Fashion Marketing: Tour de France

If you want to get noticed in the crowded fashio world, marketing is key.
Basically, there are two type of marketeers, the ones that prefer to spend a lot of money on add campaigns, commercials and the likes, and the other type, that prefers smart-marketing: gathering attention for free.
Schutrups, a Dutch shoe store clearly is the latter type.

In Europe, this summer is a Sport summer: European Championship Soccer, later on the Olympics and right now, the famous Tour de France!

This last event obviously inspired the Schutrups to come up with a novelty. They commissioned a set of Tour-de-France inspired shoes with Kops-schoenen, one of the few remaining  shoefactories, that once were a big source of employment around the Dutch city of Tilburg. Together with a designer of Kopsschoenen, Schutrups spawned a series dedicated to the worlds most famous cycling tournament.

The shoes are designed around the well-known shirtcolour that can be earned in the tournament, the Green, Yellow, Orange and of course the polka-dot shirt for the mountains classification.
Shutrups commisioned them for the  Dutch former cyclist and co-presenter on a Tour de France TV program, Tour du jour. And in case you wonder: yes, he wore them on TV as well.


Kops, happened to be the only company able to design and produce 11 of these shoes within the 10-day window between idea and start of the tour de France.
They have received quite some attention from different media with the production of these shoes. They are not cheap (400 euro's a pair) but its definately reasonable if you take in account that each pair takes several hours of hand-production. And for that price, you get not only a pair of wonderful, handcrafted shoes, but also a pair of conversation starters. They sure leave an impresion!

10 tips to increase webshop traffic part - 2

Af few days ago, I posted the first part of this blog, and today its time for part 2 of tips to increase webshop traffic

6) post regularly on forums where your target group is to be found. Use a link to your store in the signature.

I think this is an important one.  Te truth is that your potential customers don't know you yet (unless of course your name is Donatella Versace, but then again, something tells me you would not be reading my blog. If I am mistaken, please tell me!). So its key to make sure that those potential customers are aware of YOUR presence.  And the best way to do this is to go where they go. There are plenty of fora online where thousands, and sometimes even tens of thousands people go to discuss anything from their favourite artist to the latest gossip or tips on parenthood.

Not sure if jewelry goes well in a hotrod forum...

Make sure it is something you also have an opinion about, or at least can contribute something to. Be it answers, advise or anything else.  There you can also post, discuss etc, just as you would on the Etsy forum.  Don't make the mistake however to just post about your webstore. People don't mind knowing you have one, but if you continually put it in their face on an irrelevant spot, it is going to be considered spamming, and a ban is around the corner.
In stead, just put the link to your webstore with a description what is in it in your signature, so when you post about something in the thread, the link to your website will be displayed under it.
Does it work? Betcha it does! But of course only if you have built up credibility in the forum, and  not instantly. It works best of course if your target customer group is on the forum. So if you sell handmade jewelry, it won't in general be the most effective to start posting on a typical forum catering for hotrods....

7) Go to fashion fairs and alike. 

Every community usualy has several art or fashion fairs where it is relatively cheap to put your creations and try to sell them. No matter how online the world has become, people still like to see the item they are buying, making sure it is the quality they want, and even personaly speak with the creator or vendor. It gives them a sense of  security, and it offers you a chance to convey your enthousiasm of your product to them.  First buyers are a lot more likely to do a repetitive online purchase if they like what they got before. So don't just stand there and sell the goods, but also make sure that every client (or even just interested visitor of your little stand!) gets a leaflet with your contact details and webstore. I can almost guarantee you that your store in the days after the fair, will see a spike in views and likes! And since they already met you in real life, they are probably going to be a lot less weary on making an online purchase.

8) Ad your store's link in the footer of your e-mail addressess.

In point 7 we mentioned putting your web-address in the signature of your postings on forums. Well, why not take it a step further and put it in the footer of EVERY e-mail message you send across the web? Of course, it will not be a good idea to do it in a company mail if you work for a boss, but you surely send a lot of private e-mails as well! Wether it is to a club you belong to, to the PTA of your child's school or even to the people you met on the last holiday.  All potential customers. And since you already have a rapport with them, they are more likely to be interested in what you have to offer in your webshop.

If you want to keep it simple, start with just a description of what you sell, and a link to your store (for instance storename.etsy.com) . If you feel adventurous, use the banner of your store, and put that one in your footer, and mak it clickable. (Most e-mail programs will allow to make an image in the mail clickable).  An image is a lot more enticing curiousity than just simple words like "Check out my handmade jewelry". Not sure how to do it? Just run a search in Google on "Adding footer in xxxxxx" where xxxxx is the name of your e-mail client.

9) Get accounts on Pinterest, Wanelo etc and post your items there.

There are a number of Graphic Content Aggregation sites such as Pinterest, Wanelo and Rebelmouse, which are potentially interesting for you as someone who is selling things on the internet. People LOVE images, and if your store is predominantly catering for women, your even in more luck! A recent study has shown that those sites are mainly used by women, and they are quite avid "pinners". Since those sites mix Social Media aspect with pictures, people "liking" or "Pinning" your items are more or les automatically also sharing it with their followers / friends. So the same goes here as what I described for Facebook: the number of potential viewers will grow exponentially if people share your items with their friends.  Here too, its important however to stay active. Regulary pin something, and also return the favor for others. Don't just pin your own stuff. 

10) Use Instagram and Youtube

Make pics using Instagram of your
WorkInProgress and share!

