1 Fair wages and therefore fair prices
Aimmea is now moving in the direction I had in mind for a long time – our reach is growing – and I regularly get asked why we don’t hold a big seasonal sale or participate in Black Friday deals.
My answer is always the same; Imagine, if you buy something at 70% or even 80% off, why would you ever pay full price?
And what is really going on here, how do they do it? I don’t like to preach, but I can’t write about this topic without bringing up the major problem in today’s fashion industry. And that is mainly the poor working conditions, unfair wages or even forced labour (yes, unfortunately, it still exists). This is why certain fashion brands can offer such high discounts.
2 High-quality fabrics
Which brings me to another reason why we don’t have a big sale. It’s because we simply can’t, after all, we produce sustainably in Europe where costs are higher than in, say, Asia. To remain a healthy company, we cannot give discounts above 50%. We pay full price for everything to do with making an Aimmea outfit and we consider that quite normal.
We use quality fabrics and, as mentioned, we pay a fair wage. But also because, as a smaller company, we pay full price for shipping packages and packaging and everything else involved in making and shipping clothes. This leaves very little room for discounts. We do indulge our VIPs every now and then. Usually with a reasonable 20% discount or and twice a year up to 50% discount .
3 Clothing for several seasons
In Belgium, the government controls when sales are allowed. Which in this case is a good thing. But what’s next in the Netherlands? Many fashion labels pull the craziest antics to sell you more. They give discount upon discount or deliberately produce poor-quality fabrics so that you are more likely to buy something from them again. And the extremely high discounts make you buy things you don’t need.
Think about how many times you bought something in a sale that you never actually wore?
We make clothes that you can wear season after season. We consciously design clothes that you can combine with, for example, that cute jacket from last year or those trousers you love so much. That way, you can revive your entire wardrobe.
4 Black Friday deals are very often fake
Black Friday – the price-fest blown over from America where it ushers in the shopping season 1 day after Thanksgiving. But in the Netherlands, it hits a month before that day. And in itself, I quite understand that discounts can be attractive but unfortunately a lot of discounts are fake. When claims are made that the price is reduced, unfortunately all too often it turns out to be true that the prices are higher than before Black Friday.
It happened to me myself a few years ago, I wanted to buy a 2nd rug that I had also bought a few months before. The price was now 10% higher while it said in big red letters that the carpet was discounted by 70%. Because of these ‘Black Friday fake deals’, as far as we are concerned, there is an extra nasty feel to it and we don’t want to associate ourselves with it.
The direction for Aimmea
Aimmea, 100% made in Europe from European materials. We are not quite there yet, but we are very close. For example, one of the new things we are doing is working closely with smaller, local entrepreneurs, keeping the money local. Buying from local (European) suppliers and using European manufacturers. This is not only good for local employment but also reduces the kilometres to be covered from production site to your front door. So good for the environment too. Read more about it here
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For now, thanks for reading, and sharing, yes please!
Maria
