Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts,

radio, news.

>> You're listening to Bloomberg Business

Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenc on

Bloomberg Radio.

>> If you spend time on Instagram or listen

to a podcast at all over the last few

years, or maybe you're of a certain age,

then you know all about Quint. It

started just before the pandemic. And as

Amanda Mole writes,

>> did you not know about Quint? Of course,

I can see the packages arrive at my

home.

>> Oh, okay. Go ahead.

>> Somebody in my household ordering things

from this company.

>> That's how it's not me.

>> It is my wife.

>> Go ahead. Go ahead.

>> Uh the as a manal writes, the San

Francisco based online retailer

specializes in selling its own brand of

lowcost luxury goods. The kinds of

things designed to lessen the tension

between your aspirations and your

budget. Amanda Mole is Bloomberg

Business Week senior reporter. She's

author of the buying power column. As

Carol was alluding to, over the last few

years, they've expanded into a

surprising variety of other products, as

you write, Americanmade sofas, 14 karat

gold jewelry, uh, fragrances,

nutritional supplements, direct

consumer,

it was big a few years ago,

>> not doing so well, unless you're all

birds and you're pivoting to, um, AI

infrastructure. Uh, how has Quint been

able to pull this off? Well, I think

that what Quint has done is to take some

of the like complaints that undergur the

big DTC uh boom in the 2010s and find

like

>> DTC direct to consumer

>> direct to consumer and find um some

opportunities to actually, you know,

create more efficient supply chains that

chains that address some of those

problems because, you know, the

Everlanes and the Albirds uh of of of

recent past uh identified a lot of

weaknesses in how we move uh clothing in

particular around the world, but textile

products of all types really. Yeah. And

um so what Quint does is sort of similar

to the Shien model. Um they take um you

know uh products from manufacturers and

they say manufacturers wherever you are,

China, Vietnam, Cambodia, keep them.

We'll let you know when we have an

order. And then you ship them directly

to the consumer. So you're you're uh

skipping container shipping. you're

skipping uh over the road freight in the

United States. No warehouses. They

they're building some infrastructure in

the United States, but right now it's

all uh manufacturer to consumer. So you

skip a lot of the sort of like lead

time. Yeah. Um and then you skip a lot

of the infrastructure costs um and the

logistics costs that you're incurring

otherwise. That means that they um they

order in smaller batches. They order on

shorter timelines. um they are able to

just like cut out a lot of the guesswork

because they don't have to order six

months to a year in advance. Um and in

>> when you're dealing with products that

are subject to trends that are subject

to tastes that can make a lot of

difference. So you cut out a lot of uh

like overstock waste and then you cut

out a lot of the steps in the logistics

change which all cost money.

>> Well, fast fashion was very good at this

for a period of I mean, there are case

studies from Harvard Business School

about Zara and how well Zara did when it

came to fast fashion and trends. How do

you do this direct to consumer,

especially when it's such a wide

variety? We're talking couches to

jewelry to fragrances to supplements.

>> Yeah. Well, what Quinc's CMO told me is

that they have sort of gone allin on

building out like a systemic approach to

supply chains. So once you have a system

that allows you to scrape data on what

consumers are looking for um you know uh

analyze your own data for what they're

buying from you and what they're not and

then um a framework for working with

suppliers you can sort of apply that to

any kind of product as long as you can

find suppliers that are willing to work

with you. So they're very good at you,

they use a lot of AI, they have a lot of

internal technology that they've

developed over the the past few years.

Um that you know when you're not housing

any of the infrastructure yourself.

>> Yeah.

>> And there's suppliers all over the world

that can already make couches, can

already make jewelry, can already make

Kashmir sweaters. So if you can find

exactly the type of couch you need them

to produce and exactly the type of

sweater and exactly the type of jewelry,

then you can really uh speed things up a

little bit. It's kind of brilliant to be

honest with you. But the thing is I was

thinking, okay, $50 cashmere sweater

sounds great, but the quality's got to

be there, right? And we know they've

come up and I I said to you before we

got going, constantly seeing this

company come up when it comes to wire

cutter comparisons, right? Um the

quality's been there. Well, I think

>> or well, I think one of the most

interesting things about Quint is that

like you have to sort of remember that

we're talking about quality in the

context of the modern consumer who wants

better things but doesn't want to buy

fewer things. The general advice is buy

fewer and better. So, how do you figure

out how to buy better if you're not

going to buy fewer? So, Quinc's quality,

they they are very proud of it. I would

say that generally it is like a $50

cashmere sweater is probably going to be

better than any other $50 sweater you're

going to find on the market because all

the other ones are going to be polyester

or acrylic or nylon. So, if you have a

system that allows you a leg up on um

more traditional supply chains that are

using worse materials, then even if it's

not the best Kashmir sweater in the

world, your customers are going to be

overjoyed with what they get

>> because it's $50 versus, you know,

right? We know

>> is this the secret sauce for the

company? Because if we think about the

the the the uh path to successful DTC

direct to consumer brands, it's just

literally a graveyard of like mattress

box mattress companies that you know and

it initially seemed really innovative

and then everybody else did it and they

all went out of business,

>> right?

>> Uh is this what what's to stop somebody

from from copying Quinc's success,

>> right? I asked their executives and

their investors this. didn't get really

a super straight answer except that the

systems that they've built out do take

quite a while to build them out and you

would have to be this doesn't work if

you have a bunch of stores I think is

the biggest thing. So companies that are

have already achieved this scale in the

US are generally companies with a lot of

brickandmortar and like if you if you

need to distribute to wholesale if you

need to distribute to your own brick and

mortar locations the system doesn't

really work. So, you'd have to be an

online only company and building that up

from scratch is going to be difficult if

there's already somebody that consumers

go to.

>> I feel like if you ever watch I know I

bring this up all the time, but I used

to watch Shark Tank all the time. I

still do, but it's like whenever

somebody an entrepreneur is like, "Let's

let's build stores like no." Um, one

last question because we've got to run.

There's so you always have so many

nuggets here, but I get the model, but

then why are they doing Don Peron

Champagne? Like, why are they bringing

>> You got to treat yourself, Carol. No, I

totally get that. But I mean, why are

they bringing in thirdparty products?

>> Well, I think that there's probably a

couple of reasons, but the one that like

I find most compelling as like a a real

explanation is that you need um things

that are going to bring um like affluent

consumers to your website. And uh these

types of goods that are going to be

difficult for Quint itself to make even

though it has this pretty interesting

system for doing all kinds of stuff,

right? You need name brands that that

create this halo of luxury across your

uh assortment. And if you can get those

brands in and offer like an interesting

value proposition, then you place them

next to your products and suddenly your

products are better positioned than they

would be otherwise.

>> Kind of luxury by association.

>> Absolutely. It's a brand halo.

>> It's it's fabulous. I mean, I see it all

over. I actually haven't bought any.

Have you bought stuff?

>> I haven't, but basically everybody I

know has.

>> Wow. Tim was saying that there's been a

few packages coming in at his home.

>> Yeah, I think uh

>> I haven't bought yet.

>> I don't know what I don't open them. Uh

that's not my name on it. So,

>> it's a married couple for you.

>> Yeah. I mean, you know what?

>> It's it's important for the longevity of

the

>> Honey, you got some packages.

>> Yeah. I don't need to know.

>> I will. She's very good about about this

stuff.

>> Amanda, she's getting good deals. H we

love love love uh Bloomberg this week's

senior reporter, author of the buying

power column joining us. Check out her

story. It is on the Bloomberg and at

blueberg.com.