Are the tips on Wanelo, Pinterest and the likes all about pinning already existing images, Youtube and Instagram are about MAKING them. Now how can it benefit you? Instagram will allow you to make pictures, add arty effects and layers (if you wish) and instantly share them with your friends. So what would happen if you would now and then make pictures of your items? Finished products or, if you make things yourself, an item in progress! You will see you might get a steady stream of followers in your Instagram account, and you can easily integrate Instagram with Twitter! Your Twitter acount in turn is linked to Facebook so in a single action, all your followers will be seeïng your beautiful products! 

Now, youtube works simmilar BUT it has an added advantage. Most people don't realise that Youtube is actually the worlds second largest search engine after  Google. So immagine someone typing on Youtube the search string "How to crochet" and it will pull up a nice vid of you sharing tips on crochetting or showing what you do to get the product you love to make? Just add your store's URL to the vid  and description and off you go! It will add to the "Personal Touch", create awareness of the work you put into your products

Styles and definitions of Fashion

Market in Amsterdam, photo: Marcel Lücht

Today, strolling on the market, I was wondering what the definition of Fashion actually is. If I had to make a guess, it was something like "A way of dressing and using accessories that expresses who you are."
Judging by that definition, whe blandness on the streets was surely indicating that there was not a lot of expression going on. Surely, there were statements of all kinds, a black woman with short milimetered hair painted signal blue, and another woman with the type of red that was screaming "Not Naturally obtained".  But when leaving hairstyles out of the equasion (just for the sake of this blog, because it surely is a fashion statement), there was just an awfull lot of "nothing".
So, I decided to seek advise of the always trusty Internet on the definition of Fashion. And it came up with: "a popular or the latest style of clothing, hair, decoration, or behaviour." (source Oxford Dictionaries).
OK, so by that definition, fashion is more of a reflection of what the mass public decides is "Bon ton". Enter marketing budgets.


So fashion can be made, fashion is the biggest common denominator. Throw a huge budget on add campains in leading magazines lige Vogue or Elle, and there is a fair chance that the general public will, after the fashion pundits have decided its worth putting on the front cover, a new Fashion will be born.
Ok, so far the gloomy, negative, marketing-dollar driven definition. 


But I think there is more to fashion than the definition above is covering. Because everywhere in the world sub-cultures are being created, that keep on influencing eachother. Some on big scales, some on smaller ones.

Take the schoolgirl, Rococo inspired Lolita style that for a few years already is booming in a niche of Japan's fashion styles. Steadily it has found its way to all corners of the world and has grown there to sub-culture fashion statements, that now and then even make headlines in national and international media.

Members of the Lolita Paradise Club in Monterrey, Mexico
Photo Daniel Becerrill / Reuters

The British Daily Mail recently featured an article on this particular sub-culture in Mexico's cities, and sent a reporter to Monterrey for covering of the story. According to the Lolita's Paradise Club, its a statement against the forceful "Grow Up Quickly"- statement of moderns society, trying to stay a kid by dressing accordingly. If that is the whole story is up for debate, but maybe more on that in a later blog. At least we can agree that it is a fashion statement, a way of expressing yourself through clothing and accessories. It does not seem at all a common denominator, a mass inspired thing, pushed by large corporations. Instead its a niche that, on its own, and aided by the openness of the internet and assisted by media coverage, finds its way into different corners of the world. Is everyone thinking its "beautiful", "Cute" or something alike? I don't think so. And is it popular? Walking on the streets of Amsterdam today, I did not see anybody dressed even remotely Lolita-style. Therefor it does not really match the definition by Oxford Dictionary. But is it fashion? Yes it is! Fashion in my belief is more than the "Middle-of-the-road" that brands like PME, Esprit and G-star are pushing. Fashion is an expression of an individual!

Conversion

Yesterday, in Etsy's forum an interesting topic turned up, one that I had already been pondering on for some time. The topic was concerning the amount of views vs the amount of likes and the resulting amount of sales. In marketing terms this is called the Conversion rate.

The first few posts, all showed similar conversion rates of, between 100 and 250 views per sale (with around 20-30 likes per sale), but later more and more posts popped up where the views per sale ratio ended up between 500-2000.
Of course I quickly calculated my own and ended up on an average 650 views per sale, so well within the second tier.


Now, finding out those numbers is interesting, but the key question of course is how to INFLUENCE these numbers and in order to be able to do that, we need to know the cause.


There is where it becomes a bit tough. I don't have the time to make a scientific research on this, but a few observations could be made.


To people saying that external marketing (outside of Etsy) would be the cause: I don't think so. That would increase the amount of views, but not necessarily the view/sale ratio. In fact, it could be debated that it would reduce the ratio, since more views will dilute the sales made ratio (increasing sales but not in the same amount as the amount of views).


Of course a difference could be that the tagging of items was more specific, resulting in possible less views, but a higher conversion rate per view (ie more sales per view). That is to be investigated.

An other difference that caught my eye has to do with location. It quickly struck me that many of the shops with low conversion ratios (so high number of views per sale) were located outside of the US.
A quick look on Ebay shows that many stores don't even consider selling international. Its considered "a hassle", dangerous or just unneccesary. Whether that is a valid idea remains to be seen. However, I believe that the vast majority of Etsy buyers are US based. And I can immagine they would prefer to buy from US based stores, either because they are apprehensive of buying from non-US stores, they feel the shipping charges are too high or just for patriotic reasons.
Is there much that non-US sellers can do about this? Hardly. Just keep the shipping rates as low as possible (don't inflate), communicate in a timely and kind manner, and maybe in the stores policy or "about me" mention that many international orders have not caused any problems.
But that aside, I strongly believe Etsy can do something too: Increase they brand awareness outside of the US.
Maybe its a good idea to discuss this with your local Etsy representative?


Your views are highly appreciated.