bit of a challenge for me, especially here in Ireland, which is ironic given that this country has been battling with obesity for quite some time. Yet, there are very few stores that cater for this audience, and none of the large chain stores.

What does all of this have to do with shopping local? Well, one of the only stores that cater to men of my size in Ireland is located on Cork's St. Patrick Street. While unassuming both from the outside and inside, this store certainly caters to men of size, offering everything from formal evening wear to the more casual style that I prefer. Hey, I work in IT, cut me some slack here! Anyway, as the big lockdown here in Ireland looks like it's finally coming to an end, I thought it was time to refresh my wardrobe, much of which had experienced a severe case of COVID-19 shrinkage for some inexplicable reason. With C&A back in Germany, one of the few chains that caters to asteroid-mass customers such as myself, not delivering to Ireland, I decided to go for that particular store, especially since they also operate a web shop. Mind you, this article is not meant as an advertisement for the company in question. They were not consulted prior to me writing this post, I was not paid or reimbursed in any way, and neither provided nor was asked for pre-publication approval or editorial input in any way. This is purely based on my personal experience!

I'm not going to discuss prices here, suffice to say that my bank account will be needing regular therapy sessions, but the quality has generally been top notch, so I decided to order online. So far, so normal. The surprising thing came the next evening, when I received an email from said store asking if I'd like the jeans that I'd ordered shortened a bit. I took them up on their offer, as I have no intention of sweeping up the streets of Cork with my pant legs. I had to take a moment to pick my jaw back up from the floor, however. This level of service is something that I absolutely hadn't expected and shows a real commitment towards their customers on the side of the store. Oh, and don't think that these guys used regular shipping providers to deliver my order, oh no. They came over personally to drop it off!

It's more than that, however. You see, I've been more than a little critical of all these "shop local" campaigns that get trotted out regularly. In my experience, these tend to be overly simplistic, and focus primarily on guilt-tripping consumers into shopping local "or else", more often than not tinged with more than a little nationalism. Granted, the ascent of Amazon has put a lot of brick-and-mortar retailers under immense pressure, particularly smaller or independent ones. However, this small niche retailer operating out of a nondescript store on St. Patrick Street has demonstrated a way in which these large online retailers can be countered.

I've said it before and I'll keep repeating it: Amazon is far more vulnerable than they make themselves out to be!

Reaching out to a customer to see if they require some alterations prior to getting their products into shipping is something that Jeff Bezos' box pushers simply can't do. Their entire supply chain is built on moving large amounts of products across entire continents in the shortest possible amount of time. In such a tightly scripted logistics network, there is simply no time to grab a shipment and reach out to the customer to see if any changes are required. To be fair, the entire clothes shopping experience on Amazon is sub-par unless you have a red-carpet body or are willing to wear track suits, neither of which apply to me. Amazon, boohoo, Littlewoods and almost all other online retailers are vulnerable in this particular aspect, and any local store that is able to exploit this vulnerability will have an advantage that is not easily taken away. 

So, credit where credit is due. The team over at Plus Size Clothing Ireland are pretty much doing it right. They offer a product that is not too common in Ireland, or indeed online, at prices that, while not cheap, aren't excessive either, and they have a decent online presence, as well as a brick-and-mortar store. What's more, they also offer a hyper-personalised service that simply isn't possible for "regular" online retailers. As far as I'm concerned, that's the recipe to keeping Amazon at bay. So well done, and keep it up!