EPH Apparel sees itself as more than just a clothier

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This article was published 15/02/2017 (3270 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When EPH Apparel was formed seven years ago, its three young partners were clearly focused on initiating its peer group — 22-to-35 year-old men — to the concept of well-fitted, stylish suits at an affordable price.

That’s worked well.

Last year, it was ranked as the fastest growing company in Manitoba over the past five years — with a 1,393 per cent growth rate over that time — and the 58th fastest in the country by Profit Magazine.

It just opened a new, much bigger Winnipeg storefront operation in the Antares building (formerly Place Louis Riel) and by the summer will have a second location in Calgary opened.

And this spring it’s launching a new web-site with the hopes of cracking into the international market with an automation feature that will let people buy a custom suit on-line.

That will sound preposterous to some — who would even try to buy a custom made suit on-line, sight unseen? But on-line shopping has broken through many barriers and Alex Ethans and his partners Andrew Parkes and Maciek Hunek believe the proposition of purchasing “the best fitting suit in your life without getting out of your chair” will be attractive to many.

And they’ve figured out a way to do it.

“We are watching the under-30 customer base,” Ethans said. “They are more willing to purchase on line and much more willing to take out the human element when it comes to making a purchase. They are happy to deal with a computer and a box that comes to the front door.”

Working with an IT consultant they have used the data from their 30,000 existing customers to design an algorithm that will spit out the right sizing — to the same level of accuracy as a representative in their showroom — after the customer answers just five easy questions about their size and dimensions.

If it works — and they believe it will — it will mean that they can service customers around the world.

“It might not be for me or you and that’s why we will still have our network of style consultants and storefronts to shop in another fashion,” he said, “But as we watch the world change and the future of how young people shop we need to be moving with the times.”

With the possibility of marketing on-line to say, engaged couples, or men aged 22-30 who attend a certain university, they can conceivably target the customer base they already know in Winnipeg and Calgary and Regina.

“We know what our market is now and if we can target lookalike markets in other cities we can follow that momentum and try to replicate it in those cities,” he said.

They are now experienced enough to know that a custom-made suit — made in their two factories in Shenzhen, China — will not be have exactly the right fit all the time. (EPH Apparel provides a $75 alteration credit and will provides 100 per cent rebates when it just doesn’t work.)

With annual sales in the $2 million-to-$5 million range, the company now has 32 commissioned sales reps based in all the major cities across the country that do personal fittings at offices or homes.

After only seven years in operation — with several competitors already come and gone — EPH believes it has become the price leader in the custom made suit business in the country — starting as low as $300 up to Italian wool suits for $650. Now they are leveraging investments in back office operations to take a run at the exponential growth that requires the right IT to pull off.

“We consider ourselves a technology company as much as a fashion company,” said Ethans.

But the company also has the old fashioned bootstrap style of being entirely self-funded with carefully managed growth along with lean operations.

“We’re lucky to have some success,” Ethans said. “We have conversations about whether we need to move faster and we worry about the competition and we will always have those conversations.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca