How Bespoke Tailors Are Coming Into The Digital Age

Netscape founder and prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously wrote back in 2011 that “software is eating the world”, disrupting industries such as books, music, TV, and retail. His most dramatic example of “software eating a traditional business is the suicide of Borders and corresponding rise of Amazon.” He cites that “in 2001, Borders agreed to hand over its online business to Amazon under the theory that online book sales were non-strategic and unimportant.” We all know now how that strategy worked out for Borders. When’s the last time you bought a book there instead of on Amazon?

In addition to the entertainment industries, Andreessen argues that “companies in every industry need to assume that a software revolution is coming.” And surely one is. In fact, we’re now starting to see even one of the most time-honored, most traditional, and non-techy industries – bespoke tailoring – being changed by and benefiting from this digital revolution.

Here’s how some bespoke tailors are coming into the digital age, and using software to better serve their clients, and improve their tailoring businesses:

A Better Online Experience Begets A Better Offline Experience

Your savvy clients deserve a better online experience with your brand.   They’re becoming increasingly digital and they want to interact with your products virtually.  But never mind that.  The real reason for giving your clients a better online experience is that it begets them a better offline (in-shop) experience – even for the most traditional bespoke craftsmen.

To be clear, a rich, sophisticated, and immersive online experience doesn’t have to mean incorporating all of the necessary features for selling & accepting orders online such as a shopping cart, payments gateway, and coupon codes.  It simply means giving your clients a way to interact with your products online:  to explore your materials, visualize them as finished products, and then flip, rotate, zoom, and compare them to their heart’s content!