When is the last time you shopped online for fashion at Walmart? Maybe never?? But now comes a partnership of Walmart and Lord & Taylor online. It may be another attempt to stem the tsunami of Amazon where you can buy anything and everything.  Or maybe it was the Martha Stewart and Kmart model or Vera Wang and Target?? They call this the new brand architecture and it is a fascinating paradigm shift.

 

Let’s look at Lord & Taylor, which is the oldest department store in America. Founded in New York in 1824, the original store sold cashmere shawls and hosiery. I still have several beautiful cashmere sweaters from Lord & Taylor from the 80s.

It remained high up in the stratosphere of fashion and apparel but lost its stature over time from department store competitors like SAKS, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales and Nordstrom’s.

 

Today, Lord & Taylor markets itself as the go to place for dresses and this is where Walmart is trying to gain entry. Each is looking for customers that they now don’t have. Simple in principle, but Lord & Taylor has the most to lose. Why would a Lord & Taylor customer shop at Walmart? How will this affect the brand? Who knows and maybe the bottom line matters more than the devalued branding.

Having shopped online at Lord & Taylor, we found it to be a ridiculous amount of stuff to plow through because there is no filter and you can spend way too much time shopping online. Online shopping is transacting a massive amount of purchases and yet still bricks and mortar holds on. According to a recent Harvard Business School case study, 83 % of apparel shopping is done in traditional stores. This is an interesting article from NYTimes about the partnership:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/business/walmart-lord-and-taylor-website.html

 

We invite you to go online to peruse Lord & Taylor’s “Premium Brands” at Walmart’s and let us know your reaction to the inventory of dresses. I say shopping in a store is still better but maybe that is old fashion.  These are dresses I liked on the site and very reasonably priced.

/www.walmart.com/cp/4686374?&search_redirect=true

 

Ciao,

Lucy and Claudia