Addicted to the Net

Last week and this week, I feel like I’m, Annie Das – Sales & Marketing / IT Expert! I’ve been updating, tweaking, adding, editing, changing, playing, researching, anything and everything to do with websites and web-shopping!

Our favorite webshop is hands down, Net-a-porter (no wonder they were bought for a lumpsum of $$$, they got it right -- meticulous to the T!) What goes into creating a webshop? It’s tedious, a lot of attention to detail, basically making sure the nitties and gritties are dealt with so that everyone can understand what it is you’re trying to sell and what makes your "stuff" different?

I’ve been challenging my creativity, thinking of unique names, lustful descriptions and have been researching the art of making a product appealing, an old school art I have re-named “Sales Meditation”.

Sales Meditation, you look at the product, you feel the product, you close your eyes and think about the product, and then put your brains to the test. So maybe I don’t do this for each item, but whilst typing, I am often caught with my eyes closed thinking – not sleeping, promise! Kanch should be happy that I've taken each product to a religious level of marketing.

Our webshop (site to be disclosed on our newsletter, click here to sign up) is scheduled to launch this Friday, and while I know that our webshop enters us into a league of many other stores, I realized something. For the people who work all the time (a.k.a – me,) online shopping is ideal! I get to shop in the comfort of my own home, they can deliver to my home or office, not to mention – DISCOUNTS! Every website has their perks, where I might have only ever shopped from ebay, and amazon, creating and working on webshops last few weeks has opened my eyes to a whole new world of fashion and how fun it actually is to buy, make and explore online. One stop shop, one click away...

Post note: Something interesting -- It's all about Digital IQ. A few years ago, using Facebook and Twitter for marketing / business purposes might have seemed crazy -- Business of Fashion lists luxury fashion brands with high digital IQ, happy reading! **Image from http://blogs.smarter.com/blogs/guests/online-shopping-cartoon.jpg

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Crowd sourcing to raise the fashion stakes

A new Internet company called Fashion Stake will be launching shortly and it looks like it might significantly shake up the fashion industry. The idea is to use a growing business model called crowd sourcing to enable fashion designers to go directly to consumers for funding and content. Essentially, Fashion Stake will provide consumers with a chance to invest their own money directly into a designer’s new collection, which will help keep the designer’s business afloat; especially useful as funding is scarce after the recent downturn. In return, your investment is exchanged for credits, which can be used to purchase items from the collection. As well as this, consumers can share ideas and thoughts with designers and vote on collections.

The concept is inspired by social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook, enabling consumers to have their own say about fashion, removing the choice from the hands of a team of executives or a third party (the retailer). The joint-founder Daniel Gulati, a student at Harvard Business School, believes his business gives the public the opportunity to develop a more personal relationship with their preferred designers and enables them to provide financial support to products they would like to see produced en masse.

The company’s slogan is ‘democratize fashion’ and it sounds like the founders have cleverly found a way to bypass the retailer altogether and truly bring the freedom of fashion expression to the people. However, it is difficult to know how the designers will react to random outsiders giving them advice and scrutiny. A designer’s aim is to predict future looks that regular people don’t comprehend at the time. Advice from a store Buyer or Creative Director may be called upon and respected but information from strangers may not be what the designers need or want.

As well as this, there have been rumblings about the legality of the business. However, there are always a few hiccups with new businesses (especially when they are developing new concepts) so as long as these get ironed out it could potentially develop into the future of fashion.

I think this is a totally innovative idea to bring fashion to the masses. If it works well then it will be a massive shake up and a revolution for the industry. Designers will no longer need to plead with big sponsors and investors, they can go directly to their fans: the people who would ultimately purchase the products. I think it provides an extremely exciting possibility for both designers and consumers!

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