STORE WARS: GAP vs. Lands’ End Canvas
Starting March 15th and running through April 4th, Dappered.com is hosting a bracket based tournament with the purpose of eventually crowning the all around Affordable Men’s Style Retail Champ for 2011. For a full introduction see this post. To see the updated bracket, click on the image to the right. Make a case for your preferred competitor in the comments section, but don’t forget to vote at the bottom of each match up. On with today’s showdown.
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Strengths: The main destination for basics and slightly above. Incredible blazers for the money. Their pima polos are a great athletic fit polo for a reasonable price. Merino wool sweaters aren’t half bad. Tons of sales. Well lit, decent looking stores. Clearance racks can be a nice place to find a steal. Free shipping on online orders more than $50, with free returns to brick and mortar stores. Can combine across BR/Old Navy/GAP platforms for that discount too.
Weaknesses: The waistband on their jeans tend to stretch. They’re a major mass retailer, so their stuff can run a little big. They’re always on sale, so you wonder if you’re really getting a good deal.
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Strengths: Another well executed J. Crewification of a normally bulky and older brand. Trimmed down (but not actually all that slim) fits. B+ basics at A+++ prices. Terrific sales. Not afraid to branch out into blazers, ties, and shoes. Their incredible return policy, which reads: “…return anything at anytime for any reason for a full refund of its purchase price” Simple enough…
Weaknesses: You do have to pay shipping ($6.95 flat fee) to return items. The fit isn’t as athletic as you think it’d be… it’s slimmer, but it’s not slim. While they excel at good to very good, there aren’t many items that you’ll be completely drooling over.
Your votes determine who moves on to the Store Wars Finals. Cast your ballot below:
UPDATE: LEC beats powerhouse GAP, making it a #4 vs. a #5 in the finals on Monday.
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Store Wars Semi Finals: GAP vs. Lands' End Canvas
- GAP (26%, 189 Votes)
- Lands' End Canvas (75%, 547 Votes)
Total Voters: 734
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Tough call here. With all the talk of apples vs oranges, this is really a great match up. Both excel in great basics and both have great prices. The choice for me is between an brick and mortar store with so so customer service and an online store with great customer service.
FYI: Lands End Canvas has a lot of brick and mortar locations, most Sears house a pretty extensive LEC section
Dead heat so far, 20 – 20 with my vote. It is a shame that this is basically the battle to see who gets mauled by indochino’s twitter masses.
Agree with JMG. Indochino, if you’re reading this, STOP!
On another note, I really don’t know who to choose for this one. I own more Gap, but I’ve recently become a huge fan of LEC thanks to this website. I may abstain and let the dice fall where they may.
Really? I’ve only ever seen regular Lands’ End stuff, and at least where I am the stores with LE selections are sparse.
Seriously, they shouldn’t be winning like this. 😐
Good to know.
I’m a recent believer in LEC. Their clothes seem to be a much higher quality that of GAP, and at a similar price point. Their customer service is outstanding.
LEC all the way.
I’m a big fan of the LEC slim fit chinos. Very comfortable, very nice cut.
I surprised with all of the love for LEC. I admit that I was as charmed by the handwritten note as much as everybody else but, beyond that, I have serious issues with their stuff. I think I have had some issues with almost everything that I have ordered from there. Poor build quality on some of their stuff (I bought a cotton pea coat that had loose buttons that started to fall off after one wear), wonky fit issues on others.
I think LEC is worth it when they are having a kickass sale. You can really stock up on alot of stuff for cheap but I wouldn’t pay full price for anything they sell.
Gap, on the other hand, delivers quality basics and really solid stuff. Like LEC, they never put out anything too outrageous but everything that I buy is great quality. They have an excellent website, ton of stores and sales galore. Plus, the fact that you can combine Banana Republic and Old Navy into their online sales is a plus, too.
I’ve found similar issues with GAP build quality, and the fact that it seems to me every single piece fits differently makes ordering online impossible. I have in particular two button-downs. One is from a few years ago, and is a medium and is slim-fit and a perfect fit. The new one is a small, and is much roomier, and fits bigger than the older Medium.
Then my go-to jeans ended up stretching out at the waist, and shrinking in length, as well as getting VERY stretched at the knees. I still wear them, but I honestly can’t say that I think GAP’s quality is great. I’ll even accept that jeans stretch, but the seemingly random differences in fit are a serious issue.
Cheers,
Ben
Lands End should easily win this. Like Indochino, they plaster this contest all over twitter for their followers to go and vote.
My experience is almost the opposite of yours. I have some Gap stuff from a few years ago that were put together poorly and didn’t fit well while the pieces that I’ve bought from the past few years have been spot on. Durable and with an excellent fit. I should put out that I am a big guy (6’4″) so I appreciate that Gap runs a little big.
I also have to admit that I’m a husky boy, too, (260 and dropping) so even if I had encountered the expanding waist issue with their jeans, I would happily imagine that I was rapidly losing weight. As it is, the 1969 jeans (standard cut) that I have are my favorite jeans and fit me perfectly.
But I will admit that I’m obviously wonky. If I had to pick two contenders that I wouldn’t vote for, it would be the winners, LEC and Indochino. I would even argue about how they were included because I would think that LEC should be entered as part of a greater Land’s End or Sears umbrella while Indochino wouldn’t shouldn’t be included, at all but that is why I don’t run a successful site. If it was me there would probably be four teams and this would all be done in a day.
