Inline, Online, Off

Square Technology in New York City Taxis

via nycdigital:

Today is the official launch date for @Square technology in New York City taxis. Read more about the program here. 

reblogged from nycdigital

Style For Hire: Connecting the Dots from Runway to Retail

After months of planning @StyleForHire launched this week. The fashion startup co-founded by celebrity stylist Stacy London and Cindy McLaughlin, as TechCrunch puts it, “allows users to find a vetted stylist in their city to help them choose clothing for a special event, or more. With 135 stylists in 24 cities in the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston; Style For Hire allows you to search for stylists by type of style and more.”

I’m biased because a friend of mine is one of their LA-based stylists but that’s not the main reason I’m cheering them on. After meeting with the company’s NYC-based head of biz dev, I think the real disruptor lies in Style For Hire’s on-premise activations: connecting stylists, consumers, and media at malls and department stores across the nation.

You see, the fashionista bloggerati and social media has created a little problem for the fashion industry (and retailers): with more access than ever before to real-time looks from the runways, content creators are publicizing and driving conversation six or seven months before any of that merchandize ever hits the shelves. So by the time retailers have stories to tell, it’s kind of old news. Pile on the direct-to-consumer e-commerce powerhouses and flash sales sites, and the retailers are left scratching their heads, trying to create excitement in-store without resorting to price elasticity tactics.

Enter personal stylists, whose expertise lies in helping people look their best by educating shoppers on how to integrate high-fashion trends with a streamlined, super-flattering set of wardrobe staples. Layer in celebrity and some media you’ve got a perfect opportunity for the retailers to sell new-in-stores, in-season stock at MSRP, while attracting shoppers on-premise. 

ShoeDazzle: Gives Up On Subscriptions And Clearly “Gets” Social

After just over a year of significant scaling, a ton of infrastructure, investment, and TV advertising, the celeb-spun subscription shoe shopping service is announcing a strategic shift. 

Adding apparel lines to its shoes and bags inventory, ShoeDazzle is offering its members the ability to buy what they want, when they want. 

Fast Company has an interview with the site’s CEO Bill Strauss about these changes and what inspired the shift. 

Now the question will be whether they can attract even more shoppers and get them to shop more often, without the big lines and labels most e-commerce fashion sites hang their hats on. 

Right now their fairly active Facebook fans have only shared a few comments about the end of subscriptions but it’s positive. Worth noting: from a CRM and communications standpoint, the brand is very active in responding to comments and suggestions from their subscribers. It’s sadly so rare that you see page admins (or brand admins) responding so frequently, telling people they’re on it, or that they’re going to pass along suggestions. 

This level of community management suggests that not only are they investing in social media in a smart way, they’re also more likely to be able pull off a massive shift in their core business without losing too many loyal fans. 

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. 

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. 

Shoply: Pretty Much Etsy, Then?

As per TechCrunch, UK-based (and massively scaling) ecomm startup Shoply just got a nice little injection of cash and support from people who deftly navigate social networks, the so-called interest graph, and ecommerce. 

After having a bit of a nose, it’s got a few more social features than other direct-to-consumer sites, and creates a much speedier journey down the path to purchase than other interest networks. But I can’t say I’m seeing a huge differentiator here. 

Sellers get pretty nice listings pages with lots of sharing features. And the service skims off a commission on all items sold. As TechCrunch points out, some of the unregulated shipping fees prove some sellers are having a laugh but let’s keep an eye on this one.  

Fashion Flash Sales + Cause Commerce

Wondering when @giltfounder, @GiltAlexandra and team will launch flash giving functionality to Gilt, I just had someone ping me a link to Community Collection, a fashion flash sales site that proclaims, Get Style Give Back.

It’s not quite a buy one give one model but instead, 20% of goods sold will then benefit a charity of the designer’s choosing, which makes the shopping event that little bit more fascinating for shoppers to discover what causes move the tastemakers. 

Per Mashable, “The self-funded, for-profit startup was founded by Brooks Cook, a former real estate investor and USC graduate based in California. He believes that the online fashion retail market is “incredibly oversaturated with discount sites” and that consumers are “looking for something different, something that will add value and create a unique experience.”

I really like it as a concept and would actually love to see a pop-up, physical store built around this model.

But I do hope the good people at Gilt are working on some sort of flash giving product for this type of cause commerce. I think their audience (me being something of a power user) would love to be able to have some kind brand sponsored, dollar to dollar donation matching event, for a short period of time. It would make giving very easy for the user and I imagine for the product people/engineers too, as they could lean into the saved credit card info to deduct a donation and have a brands match the donations (perhaps up to certain amounts) over the course of a day… any takers??