Read my Drapers blog ‘Asositis; Excessive preoccupation with acquiring the qualities of ASOS’

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Myself with Kristina O’Connor

Kristina O’Connor may have studied Spanish and Italian at Birmingham University for four years but her passion is online retail.

Having beta launched Store Society, at the end of last year, Kristina is now tasked with developing phase two of the website with a relaunch which took place last month.

I recently caught up with Kristina (whose father is a TV favourite) to find out more about Store Society.

What is Store Society to the average fashion shopper?

Right now, many would think of Store Society as a social network.

The site connects fashion lovers with each other allowing them to share their latest looks and be inspired by each other’s style.

Members have the standard social network tools available to them such as status updates, messaging, recommending, rating, following and befriending, but Store Society is much more than that.

Store Society relaunched August 2009

How does Store Society help boutiques?

If you are a fashion retailer you can get your store listed on Store Society now, for free, which allows you to engage with our members.

Simply filling in location and opening hours is enough to be useful to a user.

However, upload your logo and add some product, and instantly your store becomes discoverable in our browse and search functions.

Stores can promote products, sales and offers directly to members. This is useful for stores that aren’t yet online; it gives them a presence with the intention of assisting footfall.

Retailers who do operate transactional sites can deep-link their items to product pages on their own websites. All free.

Do you see Store Society as an alternative to a boutique creating a website, or is it more of a promotional tool for them?

I’ve spoken with a number of boutique owners who say that they just don’t have the time or money to build a decent website.

Store Society gives stores a professional online presence that is quick and simple to create and very easy to maintain, with instant traffic from the UK and beyond.

The majority of independents don’t have transactional sites, which is something Store Society is working on.

Stores will be able to sell directly from the site in the near future.

Myself with Kristina O’Connor at the London Fashion Network’s first birthday party

As a new media entrepreneur you must have picked up a few technical learnings on the way.

Every day I’m learning something new! I would say the most significant thing I’ve learned so far is the importance of social media, full stop.

As more people choose to shop online, the use of social media is increasingly important as a way for stores to attract attention in a crowded market place.

Through social media, stores can create a personality and communicate directly with their customers, helping to engender loyalty and generate traffic, which in turn leads to sales. Communicate first, sell second.

Name three of your favourite fashion websites?

Peter Versus Toby - An Australian boutique with a sense of humour and some fantastic prints.

Doc Dog - A Brazilian with some really fresh yet feminine designs.

Billy Boyce Clothing - A London based boutique all about funky contemporary street fashion.

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Check out Store Society

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Check out the recent online fashion revamps of department stores Harvey Nichols and John Lewis.

Both brands have bought media on Handag.com to drive traffic and build awareness.

Harvey Nichols is sponsoring a daily handbag giveaway and has a live product widget that I’m liking a lot.

Harvey Nichols daily handbag giveaway and product widget

John Lewis has taken out leaderboard and above the fold MPU slots, both of which are interactively controlled by the user.

John Lewis advertises on Handbag.com

In terms of media buys I think there is a tad bit of conflict having the two brands run promotions in the same categories.

However, both creatives have been executed well it shouldn’t pose a huge problem.

I would like to see Handbag.com open up banner clicks in the same window to get around pop-up blockers - I think that’s something quality advertisers, such as Harvey Nichols and John Lewis deserve.

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I’m very excited about The Online Fashion Agency which launches late this year in association with Amethyst Group and Olswang.

As well as being a consultancy, with experts working on marketing and business strategy for online fashion retailers, it will also be a news resource.

It will be packed with news about e-commerce and digital publishing for the fashion industry.

Those in the industry will be kept up to date with what everyone else is doing, whilst consumers will receive expert advice on savvy online shopping.

Plus, bloggers will be the first group of creatives to be signed up to the Talent House.

Sign up here and email talk.to@theonlinefashionagency.com for business opportunities.

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The Online Fashion Agency and Fashshot.com held the Directors Drinks at Pep-C in Mayfair.

Photos featured in Drapers Off The Record.

Fashshot.com / The Online Fashion Agency

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Featured in ‘Web fashionistas are just a click away from high street acceptance’ as seen in The Times September 7th.

Read the article online here

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Q&A with Econsultancy published September 8th.

Read the interview online here

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August
Antony Hawman moves to My-Wardrobe.com
Power of the Blog: London Fashion Network
Interview with Keely Stocker

July
Littlewoods Direct becomes Very
A preview of Fashionair

June
Online Fashion 100 Event
Newsletters release dopamine
Lunch and Lipsy

May
Would you pay for Stylebible?
Playing with lingerie models

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Daniella Westbrook returns to EastEnders on Friday as Sam Mitchell.

Her comeback outfit is an orange and pink Lipsy dress, which can be seen in promotional adverts and press shots.

On Friday night and all weekend I imagine there will be a surge of Google searches for ‘where can i get the dress sam mitchell wore on eastenders’.

Well the answer is here.

So come on affiliates, grab that search traffic.

And Lipsy, get the dress on the homepage and blog about it too!

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If you want to live and breathe fashion 24/7 then following some of the best fashion websites on Twitter is the way forward. Whether you’re looking for shopping inspiration or fashion do’s and don’ts, Twitter is leading the way in fashion interaction.

MY WARDROBE

http://www.my-wardrobe.com http://twitter.com/MyWardrobe

These tweets could be far more engaging. For a website that has so much to offer in the way of fashion clothing and accessories, My Wardrobe is really not selling itself as well as it could.

Tweets should be chatty and fun – these seem quite bland and often convoluted. It seems many tweeters write for the My Wardrobe Twitter and it lacks a coherent voice.

Followers: 950

NET-A-PORTER

http://www.net-a-porter.com/ http://twitter.com/Luxury_fashion

I can’t decide if Twitter is a good tool to use for Q&A sessions.

NET-A-PORTER frequently have expert fashion advisors answering questions live, but if you’re not taking part the tweets can be fairly confusing.

When they’re not having a Q&A the tweets are great – engaging, frequent and informative.

Of all the fashion twitters I found myself cliking back to the NET-A-PORTER website the most frequently.

Followers: 9,600

MATCHES

http://www.matchesfashion.com/ http://twitter.com/Matchesfashion

Matches stands out from the others, and it’s my personal favourite of the three.

Quirky and interesting links that not only go to the Matches website but also to other blogs, twitters and fashion sites.

The tweets are really chatty and informal, so I feel like I’m listening to an uber-friendly PR rather than a bored intern glued to the desk.

What works really well is using a different coloured font for the links, the only one out of the three to do so.

Very confused as to why they have the least followers.

Followers: 790

‘Sweet designer tweets - What luxury fashion stores say on Twitter’ by Amy Tipper-Hale

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