Cooper & Hill embraces the Evolved Consumer

London based Cooper & Hill has launched a new concept in online retailing called Crowd & Co. The Concept has been created around today's evolved consumer, reacting to the increasingly savvy and highly empowered buyer. Cooper & Hill provide luxurious products at massively marked down prices, targeting the smart consumer with an exquisite taste for Luxury products made from the finest materials whilst demanding a more affordable price point.

Kali Kalena Global Retail Lead, IBM Institute of Business Value echoes this sentiment in her article - Meeting the Demands of the smarter customer - where she insists it is essential saying, 'Consumers will expect anytime access to the information, products and services they want. And those retailers that deliver what they demand will thrive. Smarter consumers will thus produce smarter retailers, retailers that are better equipped to win a bigger share of the minds, hearts and wallets of the consumers they delight. http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/ibv-the-smarter-consumer.html

Crowd & Co shifts the power balance towards the consumer as they ultimately control the cost through collective empowerment. The consumer registers their interest to make a purchase by signing up with their email address, the more interest generated the lower the price for final purchase. The price of the products are documented as they are achieved live on an interactive website. The transparent approach does not offer discounts, because as the manufacturer they are committing to providing best possible prices direct to the consumer without allowing margins for discount. The pioneering approach will see Luxury brand quality products become accessible to the masses, bringing typical retail prices for items like Purses down from £125 to £32, a saving of £93!!!

The costs of manufacturing luxury leather goods means that other costs need to be kept to a minimum. Advertising, Marketing and PR costs are kept down by utilising creative thinking and embracing the power of the consumer so the retailer and buyer relationship becomes a collaborative partnership. Lucie Greene, Worldwide Director at JWT Intelligence talks of the blurring of boundaries between consumers and retailers when she talks about consumers as ''brands, curating their online image and monetizing it through social media clout….using new platforms to become micro-entrepreneurs. This is a way for brands to connect with this spirit and empower it.

Director & Co-founder George Powell says "At Cooper & Hill creativity is led by the spirit of the empowered consumer from design to marketing. Our brand is holistically driven with the consumer at heart, our image is real not airbrushed and at times homemade by the people themselves. The focus for our leather goods originally started as made to order customised items then organically evolved to products designed by focus groups through #CrowdDesign.

The Richmond Purse was the first example of #CrowdDesign which then naturally transitioned into this exciting concept of Crowd & Co. We are confident that if we stay strong to our core values we will succeed in penetrating what is a highly oversaturated market. At Cooper & Hill our philosophy is one that is flowing not fixed and our customer centred approach is reactive as opposed to creating or controlling the process. We believe with these conditions there is boundless potential for enormous change and innovation in today's dynamic market."

Contact Information: Cooper & Hill Ltd | http://www.cooperandhill.com | press@cooperandhill.com