I brought this up, several match-ups ago (I think Indochino vs. Macys) and Joe slapped me down and he was probably right. He doesn’t seem to be directly commenting on this anymore so let me give a rundown of what I thought his reasoning was.
1) It’s not Indochino’s fault that the give a crap. Indochino is a good company and I believe that Joe has a rewarding professional relationship with them, too, so Indochino winning would be good all around. J Crew really isn’t going to brag about winning the Dappered website’s readers-choice while Indochino is. That is great publicity for the website. Plus, if Indochino is really winning by appealing to their customers and fans, then these are potential new readers and new readers are what keeps Joe and the rest of the Dappered crew fed and happy.
2) It doesn’t matter. As Joe repeated time and time again, this is just for fun. I think he has been surprised how seriously us regular Dappered readers have taken this. There is no trophy and no money on the line. That is why it doesn’t matter if the competitions have been apples vs. oranges or even unfair. This isn’t the race for the American Presidency or even American Idol. This is just an idea Joe had, maybe even a quick little idea, which has proven to be mostly successful.
He will probably end this with more Dappered followers and a charged, possibly more vocal, regular readership. Good for him.
Hmm, very good points. I hadn’t considered that. Previous comment retracted.
FYI Joe, Lands End has a big sale going on now
http://canvas.landsend.com/ix/canvas/Canvas/Sale/Men/index.html?seq=1~2~3~4&catNumbers=2198~2471~2509&visible=1~1~1~1&store=le&sort=Recommended&pageSize=12&tab=17
Oh… I rarely slap. More often than not I try to further explain what might have been understandably misinterpreted. Lemme expound on a few of your points Tim: Agreed on it’s not Indochino’s fault for caring. I’m glad they do, I’m flattered that they do. And I also think their twitter campaign is impressive. We’ve put into place some restrictions that should (no system is perfect) only allow someone to vote once, making their tweets all the more impressive. Now I also believe that those who don’t think Indochino should win are underestimating how happy many (but certainly NOT all) Dappered readers are with their service, and they’re voting for Indochino.
As far as keeping us all on the Dappered crew fed and happy, I’m personally not rooting for anyone based on publicity/professional relationships (not that you were implying that), and I would never want anyone to vote based on who they’d think would help our site out more (not that anyone would ever do so). Sure we have a good relationship with Indochino, but we also have a good relationship with many others that were in the field. And it’s not like we believe Indochino can do no wrong: http://dappered.com/2011/02/would-you-wear-it-the-ultra-traditional-navy-blazer/ Oy.
As far as your second point goes, yep. All of that.
You wrote: “He will probably end this with more Dappered followers and a charged, possibly more vocal, regular readership. Good for him.”
Thanks for that.
I’m pretty sure this is their big spring sale that launched last week: http://dappered.com/2011/03/making-the-most-of-the-express-lands-end-canvas-sales/ There’s a code in that post that’ll get you free shipping, no minimum. The code on their site is free shipping on $100 (which can be tough to do with how affordable LEC stuff seems to be)
I have basic pieces from both stores, but LEC has grown on me with the steep sales and great customer service. Plus I just picked up there Cotton Khaki Peacoat and it looks great. Really tough choice here, but I think I’ll have to go with LEC.
Joe, I am a big Dappered fan, and my concern is not with actual Dappered readers who vote for Indochino — that is exactly what you’d like to see. What bothers me (not that there’s much one can do about it) are the Indochino folks who come to the site ONLY as a result of their Twitter campaign, cast their vote, then ride off into the sunset, never to visit Dappered again.
(At least not until the next round, at which point they will again show up en mass to crush the competition.)
I don’t know that it’s even worth voting at this point, as long as Indochino is able to mobilize enough followers. That said, it looks like LEC is making their own social media effort. It’s kind of a shame that the way you win these days in not due to the quality of your performance/service, but the number of your Twitter followers. (Before anyone tells me to grow up, yes, I absolutely realize that this is just for fun, and that this is simply the way things work in the digital age.)
*Deservedly mauled IMO. I voted JCrew over Indochino but Indo belonged in the final four and are leagues above LEC or GAP.
I think that social media presence is part of customer service in in our Web 2.0 world. The fact that Indochino shoppers will pay attention to their twitter suggests that there is a real relationship happening, and I like that. GAP also has a twitter, with more followers than Indochino, but they haven’t managed the same results, if they are even paying attention.
Lands end is obvoiously cheating and telling their employees to vote I mean seriously their victory over nordys was enough to make discredit this contest
Its obvoious that lands end is cheating their win over nordys was enough to make me discredit this contest all together
Just look at the comments here. A lot of people are very happy with the service they’ve gotten from Land’s End and it really shows in the results.
I wouldn’t say cheating, but they are certainly trying, much like Indochino. I follow both LEC and Nordstrom on twitter and if Nordy’s is aware of the contest (or that their store even sells mens products), you wouldn’t know it from their actions, not so LEC. 😉
Have to give this one to Gap. The sweaters and jackets are great and the shirts are better fitted than Canvas. Most important, they have a wider range of sized in pants and jeans. I’m tall and slender, and Canvas doesn’t sell any pants or jeans in my size. Canvas does have some nice things (I really like their gingham shirts), but they need to refine their fit and offer more size options.