Real Time Fashion: the new way of selling fashion(1)

It is really interesting to see how the different segments and niches in e-commerce are changing. By observing the different solutions and trends, we are able to anticipate where the coming months will take us and detect business opportunities that we can apply to our sector of activity.

We are going to talk to you about one of these trends: real time fashion. Pay attention because it is very interesting.

In e-commerce, there are different purchase drivers. Among them, two in particular stand out: urgency and social proof, which are heavily involved in this paradigm shift that is seen as an upward trend.

Urgency is one of the biggest transformers of e-commerce. We are not talking about that generated for marketing purposes, at least in this case. In reality, it is something much more conceptual that involves other aspects, such as design, production, distribution and logistics. Customer wants the latest of the latest and, of course, they want it now.

In terms of social proof, two critical aspects are peer reviews and UGC (User Generated Content), to which we could add the growing strength of influencers on some platforms.

This has led us to start talking not only about Social Commerce, but also about social first. A trend that consists of placing social networks at the center of the business model, seeking, precisely, that capacity of prescription from the very conception of the project.

In reality, it is the adaptation to the fashion segment of another concept, the so-called real time retail. As you can imagine, we are talking about selling fashion in real time.

But when we talk about selling in real time, we should really be talking about producing in real time. An e-commerce based on real time fashion is characterized by an almost unmanageable capacity to generate multiple references and SKUs.

In the case of fashion, which is the one that concerns us, customer has at his disposal a huge catalog, this is important, depending on the likes and interests of those who visit the online store or the app of the store.

In a way, it is a huge advance in the predictability of the market, sales, stocks (when they exist, because it is also custom-made in some cases).

Newness on demand destroying the old concept of ultra-seasonal fashion collections and atomizing the demand in one of the most rigid existing markets.

Understanding the evolution will help us to better put the concept in context.

Fashion underwent a real revolution in the early 1990s. In all European cities, chain stores began to open, selling a type of clothing and accessories of not excessive quality, but with an affordable price and a trendy design.

Inditex group, headed by Zara, is the best possible example of what, in some circles, began to be called "fast fashion". Fashion for fast consumption, available very quickly after the detection of a trend, and without excessive expectations.

It was almost two decades before we saw a really remarkable leap in terms of business models. It was at the end of the first decade of the 2000s. Companies like Asos appeared that, in many cases, are native eCommerce. Thanks to this, they are more efficient, and since they sell directly to customer, they eliminate intermediaries and associated costs.

But of course, if we are talking about processing power, production capacity and wide margins... Chinese people had to find their business model. In 2020, despite the coronavirus and its challenges for eCommerce, a different way of selling fashion took off: real time fashion.

Especially a company called Shein (pronounced "She In," since it was originally called She Inside) - which we will talk about at length on another post - that blew up the market. What is the "trick"?

On the next post of this series we will analyze case studies on real time retail, but today it is important to fix the concepts to be able to get all the game and inspiration to this new trend in the fashion world.