GUEST EDITORIAL: ANATOMY OF A TURNAROUND

It’s been eight years since I decided to execute a lifelong dream to launch a menswear venture in San Juan, Puerto Rico. At that point, I had experience in men’s retail and wholesale, and I was convinced that classic style was classic for a reason.

Placing the customer experience at the center of my retail concept, focusing on service, and letting our luxury Italian product speak for itself—this was my initial approach. However, I soon learned that in 2016, customers wanted to shop online and that they were shopping for price, convenience, and name brands rather than luxury classics.

Sticking to our guns during a five-year period of barely ringing in enough sales to cover basic business needs, we concentrated on perfecting our skills while building meaningful relationships with suppliers and developing a playbook for customer engagement that would prove a cornerstone to La Tigre’s turnaround.

The pandemic presented us with the opportunity to recruit newly available talent. And since it takes a village to raise a small business, and with new resources in place, it was showtime for our playbook.

That 2020 and 2021 customer was eager to spend on things previously unknown to him, like custom clothing and style upgrades to elevate their image above hoodies and sweatpants.

The playbook would require a new flagship: modern, exclusive, and independent. An award for Best Commercial Interior Design followed in 2022, along with unbelievable press coverage. A Business Bump on the show Late Night with Stephen Colbert certainly helped our credibility, driving a new set of important customers our way.

To our new store, we added a full-service bar and an expensive Italian coffee machine. Our team became certified in basic barista skills; mixology training sessions are periodically held to keep the bar experience to a high standard. Shades were installed to offer privacy when customers request it, and our location, outside a shopping mall, allows us to hold in-store events that may go on past midnight and to curate innovative experiences, now part of our DNA.

Going into post-pandemic normalcy, we developed concepts that would place our sales team in scenarios meant to further deepen relationships with our best customers. These included gourmet dinners and exclusive wine/spirits tastings, not to mention the dozen customers who gladly attended my wedding in Puglia last June, along with my in-store team. Some of our most important clients have since asked to join us during Pitti Uomo in Florence, and who am I to say no to them?

We regularly hold luncheon presentations for wedding planners, who hold the crucial potential of referring customers to us. We provide gifts to grooms on the day of the wedding, letting planners know how grateful we are to them.
The last three years have proven wrong all the naysayers who said physical retail was dead. Retail just needed to adjust to a new generation looking to lay down their phones for a bit and find pleasure in simple undertakings like shopping for a wardrobe with the power to elevate their image throughout a successful career.

I consider myself lucky to have been wide awake and ready when our industry experienced an about-face for the better. It’s an honor to drape customers in beautiful fabrics, buy exquisite products with specific customers in mind, and guide them in a path of appreciation for beauty, craftsmanship, intelligence, and style.

Regardless of current trends in fashion and retailing, it is the relationships we forge with customers that drive us to do better as we continue to grow. It is the value we add to men’s lives that makes the luxury menswear experience as irreplaceable now as it was for previous generations.

Mario Alberghini is the proprietor of  La Tigre in San Juan, Puerto Rico.