More updates will be coming this weekend as I browse the Philly store. But just something which bugged me - several months ago, I added a post called "Sizing Up the Competition and Playing Daffy's Buyer," where, among other things, I listed out several brands I would love to see at Daffy's that no one else, other than perhaps Yoox, was carrying in the closeout market. It so happens that that post is the most trafficked one on the blog to date, and the reason being that I reference the logo of a brand called All Saints, a British-based company that recently opened up shop in the U.S.
Now it appears that the first closeout company to get their merchandise in is, of all places, Hautelook.com. I'm not surprised persay, I just wish that maybe someone at Daffy's corporate could have read that post and been like - hey, this kid is onto something here and he knows his stuff, maybe we should drop him a line or maybe we should take his suggestions...but no; merchandise that I know would sell like hotcakes at Daffy's is being sold at twice the price it would otherwise sell at on Hautelook.
Perhaps this is just me complaining that the best that the folks at Daffy's corporate have done with my constructive criticism is to link-back to my blog. But I was hoping someone, somewhere would take this stuff all to heart. On one hand, I created the blog b/c I was getting bored at my old job, and was hoping maybe this could get me noticed in an area in which I had no professional experience. On the other hand, I was truly frustrated with the drop-off in quality of merchandise that Daffy's was getting in over the last year or so, and desperately wanted to help improve the merchandise and bring awareness to the awesome stuff which they did have.
But it often seems pointless if everything falls on deaf ears. A lot needs to be done aside from just improving the merchandise, which I'm told is on its way --- the rumors going around the staff are that they will be bringing in merchandise from Ralph Lauren. But honestly, no one has ever shopped at Daffy's for chinese-made American brands. We can get plenty of Polo merchandise at TJMaxx/Marshalls, and on uber-clearance at Macy's, Bloomingdales and Lord & Taylor.
Daffy's has always been known for high-quality, albeit, often unknown, Italian merchandise. Daffy's should stay true to those roots, but instead seems to be diverging in a different path under the new leadership. If there's one thing I've learned about this company, it's that they don't listen to the advice that's in front of them. Customers, not just myself, make all sorts of helpful comments, and store employees are full of great ideas - but not one person higher-up seems to care. I've spoken with lots of Daffy's employees, and while most are clueless about the quality of merchandise in the stores and the brands at Daffy's, it is the one or two employees that really go out of their way to educate themselves that are truly the best resources Daffy's has, yet they are paid no attention.
Apologies if I'm rambling on...just needed to get out some frustrations. Lots more where that came from, but at least this was a start. Perhaps this weekend or sometime in the near future I will write a short series of posts entitled, "Room for Improvement."
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