“It's not just about the buttons. It's not just about the labels and packaging. It's how you actually communicate it. It’s essentially the story that you tell, and you tell that story through the linings and the buttons and things like that,” said Martin Jomoa, brand development consultant. Rather than trying to start with a complete concept, he says to start where you are and then keep evolving the brand, making adjustments along the way, and integrating the market's response into future collections. “It's a great way of working. You don't know everything at the beginning but you move with your customers. So you take what you know at any one point in time, you review it as best as you can, and then you move to the next stage,” he said. This approach also allows brands to be more adaptive to market changes. “In a sense, this pandemic has gotten people to re-evaluate their brands. To ask themselves ‘Are we going in the right direction? Are we authentic and true to our brand?’ It’s been an important opportunity for them,” he said. One of the biggest mistakes brands make is in underestimating their customers, according to Mr. Jomoa. “With global retailing and e-commerce, consumers can shop whereever they want to. They can buy what they want and they can shop online and compare different products. “So I think when brands or retailers change factories, when they change fabrics, when they change fit, when they're not true or consistent to what they originally established and believe in, they risk losing their customers,” he said. Underestimating what customers can see and how they will respond is a big risk that many brands take too lightly. "Often it's to grab a little bit of extra margin or to satisfy some other financial goal. The problem is that customers notice. If a brand is lucky, the customer will come back and complain. And if a brand is not so lucky, the customer will just move on." “I think quality plays an important role, but it is equally important that consumers understand what makes the garment better quality. Is it the fabric? Or the workmanship? Beyond materials, it’s also about what adds value to their lives,” he said. It’s important to keep checking to be sure that you haven’t strayed too far from your initial design concept. How often have we said, “That used to be a great brand, but I don’t know what happened to them.” Either the quality has gone down or the design is lacking – or often both have lost their original ‘enthusiasm’. "The world is changing and so are our customers. So it's important to keep checking in with them – like taking a temperature check – to ensure that what you're doing is meeting with what they want," said Mr. Jomoa. As e-commerce continues to gain market share, it’s important for brands to find ways to maintain a personal connection with their customers. "The product is important but so is the service that is provided alongside it. For mid-tier to better brands, the packaging and 'unboxing experience' can play a very key role in customer satisfaction. Look at the way Net-a-Porter packs their products. It makes receiving your order from them very exciting," he said. It all comes back to brands maintaining a very close connection with their customers. “They have to really understand at each point in time what their customer actually wants. And then make that product and communicate its value,” he said.