Pin, Post, Pay: LuxeYard Launches Concierge Buying
“A Pinterest-like social product sharing experience, coupled with a powerful e-commerce engine similar to Gilt and Groupon” is how LuxeYard CTO Jerry Wilkerson describes the new site feature called Concierge Buying.
The flash sale/daily deal site aims to monetize social networking and collaborative consumption by allowing consumers to suggest and vote on what luxury fashion and homewares should be featured in private sale events.
Basically, site members can upload pictures of products they like using a browser bookmarklet (a la Pinterest) and once the rest of the community has liked, followed, and commented on an item en masse, the company’s buyers get to work, brokering deals directly with the suppliers to place orders for almost exactly the quantity of product they anticipate selling.
In theory, it’s an incredibly effective supply and demand strategy that would turn e-commerce —and certainly retail on its head. I just can’t help thinking it’s an incredibly ambitious and rather risky strategy. Of course, those are sometimes the best strategies so this is definitely one to watch.
Read more from their press release via MarketWatch.
Digital Hangers Display 'Like' Data
I’ve been tracking lots of examples of digital hangtags (QR codes, scannable tags, and digital shelf-talkers), and the good people at The Verge caught this C&A digital-retail program:
Fashion Like allows people to ‘like’ certain items of clothing on the company’s Facebook page, and these clicks are collated and displayed on the relevant clothes rack in real-time.
While I’m not sure masses of Facebook ‘likes’ would persuade me to purchase, it’s a supercool example of the integration of digital and social at retail.
Check out their post with pics and video.
Fashion brand offers discounts based on a shopper’s social influence
Volga Verdi is a California-based fashion brand that offers its customers discounts depending on the number of friends, followers or fans they have on popular social networks.
Mens Personal Shopping Site Goes Live
So excited to share the launch of a site a developer friend of mine has been toiling away on. Welcome to the world, Gentlemen Square.
A little like curated shopping sites Little Black Bag and Shoe Dazzle, at Gentlemen Square personal stylists put together a package of shirts, pants, and accessories based upon your preferences (via a quick survey when you get started). You pay for what you decide to keep and ship anything you’re not keen on back for free.
What makes this service different from a HisKit, which tends to ship accessories, gadgets and personal care samples, Gentlemen Square focuses on the foundations that make for a well-dressed modern man. By delivering a collection of wardrobe basics and contemporary essentials, the site aims to outfit the fellas with enough choices to make everyday dressing easy.
Even with albeit beautiful-looking shopping destinations like Gilt’s menswear site section, the onus is still on the man to pick and purchase single items which may or may not go with the other separates in his closet.
In contrast, Gentlemen Square exudes a deep understanding of how men shop, providing an innovative and convenient way to stop looking like clones of one another or worse: shop floor manequins.
Great read: Interview with @createthegroup CEO James Gardner in WWD: Online Landscape Evolves With S-Commerce
Beyond the social platforms, brands shouldn’t forget about their own Web sites. For James Gardner, founder and ceo of Createthe Group, this means concentrating on existing digital flagships.
Gardner — who’s worked with clients from Marc Jacobs to Burberry — looks at social commerce in two ways: version 1.0 being “share” tools and users rating or commenting on products, and social commerce 2.0, which he believes is only now being defined by companies and retailers. This will include a more integrated social experience on any platform where the brand has a presence (although this was once thought to be F-commerce). The former is more passive and essentially allows users simply to indicate what they “like.” The latter is what will become more active and interactive, such as the idea of live shopping with a friend in a commerce experience.
“It’s the simple things — wherever people are going to actively shop, that’s where there’s an opportunity for social commerce, whether you’re going to a brand’s Web site or a mobile site,” Gardner said.
(Source: createthegroup)
reblogged from morpheusmedia
Curated Collaborative Consumption Gets Gamified
Waaa. Brain explodes as social shopping buzzwords spill henceforth but here goes: @LittleBlackBag starts by reeling you in with a quiz to establish your fashion sense (not disimilar to ShoeDazzle et al.).
Next you are presented with a mystery bag of designer apparel and accessories curated by the sites stylists. Upon the big reveal, you have a week to rummage around the site to exchange pre-selected items for things you might prefer. Once the hunting and gathering is complete, your Little Black Bag (at varying pricepoints) is mailed to you — a bit like a Birchbox, if you will.
I have to say, I love how they’ve positioned the offering: Shop, Swap, Ship:
Members get freebies for inviting friends (nice audience acquisition/growth strategy) and by keeping the swap process open for a week, they’re ensuring a healthy return rate. Clever stuff. I suppose it remains to be seen if the merch holds up but with over 50 high-end brands already inked, this is one to watch.
PS you can also follow Little Black Bag on Pinterest, which is a perfect place for them to be. Again, another very smart way to drive traffic and capture the right audience for their launch.
via createthegroup:
Mashable: 10 Hot Web Startups Changing the Face of Retail by Macala Wright Lee
1. Mulu
2. Stipple
3. Buyosphere
4. Stylmee
5. Svpply
6. Lyst
7. Nuji
8. Olioboard
9. GetVega
10. Styloko
reblogged from createthegroup
Daily Deals and Relevancy
Just reading about NY Mag’s daily deals play and thinking this might be the thing that makes me subscribe and then promptly unsub from the handful of others that are flooding my inbox and weakening in their value to me. Keeping Gilt City though.
GAP Joins the Group Buying Party
Joining Walmart’s Crowdsaver and Uniqlo’s clever crowd-priced Twitter campaign late last year, the GAP joins in with a smart flash sales site.
Gap began promoting the site gapmyprice.com on its Facebook page today, allowing customers to name their price for a pair of men’s khakis. The deal lasts until tomorrow. The site keeps it simple: Clicking on the “Let’s Make a Deal” button takes users to a page where they select one of 18 styles of khakis, retailing for either $49.50 or $59.50, and make an offer. Gap then presents a deal, and users can either accept or make a counter-offer before Gap makes its final offer. Gap’s offers ranged from $35 to $45 for a $49.50 pair, according to the site’s winners tab.
In a retail environment that’s being overrun by group-buying sites and flash sales, the site appears to be yet another way to engage with deal-hungry consumers. Chris Donnelly, an executive partner in Accenture’s retail practice, said the trend toward alternative pricing models, popularized by the Groupons and Gilt Groupes of the world, is only accelerating.
Read the whole article at AdAge.
What’s the Big Daily Deal?
the daily deals niche will be a $4 billion industry by 2015 — BIA/Kelsay
As our inboxes continue to overflow with daily deals (Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt, Yelp, SCVNGR … oh! too many to list off here), Google appears to be quickly recovering from having its acquisition offer snubbed by arguably the leading player in the space and is teaming up with am handful of vets who know a thing or two about email to launch the Group Commerce platform.
What’s different is this one seems to have a broad publisher distribution network in its strategy vs. being a purely B2C operation — we can’t help wondering if affiliate is the way to go.
It’s interesting to watch some of the retailers hopping on the flash sale trend, using social technologies (like Walmart’s Crowd Saver) but we wouldn’t be surprised to see a juggernaut like Google attracting retail partners to their platform.
