‘The lesson from Supreme is that retailers need more than customers – they need fans’

J Crew and Supreme were very much in the same business – selling premium-priced clothes – but their fortunes could not have been more different. 

If J Crew’s demise had been a one-off, it could be seen as just one of those things. But you could replace J Crew with G-Star Raw, True Religion, Topshop, Oasis or Warehouse, to name just a few fashion retailers that went under in 2020.  

The media was quick to draw conclusions about why so many clothing retailers were going out of business. 

There was the much-trumpeted ‘death of the high street’, the shift to ecommerce that was exponentially accelerated by the Covid pandemic and, of course, the lockdown that meant people couldn’t go shopping. Customers just weren’t buying fashion any more, they said.  

And they were mostly right. But clearly someone was.  

“Supreme doesn’t have customers. It has fans – fans that quite literally queue up to buy its products as they are released, whatever the circumstances”

Which is why Supreme, a company that should have been susceptible to all the challenges other fashion retailers reported, didn’t just survive the pandemic – it thrived, ending in a highly lucrative buyout while the founder still retained creative direction of the brand.  

Because Supreme doesn’t have customers. It has fans – fans that quite literally queue up to buy its products as they are released, whatever the circumstances.  

There is a lot of talk of transformation at the moment, but an awful lot of what is being branded as transformation is actually automation. 

That is not to knock automation. On the contrary, we have entered the digital age. Every successful modern retailing business needs to be ‘core digital’, built on digital platforms and digital tech – from its data to how systems are run, to how shoppers interact and purchase, both online and in store, and to supply chain and fulfilment. 

“Digital technology in itself isn’t transformational. It’s just your ticket to be in the game”

Every new tech buzzword is relevant to retailing: AI to predict and respond to trends upstream; in-store sensors; face and voice recognition; soft robots to speak with purchasers; VR to augment the in-store experience; blockchain to manage the supply chain; streaming; gaming; delivery drones. The list goes on. 

But digital technology in itself isn’t transformational. It is foundational. It’s just your ticket to be in the game. 

Which is why understanding what is different about Supreme is so important for anyone who wants to transform a retailing business in this new era we have entered – especially if the business wants to be premium.  

Supreme is what I call a ‘zero-customer’ brand. It doesn’t have customers. It has fans. And fans behave in a very different way to traditional customers, particularly when things get tough. 

What the global pandemic has done is accelerate a shift to a paradigm we have never experienced before – an age of abundance, where all the constraints and barriers that have traditionally restricted access to things have been removed. 

What used to make a department store special was that you could find things in your local town that weren’t available to you anywhere else. Online, everything is now available. 

One result has been a very rapid erosion of customer loyalty, a trend that is already tending to zero, driving a race to the bottom in terms of price. It is a boon for people wanting to buy things, but a nightmare for anyone trying to make a living selling products at anything other than the lowest price. 

Which is why fandoms and creating the experiences that nurture them is where the action now is.  

Imagine what would happen if a traditional retailer released a poor product onto the market, one that really disappointed its customers. Not just once, but over and over. The customer would be off like a shot. Maybe even the first time it happened.  

For the fan of any sports team that isn’t in the top flight, for example, this is their regular experience. If the fans of a mediocre sports team having a bad run were regular customers, they would simply jump ship.

“Depop is all about fans. It looks and acts much more like Instagram than a traditional market or store”

But they don’t. In fact, what they do is lean in. It is what causes them to lean in that we need to be interested in.  

A starting point when thinking about what it takes to build a fan-centric brand is the news that Etsy has paid $1.6bn (£1.13bn) for Depop – an app for young people who are passionate about all things vintage.

Depop is all about fans. It looks and acts much more like Instagram than a traditional market or store. 

The question retailers need to think about is: what makes a fan different from a traditional customer and how can that opportunity be brought to life?

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