biggest crowd funding success to date<\/a> came about largely as a result of pre-orders. Those that provide pre-order platforms and find new ways to make that model work at scale will become increasingly attractive to traditional investors. Crowd funding isn’t the same as crowd investing, but the first can be the social proof necessary for the second.<\/p>\nLower Barriers Attract More Pre-Orders<\/h5>\n
While Moda Operandi is following the flash sales model by operating behind an invitation only closed door, FashionStake recently dropped theirs.<\/p>\n
“We took down the wall to give our users a chance to explore our site and find out about who FashionStake is BEFORE we ask them to commit to giving us their email address,” says co-founder Vivian Weng. “What we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve found is that our users really need a chance to at least see what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re offering (in terms of experience and product) before they are willing to create a profile on our site. As we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve checked out traffic since we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve taken the wall down, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve noticed that users really do poke around and explore our designers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c read their bios, browse their products \u00e2\u20ac\u201c before they actually give us their email address for future contact.”<\/p>\n
“We had previously believed that users were interested in crowd-sourced apparel only if they were interested in becoming buyers of that apparel,” she continues. “What we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve since learned is that there are many shoppers who love just having a say in the curation process; and there are other shoppers who like to shop clothing that have been curated by their peers. In effect, the curators and the shoppers aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily the same person. What we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done with our new business model is to separate out the ability to interact\/engage with us (i.e., \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcVoting Booth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122) from the ability to discover and shop new emerging designers (i.e., \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThe Shop\u00e2\u20ac\u2122). We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve lowered the barrier for users to engage in our community because anyone can now have a voice in the curation process.”<\/p>\n
Attract the Right Crowd by Going to the Crowds<\/h5>\n
Perhaps more than other industries, fashion thrives on a certain amount of exclusivity. While it may seem obvious to anyone interested in a crowd supported business, restrictions aren’t the same as exclusivity. Though it might not seem entirely logical at first, those building businesses with crowd sourced components are finding that the best way to get the right crowd is to be as social as possible.<\/p>\n
“In order to build the FashionStake community, we are really leveraging the networks of our designers. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarkable is that these emerging designers do have great networks of consumers, but many don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t manage their social media or online presence optimally. We see ourselves as aggregating these designers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 networks and helping them actively market to their target consumers and manage a dynamic online presence,” says Weng.<\/p>\n
Garmz co-founder Andreas Klinger lists Facebook as the main driver of traffic and credits much of their success to the support of their fans.<\/p>\n
“To be really honest Garmz is doing very well.\u00c2\u00a0It is so amazing how much great\u00c2\u00a0support we get,” he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It’s too late to put the genie back in the bottle, but an increasing number of websites are betting on the wisdom of crowds to close the consumer gap between when shoppers are first introduced to a garment, and when they can buy it. While the exact model continues to shift and there are variations, the crowds and important investors are betting on the ability of those companies to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[5620,5624,5621,5619,4937,5625,5623,5618,5622],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19050"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19050"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19060,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19050\/revisions\/19060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/198.46.88.49\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}