Rent the Runway Case Reflection Paper

Rent the Runway 

Case Reflection Paper 

Founded in 2009, Rent the Runway (RTR), a membership based e commerce company offers customers the opportunity to rent designer dresses and accessories for a fraction of the cost . This innovative approach to retail is changing the face of fashion RTR began as simple idea when co-founders and Harvard University classmates Hyman and Fleiss collaborated on a shared closet idea. With a goal of solving the average women's problem of finding something to wear a wedding without breaking the bank, the two developed the concept of dress rentals for average consumers. Hyman's dress-rental idea came to fruition following a visit home for thanksgiving in 2008. She shared the idea with her friend who they started the business together. In December 2008, they had a meeting with Diane von Furstenberg, an influential fashion designer who also was president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, and secured a meeting with her. Von Furstenberg was intrigued with their idea and agreed to meet again to consider a formal proposal. In March of 2009 they met with 20 designers. They only received a warm welcome at that time people weren't too interested at first. Then they started actually listening to what they thought on the project and that helped warm up a little bit. In April of 2009 they held to market trials at different colleges. This allowed them to see how the process worked. If people actually were interested in renting them and have allowed them to see how long it took for them to return the dresses. It allowed them to see how reliable was in returnin the dresses. Then in September's 2009 they did a third trial one run to see if people would rent from the website. This one wasn't as successful but they still went ahead with. In November 2nd 2009 they opened the beta testing which was only for 5,000 members. Then on November 9, 2009 they went ahead and launch the website they had 30,000 names 800 dresses in 160 styles. All those dresses came from 30 different designers. They had a very successful launch, so they ran out of their seed money a little faster than they thought they would and they face the decision of whether they need to raise capital. So that they can buy more dresses or if they should save the little bit. They have left and work on improving the warehouse in that area. In this timeline i agreed with most of their actions. I felt like they really were doing things in the correct order. There were a few things I would have done differently the first was with the website i think i would have got somebody local to the design it. So that, I could work a little more closely with them and I could follow up .It's harder when you're further away. So I would try to make that closer. The other thing I would have changed is I think I would have used the beta group for longer than a week. The business competencies and capabilities of the co-founders are clearly present as they have echibited successful entrepreneurship in the past. RTR's organizational struvture is a very lean management team with both co-founders in positions of leaderships as CEO and President. They are able to control and coordinate easily, but not effectively as inventory shortages and long wait list have developed. Buyer power is direcly created by the consumer demand and imposed on RTR. The consumer in this situation is at the mercy of RTR with regards to waiting for inventory, styles and types of dresses available, fashion trends and fashion designer supply on RTR. Supplier power is very strong in this situation, through the early stages it was clear that fashion designers did not want to bear the costs and risk of building their own rental business, while simultaneously being aware of cannibalization.The suppliers of the dresses are aware of the power they have over RTR, they ultimately decide whether or not to sell dresses to RTR at wholesale costs and if they even want to be involved in the dress rental business.

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