This is a talk i have been giving at the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2012 - Industry Forum. It represents my views on how i believe young designers are moving to B2C to make it to the market.

1. A NerdED
View On
Fashion
How early stage
fashion moves from
B2B to B2C.
#LMFF | @andreasklinger

2. Andreas Klinger
CWTFO of LOOKK
@andreasklinger
#LMFF
Slides:
http://www.slideshare.net/andreasklinger

3. My background is Tech/Business.
Internal company rule:
“Don’t ask me for fashion (style)
direction”

4. I am one of the co-founders
of a fashion internet startup
called LOOKK.com

5. LOOKK offers social tools for
emerging fashion designers to
reach their audience
1) lookbooks (builds social capital)
2) popup stores (monetizes social capital)
3) pre-order stores (coming next)

6. INVESTORS
Carmen Busquets
Dave McClure
Eden Ventures
Sherry Coutu
TEAM
Tamas Locher
Andreas Klinger
Gilbert Wedam
Rafael Jimenez
Marco Innocenti
15 people fulltime
LOOKK.com
Launched September 2011
Several hundreds
designers using our tools.
70.000 users signed up.

7. “LOOKK
[...] fundamentally reimagines
fashion retail in the context of the
open social web, harnessing the
voice of the end consumer
to quickly understand market
demand and drive more effective
business decisions.”
02 Nov 2011

8. MISSON
Bring better fashion
to the market by
leveraging the power of
the Internet

9. Because…
The next breakthrough
in fashion won’t happen
on fashion week.
It will
HAPPEN ONLINE

10. When I say fashion I mean…
FASHION
FASHION
AS
AS
ART
BUSINESS

11. The Speed of the Internet has
changed fashion.

12. Fashion as an Industry is in a
similar situation as Music one
decade ago.
Internet offering perfect transparency
and distribution.
Music’s product was all of a
sudden too expensive.
Fashion’s product is all of a
sudden too slow
The market found alternatives in MP3
& FastFashion

13. Result:
We are working in an
oversaturated market that wants
permanent rapid change.
We are overfed.

14. Why is Fashion
so obsessed
with B2B?
Eg. Fashion Shows

15. “My customer doesn’t want to
wear the same jacket she’s seen
photographed over and over [...]
for six months.”
Tom Ford - Vogue 2/11

16. He is right. Trend garments are blogged,
liked, printed and pinned until
no-one can see them anymore.
They are overhyped and when they
reach the shelf they are boring and old.
Plus: “Topshop sold it 4 months ago.”
Photo: One of our 7 shows in last year in Germany

17. Tom Ford is right. But who’s to blame.
We are throwing the strongest
marketing tool fashion has (the shows)
at fast media to create as much as desire
as possible.
And then under-service that desire.
Photo: One of our 7 shows in last year in Germany

18. “Burberry tweeting images before they
went on the runway was basically a first
big middle finger to the industry”
Geoff Watts (EDITD) at our panel event #FashionBytes 2/2012

19. The industry changes their game…
#livestream #celebrities #preorders #press #realtime

20. People are starting to sell at show date…
Pre-Orders: Burberry
Popup: TopShop sold Tshirts(!) at #LFW12

21. Fashion Shows today are B2C.
Shows are part of the entertainment
industry (IMG).
Sponsors like Mercedes don’t pay to get
the attention of buyers.
Only because of historic legacy we align
shows to B2B cycles.

22. But why do emerging designers still try
to play the old game?

23. But why do emerging designers still try
to play the old game?
“To raise the interest of buyers”

24. But why do emerging designers still try
to play the old game?
“To raise the interest of buyers” - No.

25. But why do emerging designers still try
to play the old game?
“I show to get press and branding.”

26. “I show to get press…”
There are hundreds/thousands of shows in a few
weeks. There is so much noise, so little signal.
Several of our designers moved to off-cycle shows.
Example: Mark&Julia
Blogger & Friends Show created more
press than most of local fashion week’s
designers together.

27. “… and branding.”
Good Online Lookbooks are more valueable than shows.
Old saying: ”In the Internet nobody knows you are a dog”
Example: Ksenia Schnaider
Online Lookbook and Video Show.
Our buyers (and customers) love it.

28. Sales at shows?
Limited production for the showdate.
Why not even:
PopUp Store at show venue to sell low-priced generics.
(T-Shirts like in the music industry)
Example: J.W.Anderson & oki-ni collab
Prefinanced by BFC #LFW10
Sold limited pieces online at show date.

29. “Fashion Shows are so last century
[…to tell your brand…] make a Film”
Diane Pernet (ASVOFF) at our panel event #FashionBytes 2/2012
Example: Roark showing a promotion
film on their website.

30. Why are young
designers
so obsessed
with B2B?
Eg. Fashion Trade

31. Trade fairs
“The second B in B2B stands for
‘don’t bother me’.”
We were at two emerging fairs this year in
#PFW were designers were about to pack up
due to the lack of buyers. And (even) we didn’t
go to all fairs.

32. “This is my first (commercial) collection…”
(another not named designer, Holland 2/2012)
“Nice collection. See you next season!”
(every buyer)
Tradefairs cost 2-6k GBP (excluding PR).
Even if your statefund is paying it. This is an investment
that does not pay off anymore.

