Story of the product
Wheretoget.it is a young online project, which helps people to find their favorite clothing items from photographs. It works quite simple. Once registered, users upload pictures of things that want to find and buy, and readers help to identify a brand of clothing, give a link to an online store, where the thing is sold, or at least find similar things. Usually to find a necessary thing takes less than three hours and in 84% of cases the search is successful.
The site was launched in 2011, but now it is very popular. Its creators, Nicholas Metske, Gilles Babinet and Romain Moyne from France, have already launched a number of successful projects. Their start-ups, including Ciao.com and Musiwave, were sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.
The idea to launch Wheretoget.it was born while working on Hypeed site, which was created in the beginning of 2010. Hypeed is both an online magazine and a site similar to Lookbook.nu, Chictopia and section of looks at Look At Me. The editor chooses trends and writes about them posts, and users upload their pictures to illustrate these materials. They can also vote for their favorite pictures and leave comments. According to the accolades, many like this concept. After some time after project launched French Vogue even asked to manage the Fashion Community section on its website.
The idea of the project is very simple. The person saw on someone incredibly stylish blazer and want to buy the same, but do not know where to find it. One of the options is to ask for advice from friends, and if they are prompt, then the person is a lucky man. Also it is possible to search for a thing on the internet or in magazines, but search may take several hours. So why not to ask for help from people who love fashion and are good at shopping?
Currently Wheretoget.it is a site of questions and answers. And although founders are pretty young, they have more than 50,000 members that refer to 2,000 different online stores. They would like to work more closely with social networks, as well as to create a platform where people can learn about the current trends. In addition, it is planned to closely link Whetetoget.it with Hypeed. Hypeed is used by a variety of well-known bloggers. That’s why they have to be attracted to the second project.
The website has five forum sections where people can communicate about fashion, ideas for improvement, over coffee, announcements and rules and guidelines on Wheretoget.
Strategic approach for early stage period (business side)
In order to obtain specific knowledge about fashion, the editor was invited. He is a blogger. Bloggers feel fashion the same way as not involved in it people, and generally judge impartially that is very important.
Wheretoget.it is pragmatic and straightforward. It works with ordinary people. What is happening with the fashion is no longer a trend, but the beginning of global change. That concerns collaboration of, for example, H & M with Versace, Lanvin and Karl Lagerfeld. Success stories such as Asos and Topshop became possible. This is largely due to the overall democratization. This trend will continue.
Romain Moyne, CEO and co-founder of the company began his first business at 16 and has since grown up to a web entrepreneur. It happened with his previous business (about fashion and web as well) that the proposal for Wheretoget became famous. A necessity of understanding where to purchase the garments that were shown was examined and that’s where it all began.
How to engage the investor in a new way
If Internet project is bought by investor, it can be assumed that its creators have reached their goal, but in terms of the project life cycle, such purchase is just the end of the first phase of its development. Issues of further development are opened for the Internet project at the second stage, when it has already been bought. Investors need to profit from it. If the project has already become public, it is possible that investors back their investments with profit and out (partially or completely) of it. But someone owns shares, and this someone also wants to receive dividends. Growth of stock quotes is possible if the profitability of the project is shown (now a public company) or steady growth of the revenue part of the project.
If the company is preparing to attract investment, it must in any case perform a series of mandatory conditions. First all available documentation should be put in a full order. An investor should fully understand the structure of the company and its financial condition. The next is to make an assessment of those assets that are acquired to provide funds involved. It is recommended to conduct an audit of the company’s financial condition. Also from the provided business plan the investor should see that this project is fully realistic and, of course, profitable. Obviously, each situation requires the use of an individual set of tools in order to attract the desired investment.
Thus, sponsorship is so far the type of receipt of funds, which is not very common, especially in business organizations. Nevertheless, a number of business areas (e.g. social networks to the Internet, other Internet projects, and media projects) may well attract funds from sponsors for its launch and development.
Sponsor may provide funds, equipment, office tools, and facilities for the business traveler. In this case the sponsor does not rely on the income which a businessman will receive and indirect benefits for themselves. Usually, the sponsorship deals with large companies to form their image, increase visibility and impact on the target audience.
If Wheretoget is sponsored, for example, by the sports company, it can additionally create the section, where only sports items will be presented. Sporting goods market in the world is one of the biggest, its volumes in the last few years close to $100 billion (according to different estimates – $ 67 billion annually). According to some reports, the annual total sales of the world market sporting ammunition is about $ 40 billion, which is more than capacity of athletic footwear market ($ 20 billion) and sports apparel market ($ 38 billion).
