Wow, where has the month of August gone? It’s the 23rd and this has been a whirlwind of a month. With this blog, I like to provide a behind the scenes of MEZZI and fill in customers and shareholders on items that might not be press releasable.
Last week was spent on the road, first in Las Vegas for the semi-annual MAGIC fashion conferences. Twice per year, the fashion industry descends upon the desert for a collection of fashion shows for all the industry participants. These are extremely large conferences that take up multiple locations and have dedicated shows for all types of participants from small start-up brands to some of the globe’s largest. Like other fashion shows, it offers a bit of perk for retailer’s and their buyer’s to get in a bit of a trip while determining which brands and styles to carry for the season in their stores.
I must say, these events and shows are quite nostalgic and likely won’t continue to be as relevant as more and more retailers continue to leverage e-commerce and fast-fashion brands like Zara and H&M keep their stores fresh with constantly new arrivals of products. Shopping seasons are becoming increasingly more blurred and MEZZI is ideally positioned and a part of driving this change. It’s all a part of consumers seeking more convenience and more choice in how and what they purchase.
Needless to say, the traditional fashion industry is being disrupted and for you the customer, it’s for the better.
MAGIC was very productive for us. We spent our days dividing and conquering, meeting with prospective retailers, buyers, showrooms and suppliers getting the word out on our Smart Luxury brand. Folks, we are in position A. We are exactly where the industry is looking to move but have no idea how to. So far fashion has only toyed with integrating technology in mostly superficial ways. We aren’t standing pat and have been hard at work on further integrations. Stay tuned.
From there, I headed to meet our designer and production manager in LA to review our final SS16 samples of our new designs and to check on the progress of our next production run for the fall. This is the first round of designs to come to life from our head designer Kevin Costello. They are impressive in design both aesthetically as well as in function. We look forward to bringing these to market over the next several months.
We’ve admittedly had some production snags in the past by almost missing our launch prior to Christmas last year and in not producing enough of what have become top sellers for Spring/Summer. We have learned a lot about our customer’s interests and preferences over the last 10 months since launch and we’ll be leaning into these desired designs in a far bigger way for the fall.
Last week was a great week for our social channels. These remain the best way for new prospective customers to become familiar with our brand and this remains our biggest sources of traffic to our website. Our Instagram account grew by more than 8% last week and saw many new significant influencers engage with our brand. To follow along, make sure to search for hashtag: #herMEZZILife
It’s so rewarding and validating to see all the hard work start to pay off and the brand begin to take on a life of its own. We’re really firing on all cylinders these days with a tremendous focus on customer service, product quality, sales and revenues.
The global stock markets have seen tremendous volatility and selling pressure lately and the TSX Venture Exchange is at all time lows even lower than the horrid dotcom bubble of the late 90’s. It has been a quieter summer than usual and with the continued rout of oil and commodity prices, the overweighted-in-commodities TSX Venture will likely continue to lag. Our share price is off about 50% from its recent highs and nothing negatively has happened at MEZZI (TSXV: MZI) to equate to this drop, we’ve gotten caught up in the rush for liquidity. I’d argue that we’re probably the exact type of company that will lead the TSX Venture out of this ditch. Not a recommendation. Please do your due diligence.
Some of you may have noticed that we continue to refine the website and recently launched a dedicated Canadian site for Canadian customers (automatically redirects based upon IP address). Now, all the way along, Canadian-based shoppers are transacting in Canadian prices and we are subsidizing some of the currency exchange. We’ve added many enhancements including a specialized content delivery network to allow the website to operate much more quickly and we’ve improved the mobile experience significantly after we noticed from our analytics that over 60% of all of our traffic comes from mobile devices. The website is really like our store and this will always be evolving to maximize the user experience.
We’ll be further updating you on the progress of our other division: MLine, as our dealer network has continued to grow at a very quick rate in the US.
As we’ve been very transparent about recently, in addition to significant organic growth, we’re also focused on growing MEZZI through strategic acquisitions. This has taken much of my time of late and I look forward to updating everyone on the results of these efforts. Stay tuned.
I am extremely passionate about what we’re building. It’s much more than just a “deal” for me, it’s not this at all. This is about how we’re growing and establishing the next “it” brand. We’ve begun to assemble a killer team that align with shareholders and share the same amount of passion as I do for what we’re doing. Many days they inspire me and are a happy bunch to be around. Despite the market carnage, I am more excited each day to jump out of bed and execute for you, our customers and our shareholders.
If anyone has any specific questions please direct any and all to me directly at:keir@mezzi.com
Have a good evening. I’m up in less than 7 hours to begin another action packed week.
Night.
Keir
CEO, MEZZI