In light of last week’s recall of yoga pants made in Taiwan and distributed by Lululemon Athletica, World of Leggings CEO Danny Alex is emphasizing “Made in the USA” as a part of its merchandising strategy.
In a press release, World of Leggings cited recent quality control issues and product recalls by Lululemon and others. World of Leggings, according to the press release, maintains a strict policy of “Made in the USA” women’s fashion with over 95% of its women’s leg fashion and leggings are manufactured in Los Angeles, California.
Issues with the leggings pertained to the bottoms which were made with a batch of black luon didn’t meet the company’s standards. Certain shipments of the product received from their factories did not meet technical specifications and the company pulled their affected black luon women’s bottoms from their stores, showrooms and ecommerce sites and worked with the supplier to replace the fabric and their other manufacturers to replace key items as quickly as possible, according to Lululemon.com.
Alex said in a recent interview when his company sees a problem with its product, the company can act and react on that problem, and is able to send the product back to the manufacturer to fix it. It is then sent back to the consumer in the next week.
“When we see problems, we can have those problems rectified same-day [or] in a short period of time,” said Alex.
According to the release, Lululemon Athletica announced the large recall of its Asian made black Luon women’s bottoms from their stores, showrooms and ecommerce site that approximately affected 17% of its women’s bottoms.
Alex said the “Made in the USA” has slowly become more of a talking point with the recent recall with Lululemon Athletica. The first question he said asked is “where are the leggings manufactured.”
Some advantages to its “Made in the USA” manufacturing policy includes same-day delivery, and real time quality control, “just in time” inventory management, superior overall quality, reduced capital and shipping costs as well as economic benefit to the United States through job creation and capital flows, according to the release.
Alex said the “Made in the USA” message is always displayed front and center of their website with an applicable link off the main page further explaining their message.
“The quality you get and the manufacturing is staying in the country and creating designer, transportation [and] manufacturing jobs within the U.S.,” said Alex. “Most of the nylon and spandex are made in China, but we have a ‘Made in the USA’ seamless product, it sells so well. The look is better and the fit is better.”
Alex said the company has always used the “Made in the USA” message for their products since their inception. It has been the underlining theme in sourcing the products.
“I will support quality [products] made in the USA. America is known for fashion, designing and creating it. America is fashion as much as Europe is fashion,” said Alex.
Alex said the company further drives their “Made in the USA” message through SEO and SEM as well. He said when he looks to spread the message, on their website they put the words in their keywords, because the message is only going to get stronger where people can realize they can buy something a little more expensive and look good in the product too.
World of Leggings is owned and operated by Bravada International Ltd. In February, Bravada International Ltd. reported 250% revenue growth in 2012 on revenue of $3.476 million and an EBITDA profit of $160,418.10, according to a release from Bravada International Ltd.