There’s not much that beats the convenience, peace of mind, and total reliability that the best luxury luggage brand offers you.

Luggage helps you get from point A to point B with all the comforts of home you need to feel at ease when you land on the other side. A good set of luggage can take you all the way from college to your first family holiday with the kids two decades later.

As a frequent flyer, I’ve come to rely on just one brand: Rimowa. Understand that there’s a lot of mileage between me and this decision.

The only luxury luggage brand I feel is the perfect universal status brand is Rimowa. They’re best known for the silver silhouette, which is ultra-recognizable and goes with just about any outfit, whether you’re going classy or wearing street wear.

Rimowa works, no matter what… Plus, the quality of the construction is just renowned.

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Rimowa is the perfect status luggage brand #luggage #trends #aesthetics #fashiontiktok #brandingtips #brandingstrategy

♬ original sound – Oren John

In addition to the standard silver above, they also do collabs like this one with Fendi

and this one with Moncler. I think Moncler in general has a killer collab across the board. This one isn’t my favourite of them but still a really good looking version of Rimowa.

I’ve done other videos on Moncler’s collaboration history. You can find those in my TikTok gallery.

It’s very common where you’ll actually see people sticking their Rimowa. There’s a culture around that, and you can buy sticker packs. I believe this is one of the sticker packs they sold themselves, which is particularly intriguing and a great way to add some identity to an otherwise really plain package.

Stickers offer a unique set of upsell opportunities for Rimowa as a brand because it’s a really smart idea that could do very well over time. If you have a suitcase, you can leave it plain and it will still look really classy… or you can go with stickers and create your own vibe. 

Their collaboration with Virgil Abloh on a completely clear suitcase knocked it out of the park! Now you can see almost entirely everything you put in there, which is a great way for people to show off sneakers, etc. This should make for an interesting trip overall.

If you do want to organize or keep things out of the spotlight then definitely put some pouches in there, labelled in the trademark off-the-side in white. This is one of my favorite pieces of luggage of all time. 

After the Abloh collab, they also launched a seasonal series, a neon pink and green clear version. The green goes really, really hard in person. When you see it in a photo, you kind of say “I don’t know if I can really go for that” but it’s just an incredible stand-out version in person.

Rimowa also did pastels this season, which I think is just mainly trying everything they can do to keep the brand new and fresh. I’m not a huge fan of this pastel but I’ve seen it around enough where I think it does complement if you have a really specific idea or concept for the fashion of your luggage in mind. 

I do prefer this pearl if you’re going to go with a different color from a different season, but again, it requires a certain type of person to make it work versus the all-silver version – almost anything works with the all-silver version.

These bags are often replicated like this one from MVST, but that makes sense because the price points are always pretty high. That’s because people want the same style so they’re going to look for something more unique.

At the end of the day, I think with luggage, you’re going to be using it a ton. I’d go with the original because you’re going to want to have quality as something you can use for the rest of your life and it’s often worth the price. 

You just can’t go wrong with Rimowa. If you’re looking for a piece of luggage that will last you for the rest of your life, then go ahead and get that Rimowa suitcase whether you end up with the clear, the silver, the pastel, etc., it’s up to you.

I would absolutely recommend having the silver suitcase that fits in the overhead bin and then keeping that around till you can pass it on to your children. 

I appreciate you reading. Let me know in the comments below which Rimowa you prefer!

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So many DTC (direct-to-consumer) brands are trying to get into retail right now, like Walmart and Target, for example. I’m going to break down why you should start a brand, or act as a brand, not a DTC brand and just how important all these retail channels are. 

Let’s do this. 

@orenmeetsworld

Lets talk about DTC brands going into retail #dtc #retailmarketing #trends #directtoconsumer #ecommercetips #ecommercebusiness @orenmeetsworld #greenscreen

♬ Smooth Hip Hop Trap Instrumental 5 – dj_komplex

Judging by this Census data, only 14.5% of sales happen online! 

Granted, this is way bigger than it was a decade ago but it’s still fractional compared to how much physically happens in the world.

So, if you start your business and you don’t have a plan to attack physical retail, you’re leaving this huge market on the table. 

A lot of brands also don’t want to sell on Amazon, but guess what? If you see a product on Tiktok, and then you want to go buy it, I would imagine 50% of the people are going to search to buy it on Amazon.

If you’re not there, you’re missing out on a lot of sales because people often take that second step – the purchase decision – when they find what they’re looking for.

In addition, you can’t always control the results about what’s on Amazon if you’re not on there. 

This is a fake Louis Vuitton bag with two reviews saying it’s fake showing up at Prime shipping on top of the page in the first results for Louis Vuitton.

If they had a better strategy to engage this channel, then they’d be able to prevent this. These are things you should think about for your brand as well. 

With Rimowa and their high-end luggage which people might want to buy on the spur of the moment for a trip, there’s nothing available on Prime.

Some cases don’t even have a price, and their resellers are getting all the margin that comes from approaching it on Amazon.

Considerations for DTC brands going into retail

I’d like to start a brand that I want a strategy for: 

• How do you launch online? 
• How do you have a couple of specialty retailers that you’re able to engage with and build a feedback loop about how you’re going to succeed at retail? 
• Do you have a plan for Amazon and other retail? 
• What other things do you have to consider? 

Well, going into retail, you have to consider how your product is going to be presented physically. This retail display is known as an end cap.

Not only do you have to produce these end caps or produce whatever your product is going to be on if it’s going to be displayed on the shelf.

A lot of vendors will charge you money or a percent of revenue to get that level of featured space.

Hims definitely paid a significant amount of money to get this those pharmacies, to be able to push this in front of new consumers… and they paid the money to fabricate all these things.

You don’t have to stoop to that level though, but you do need to think about what your merchandising looks like. Is it just your products on the shelf, or do you need a display unit like cosmetics use?

(I like to reference the cosmetics industry because their point-of-sale marketing is extremely refined.)

In addition to what it physically looks like in retail on a point of sale, you need the logistics of shipping, margin, and returns. you also need to think about MDF (or marketing development funds), which is what a lot of these existing retailers ask for to be able to push your product out there.

Either way – because of the size and breadth of the market, and the level of competition – if you’re starting a brand today, you need to think of it as a brand across retail, online and Amazon, not just DTC.

Strategize accordingly!

– Oren

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