According to experts, in the sports industry major proportion (70-80%) on monetary relations belongs to sporting goods market (producers, distributors, retailers). According to a study of the World Federation of sporting goods, global sporting goods market amounted to $ 200 billion in 2010 and in 2015 it will reach almost $240 billion.
Also Wheretoget can become the sponsor of some event and in the future it can attract more investors. According to the worldwide research sponsorship can greatly surpass the effect compared with other means of advertising. Modern advertising market is characterized by high demand, which entails high cost of advertising. Such a high price is not normally available to budding entrepreneurs. High price and a large number of advertisers force far-sighted businessmen to find new ways to advertise their original business. The advantage of sponsorship is that it creates in the public mind the link between the sponsoring company and a specific group of consumers. The purpose of sponsorship is intended effect of improving the image of the company. Participation in socially meaningful actions helps organizations to associate with sports, culture, health and social welfare. That is not only produces a favorable impression on the right audience, but specifically establishes a positive association. One of the positive effects of sponsorship is the impressive effect of joint action. Company – sponsor always has an opportunity to attract representatives of sponsored organizations to their projects.
A strategy how to engage the social customer
The main feature of marketing strategies of Internet business is customer orientation. But for traditional business it is not fundamentally new strategy, that’s why the concept of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) lately so rapidly developed. Using the Internet, businesses can more “close” approach to the consumer, more finely and accurately organize personalized service customers, partners and clients. The vast majority of Internet companies rushed to this new quality of interaction with customers.
If customer relationships are the heart of business success, then CRM is the valve the pumps a company’s life blood. As such, CRM is best suited to help businesses use people, processes, and technology to gain insight into the behavior and value of customers. This insight allows for improved customer service, increased call center efficiency, added cross-sell and upsell opportunities, improved close rates, streamlined sales and marketing processes, improved customer profiling and targeting, reduced costs, and increased share of customer and overall profitability.
It’s not a secret that social media today are of great importance in the formation of brand recognition and consumer appeal. But how do exactly to convert casual visitors of Twitter or Facebook in real clients?
About 340 million short messages are published daily in microblogging service of Twitter. Perhaps some of them refers to Wheretoget brand, although there is no confirmation on it. Just because the brand is not mentioned in the conversation or it is not marked in the hash tags, do not mean that there is no discussion of the product or service.
It is necessary to be active. Before the upcoming Sweetlife festival Floyd customized search in TweetDeck by words “sweetlife” and “sweetlife festival”. Now he is able to track the posts dedicated to this topic, even if the user does not put hash tag. The Company collects information about the interest in the festival, as well as answering questions about the event to those who still have doubts about whether to visit Sweetlife Festival.
Likewise, Wow Bao Company does. Chicago branch manager, Geoff Alexander said that they use to search for the word “wow bao”, “baomouth” and “hot Asian buns”, to participate in discussions. It should be noted that since the opening to promote its brand the company started it on social networks, so it did not have funds for traditional advertising.
With the search for social media, the company can find competitors’ customers to understand what they like and what is missing. Look for messages that are relevant to the business to find potential customers, communicate with them, and this information will help in the development of business.
There is nothing that attracts people as an opportunity to win something. Therefore, various competitions and contests are a great way to attract new readers, which over time can be converted into customers. The essence of such an event should be carefully considered in order the readers become the target audience; otherwise the efforts will be useless.
ModCloth Company arranges monthly photo contest, which brings together hundreds or even thousands of votes. Recently a Thrifted Treasures contest was organized, where users exhibited pictures of their favorite antiques. This event led to thousands of new readers, which we were not able to draw any other way. Such contests helped raise a considerable audience for ModCloth. These activities must be carried out correctly. In particular, it is important to ensure free flow of information, which encourages users to share with friends’ link, put hash tags etc. The features of the social network, its capabilities and priorities of “local” audience should be taken into account.
Do not forget that quality is more important than quantity. This applies to the audience that is going to be attracted. The item with which the winners will be rewarded must be considered carefully, for instance, with iPad. Only if there is a confident fact that the competition is noticed by the target users and not those who just wanted to get a tablet.
Nobody likes mass downloads – every consumer appreciates personal appeal. Therefore, Wheretoget needs to know their customers in social networks and those interested in the brand, refer to them as much as possible in person. Just so points of contact and relationships are established. The result is a loyalty to the brand itself.
The negative comments shouldn’t be ignored. Complaints from dissatisfied customers have to be responded because the company can make an active admirer of its brand, which will then promote the product.
References
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