The fashion industry is in a downturn, and many traditional fashion brands have to close their stores to make a living. Recently, many Internet fashion brands have announced their plans to obtain financing to expand their development. In addition, Adore Me, an Internet underwear brand, announced that it would challenge Victoria's Secret, a giant in the underwear industry. So what Internet fashion brands are rising? And why do they challenge traditional fashion brands?
These Internet fashion brands are refinanced
On October 14, Internet fashion sports brand Outdoor Voices announced that it had completed a round A financing of 7 million US dollars, and General Catalyst, the leading investor in the previous round of financing, led this round of financing again. In this case, Outdoor Voices raised a total of 9.5 million dollars.
Outdoor Voices was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in New York. In the red sea of sportswear entrepreneurship, Outdoor Voices takes a new approach. Compared with professional sports, the brand values "light fitness" more. The main customer group of Outdoor Voices is positioned as "leisure sports enthusiasts" - they are not fitness enthusiasts, and usually prefer to take a walk rather than go to the gym to practice equipment. At present, the company only has an online store, a fan group, some social accounts, and a physical store in Austin, Texas. The financing funds of the current round will be used to add more stores and increase product supply.
On October 19, the American footwear design incubation platform ROOY announced that it had completed the seed round financing of 3.4 million dollars. The leading investor of this round of financing is Silicon Valley's famous venture capital Form 8, and Korea Investment Partners, a South Korean private equity investment company, is following the investment. The funds raised will help ROOY expand its online business, increase its global market share and continue to improve its production capacity.
ROOY was founded in 2014 by Ryan Kang, the "second generation of shoes". Its headquarters is located in San Francisco, and its R&D center is in Busan, South Korea. Emerging brands and designers show their creative works to netizens (mostly shoe enthusiasts here) through this creative platform, and then the netizens decide which products can be put on the market. Consumers who book goods online can enjoy a discount price before the product is launched. This way of consumer evaluation redefines the footwear design market: the voting and feedback information of platform members shorten the product development cycle from 18 months to 6 months.
The ROOY platform not only allows designers to make profits, but also allows early adopters to enjoy preferential pre-sale prices, which further expands the team of online community members. Community members shared products through social interaction, which not only improved product sales, but also made free marketing publicity for designers.
On October 21, Betabrand, an Internet fashion company headquartered in San Francisco, announced that it had obtained a financing of $15 million from Morgan Stanley and Foundry Group. So far, the startup has received $29 million in financing.
Betabrand will launch new products for crowdsourcing every day, which is expected to become a fast growing global fashion brand. In the traditional fashion industry, designers need to wait 12 to 16 months to show their works to consumers, but Betabrand's designers have interacted with consumers from the beginning. Through centralized production and distribution, Betabrand provides designers with the opportunity to establish a fan network community. In this way, consumers can place orders directly with the designer, not the brand. At present, Betabrand has more than 300 maker products for sale. The company will make use of the financing obtained to increase the investment in sample and designer cooperation series products, so as to double the number of products.
And Adore Me, an Internet lingerie brand that had been financed as early as 2013 (dote on me), recently announced that it would challenge Victoria's Secret, a giant in the lingerie industry. Adore Me is an Internet underwear brand founded by Morgan Hermand Maiche, a French handsome boy. The brand is positioned as fast and fashionable, but all underwear is only sold online. The brand employs designers who are proficient in the underwear production process, and slightly changes the basic template to derive different styles. Every month, the brand launches a series of 30-40 pieces.
At the beginning of this summer, Sharon Klapka, director of business and brand development, said in an interview with Business Insider, an American website, that the company's performance is expected to continue to maintain strong growth in 2015. In fact, Adore Me's performance is catching up with Italy's high-quality luxury underwear La Perla. Klapka expressed full of ambition: "Our goal is to surpass Victoria's Secret. Their product design is slow to update and expensive. Now it is time for us to reform the underwear market". In the past three years, Adore Me's sales increased from $1.1 million in 2012 to $16.2 million in 2014. Although it is a far cry from Victoria's Secret, which has an annual sales volume of 7.2 billion dollars, the result of 14 times growth in two years cannot be underestimated. In addition, Adore Me was rated as the 14th of the 5000 companies worthy of attention by American magazine Inc., and ranked the second among retail companies.
Internet fashion brands are rising
Adore Me new customers can enjoy a pair of underwear at $20 each, and later it will be $39.95 each
The major feature of these Internet fashion brands compared with traditional fashion brands is that they are all completed in Internet brands from marketing to sales based on the Internet platform. Traditional fashion brands focus on physical sales, while online is just a channel. On the contrary, Internet fashion brands focus on online platforms, with physical stores as a tool for consumers to experience. This approach is not only in line with the current trend of e-commerce in the fashion industry, but also better capture the psychology and habits of current consumers. As we all know, fashion is a rapidly changing industry, and only faster can catch consumers. In addition to being fast, consumers are increasingly pursuing quality. Different from the past, a large number of middle-class people who influence the fashion industry no longer only pursue price or quality. They are all looking for good and cheap fashion products. And the Internet fashion brand that happens to produce this product has caught up with a good time.
However, in the era of information flooding, if a new brand wants to gain attention and leave a deep impression on users, it must play a distinctive flag to show its unique personality and values. These rising Internet fashion brands also have this feature. For example, ROOY, who makes shoes, and Betabrand, who makes clothes, both provide consumers with plans for direct designer communication. This feature is full of attraction for consumers who are not loyal to traditional fashion brands and pursue individuality.