One for the Stats Junkies

Over the past three years we’ve had plenty of feedback from many of you through Facebook messages and Instagram comments, but, having personally dabbled in a bit of science, I wanted to make the feedback a bit more… scientific. So a few weeks ago, we put out a market survey.

We wanted to know what mattered to you, why it mattered, and how Offcut could build what you want into our vision for the business going forward. To be honest, things have been pretty ad hoc at Offcut HQ until now — like a toddler making first steps, we’ve tried a few different things and had a couple of tumbles along the way but, on the whole, progress has been fast and awesome. We’re now taking a moment to breathe and look at everything we do to work out whether we’re still definitely on the right track or need to tweak a few things.

"We wanted to know what mattered to you, why it mattered, and how Offcut could build what you want into our vision."

Some of the big questions on our mind include:

1. How important Offcut’s way of doing business is to you. Stuff like: using fabric that would otherwise go to landfill, planting a tree with each cap sold, being made in New Zealand, and the lifetime guarantee.

2. What you think about the caps themselves: the styles, the labels, the strap, the peak.

3. Whether you’re interested in us branching out beyond just making hats.  

And, most importantly, we’ve been dying to get to know you! We want to know who you are and what you do. Each Offcut product is a little bit like a baby to us, so it’s only natural we want to know the champions they’re going to.

 What do you reckon? I reckon this is a cool snap by our pal Jamie Murcutt.

We were blown away by the response to our survey: 454 of you took time to respond with detailed comments about what we’re currently doing and what we should be doing. Of course, all your incredible feedback meant a fair bit of number crunching for us, so we’ve spent the past few weeks chewing through it all and thought you might be interested to find out what you’ve told us.

In terms of those of you who responded, this is what you told us:

1. You’re almost exactly evenly split between guys and gals

2. 79.2% of you who responded were from New Zealand, with the rest of you checking in from Australia, the U.K, the United States, Germany, Canada, Brazil, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the UAE.

3. You legends gave us a Net Promoter Score of 60 — that means a vast majority of you actively recommend Offcut to friends and family. Thanks so much!

Here’s some other stuff we found out about you:

1. You love to travel, do missions in the weekends… and also chill. Just like us ;) 

2. Half of you have already bought an Offcut already, and most of the rest of you are fans waiting for the perfect hat to pop up.

3. Your top three favourite brands are Patagonia, Huffer and KowTow (shout out to those of you who said Offcut).

As for the hats:

1. Two thirds of you prefer five panels over six panels.

2. Around 60% of you prefer leather labels, and about the same number of you prefer leather straps.

3. We had some feedback asking us to go vegan which we’re considering. In the meantime, all our 6 panels are totally animal-free!

4. More than 80% of you like the fact we release our hats in monthly drops.

Beyond that, you told us the most important factors that influence your decision to buy an Offcut cap are, in order, that:

1. you like the style of the cap

2. it’s made from offcut fabrics

3. it’s made in New Zealand

4. a tree is planted when you buy it

5. it’s made in a limited quantity

6. it’s guaranteed for life

Something else we were keen to hear your thoughts on was Asia… not whether you prefer Bintang, Tsingtao or Chang, but your thoughts around Offcut potentially moving manufacturing to the continent.

Offcut exists to reduce the amount of fabric waste that ends up in landfill. Given that the bulk of the global textile industry is based in Asia, we’ve always had it on our minds. It’s from Asian countries that virtually all our current fabric offcuts come from and it’s where the two and a half trillion dollar global fashion industry creates the majority of its goods. Asia is where millions of tonnes of fabric are created, where millions of people (5.5 million in China alone) cut, stitch and sew those fabrics into apparel, and where untold quantities (perhaps as much as 20%) of that fabric is discarded and ends up in landfill.

A landfill in Bali full of discarded pieces of fabric... this is what we're trying to stop.

Our core purpose is to stop that from happening. For that reason, we’re considering Asia as a potential place to make our hats so we wanted to understand your thoughts around that. You told us a lot, with an entire spectrum of opinions: from outrage to total support if it helped us become a global company with a global impact, as is our intention.

"Our core purpose is to stop that from happening. For that reason, we’re considering Asia as a potential place to make our hats."

We’re taking each and every one of your comments onboard and there are two recurring themes which emerge around the idea of manufacturing overseas. The first is that you would demand any overseas manufacturing to be done in ethically and and environmentally responsible conditions. The second is that you would expect a move offshore to result in a drop in price when you buy our caps. We’ve got a lot to mull on and the decision is still far from made but do know this: both of those points were no surprise at all to us and totally aligned with what we would do anyway. On the whole and given those two conditions were met, the majority of you thought a move offshore would be a positive thing for the company and our impact. It’s really great to know we’re singing from the same song sheet and we’ll keep you posted with where we end up on all this.

 The talented Thomas Seear-Budd.

"With your help, we’re definitely closer to achieving our big goals of throwing serious punches at wasteful practice."

Thanks again to all of you who took the time to let us know what you think. It really means the world to us here and your answers are already forming the basis for the big decisions we’re making here. By giving us feedback you’re helping us plot a course for Offcut — not a perfect one — but a better one. There’ll still be a few toddler tumbles along the way as we move from baby steps to bigger steps, but with your help, we’re definitely closer to achieving our big goals of throwing serious punches at wasteful practice, making noise about inefficiency in the fashion industry, and doing our part to curb the environmental crisis. All this, of course, while bringing you the sickest lids on the planet.