33. Fashion gets to fast for risk.
It’s not the buyers job to make a
designer successful anymore.
Buyers push risk down to designers.
Designers need to handle that risk by
themselves. Be very cash efficient, cautious
and entrepreneural.

34. If you start
a label you are not
a designer you are
an entrepreneur.
You are running a startup.

35. Designers are entrepeneurs.
As any startup founders, designers are likely
to underestimate everything apart of one
thing: themselves.
And they do same mistakes as any entrepreneur (including me).

36. Who is your customer?
“I don’t know. I never met any…”
(not named designer, London 2/2012)
Btw I heard this from many other (non fashion) startups.

37. Are designers
different than
startups in other
industries?
TL;DR: No.

38. “Any other startup” in “any other industry”
All startups need to know, understand
Fashion gets to fast for risk. and reach their customers
Tough times for buyers. & have a demanded product
before they scale.
Risk pushed down to designers.
Designers break their business with
pre-mature scaling.

39. “Any other startup” in “any other industry”
All entrepreneurs write useless business plans
Fashion gets to fast for risk. speaking of customers they don’t know and
sales they cannot project.
Tough times for buyers.
They do not test their make-or-break
assumption in their business.
Risk pushed down to designers.
Designers break their business with
pre-mature scaling.
They focus on building a brand or product but
not build product according to their market nor
build the market at all.

40. “Any other startup” in “any other industry”
Fashion gets to fast for risk.
Tough times for buyers. Product / Market Fit
B2B starts here.
Discover Validate Grow Scale
Risk pushed down to designers.
In the early phases (Discovery, Validation):
Designers break their business with
pre-mature scaling. #1 Job: Discover a market-demanded product.
#1 Problem: Don’t know their customer.
#1 Approach: Following patterns of companies
in by far further phases.
#1 Death Reason: Premature scaling.
That’s the same in all industries.

41. “Any other startup” in “any other industry”
Fashion gets to fast for risk.
Tough times for buyers.
Discover Validate Grow Scale
Risk pushed down to designers.
Problem: In your first phase sales are an lagging
Designers break their business with indicator for success.
pre-mature scaling.
You need a product that will sell and your
revenue comes in very late (esp in fashion).
You need customers you can reach.
You need feedback to iterate the product
Feedback > Sales.
Feedback > Press.

42. “Any other startup” in “any other industry”
BUILD
Fashion gets to fast for risk.
Tough times for buyers. Product
Improvement
LEARN MEASURE
Risk pushed down to designers.
Designers break their business with
pre-mature scaling.
- Keep costs per learning as low as possible.
- Avoid economical waste.
- Reduce bound capital until you know in what to invest.
- Improve the product.
- Learn to understand your customer’s needs.

43. “Any other startup” in “any other industry”
BUILD
Fashion gets to fast for risk.
Tough times for buyers. Product
Improvement
LEARN MEASURE
Risk pushed down to designers.
Designers break their business with
pre-mature scaling.
Goal:
- Learn (iterate the loop) as often & quickly as possible.
- Based on customer interaction and feedback.

44. BUILD
Product
Improvement
LEARN MEASURE
For that you would…
Not need Seasons.
Not need Collections.
Not need Buyers.
Not need Mentors or Sponsors.
You would need customer/ Example: Our Legacy releasing single
products gaining as much blog attention
audience giving feedback. as full collections.

45. “Any other startup” in “any other industry”
The problem with feedback:
- You must not bias your customer.
Fashion gets to fast for risk. - They always try to be nice to you.
- You cannot ask your customer what they “would” want.
Tough times for buyers. - They can’t imagine products. That’s your job.
- You must not sell but validate your core assumption.
- Find out if they actually have the desire
Risk pushed down to designers. - Purchase frequency, spending, wardrobe
Designers break their business with composition
pre-mature scaling. - Ask how they solve their “problem” currently.
- Which brands, Perception of other brands.
=> Focus on real interaction with actual content.
- Interaction with real garments offline & online.

46. Evaluate interaction on real products.
Based on the customer feedback above.
Which style would you focus on next?
Example: Shwood’s online giveaway.
Crazy amount of online attention and
also customer insights.

47. Go offline and online to get feedback
to improve products and reduce risk.
- Differ between qualitative and
quantiative feedback.
Build channels
- Online Lookbooks
- Tumblr
- Facebook
- Newsletter
Focus on retentive channels.
(Newsletter > PR agency)
Train your channels to give feedback.
Example: Daviddavid.co.uk
Posting test products in tumblr + shop

48. Always have a way to sell online.
If you don’t have the ressources
put everything to “sold out” and ask
for waiting/notification list signup.
The value of having your own online
sales channels is not the sales.
It’s the customers contacts for getting
more feedback.
Sidenote: pre-orders to endconsumers
work if the delivery is below 6 weeks.
So why not go for B2C pre-orders?
Preview Pre-Order Shop LOOKK.

49. The Internet…
Unique problem for fashion but also
unique opportunity for new labels.
This generation of designers uses the
Internet to go B2C in earliest phases.

50. Because…
The next breakthrough
in fashion won’t happen
at fashion week.
It will
HAPPEN ONLINE

51. Thanks
for
listening.
slides:
www.slideshare.net/andreasklinger
#LMFF | @andreasklinger