The end of Need Supply

For a long time, retail survived on taste and real estate — curation and distribution. The internet made it possible for regional clothing stores like Need Supply to sell to a global audience and build larger businesses. But then it also made it easier for consumers to find everything, anywhere — at the lowest price — challenging any sense of loyal... See more

Need Supply — which was founded in 1996 as a vintage Levi’s shop in Richmond, Va. — grew to become one of my favorite online stores by following a refreshingly straightforward formula: It curated an interesting selection of brands from around the world, merchandised the products well with high-quality photography, and sold them on a minimalist, fun... See more

Then there are new shopping and buying models entirely, such as Stitch Fix’s human-and-algorithm-personalized recommendations, and Rent The Runway’s subscription rental concept, to compete with.

If I were to draw a throughline between the closures of Need Supply, Unionmade, and, say, Barneys, it’s that the “curator” business case for most multi-brand online apparel retail is disappearing.

Curation is still important for brand and product discovery, but you don’t need to have a store to be an influential curator.

Meanwhile, the more recent rise of social media — plus digital publishing and the continued growth of e-commerce — has given brands strong incentives and tools to build direct relationships with their clientele, skipping the retail middlemen and keeping the rest of their margin.

And let’s see what happens over the next decade as Instagram builds out its commerce operation. Perhaps we’ll all be stores someday. (Whatever that means.)