Five Fashion Marketing Insights From Moxsie CEO Jon Fahrner

There have been some amazing things happening in the digital fashion universe lately; it’s almost too much for a digitally savvy, Jimmy Choo loving girl to take!

While we’ve been planning Retail Camp in San Francisco and Los Angeles, I’ve had amazing interactions with smart, educated and simply funny people that ride the fashion and technology worlds. The most recent has been Jon Fahrner, the CEO of Moxsie.com. Last week, Jon and I spoke about Moxsie’s new retail partnerships with Kaboodle; the interview turned into one of the most insightful conversations this blog-writing, coffee addicted girl has had in months.

Before I get into the insights, I think I need to tell you about the process leading up to this interview and then about Jon (yes, we’re on first name terms for this article). I was extremely nervous to talk to him. Being the CEO of a twice funded, successful fashion start-up that’s creating innovative marketing channels and also gives emerging fashion designers a faster way to the consumer market is no small thing.

I spent a week researching Moxsie, Jon and writing my questions. This interview was going to be professional; I was going to conduct it the way they taught me in Journalism 401. Five minutes into the interview, my preparation and my somber professionalism went out the window. Jon and I just had flow.

Let me say, for a CEO of a large company, Jon has to be the most down-to-earth CEO I’ve ever spoken to. He’s funny and possesses a balanced knowledge of the fashion industry and Silicon Valley tech that’s hard to find in the digital fashion space. Everyone at Moxsie seems to share  his fashion forward, digitally enlightened mentality.

5 Fashion Marketing Insights For Online Retail Success

1. The early bird gets the worm. Online retailers need to create new consumer shopping behavior and change consumers’ mentality towards online purchases. Private sales are based on what’s left over and what’s going out. It’s time to be first, so  retailers should consider basing their inventory on what’s new and what’s trending.  This will drive online sales.

2. Emerging designers are their own best marketing tool. As an emerging designer or brand, the best thing you can bring to your line to ensure its success is YOU. Consumers want to know and connect with your story, your energy and your creativity, not just a dress you designed. Brands that have unique stories and create products from those stories will produce things consumers want to buy.

3. The Internet isn’t survival of the fittest. With the economy the way it is today, those who survive aren’t going to be the ones just adapting to social commerce and media.  It’s going to be the brands and retailers that are curating their a niche. The way you communicate with audience must match the mediums you use to market to them.

4. The #1 cause of brand death is having no story to tell. If a brand or retailer is uninteresting, why would a customer come to them?  So if you don’t want to die, spend some time figuring out what makes you interesting, what makes you different. Go through everything; from your content to your merchandise, find that differentiating factor! You may chant or meditate, if it helps.

5. Unique Value vs. Brand Power, which is stronger? When it comes to social media, a smaller brand’s uniqueness quotient enables them to compete with bigger brands and retailers. Social media levels the playing field for online success.

Unique Insights: What Can Retailers & Designers Learn From Moxsie?

Moxsie is an extremely interesting fashion start-up that is distinguishing itself from other fashion dot coms via their marketing and merchandising practices.

How Does Moxsie Select Designers For Its Site?

According to Moxsie, there are 13,000 – 15,000 emerging fashion designers online. How do they select the emerging designers they feature? They pick the designers and brands with the best stories. Second, they look for designers who make under the $10 million dollar per year in revenue and aren’t over distributed in large retail locations.

Online Retailers Need To Market Outside The Box…Or The Food Truck

Jon said, “There will never be another Zappos.com.” Because of that, Moxsie has become the company it is by thinking outside the box and taking a  multidimensional approach to the way it reaches its audiences.

When the site first began, it would invite a local food truck to its location in Palo Alto. It would then tweet from (@Moxsie), inviting everyone in the area to come join them at the truck for lunch. The truck would also tweet its location and say that it’s hanging out with @Moxsie, come join! Each week, they had a different truck which followed the same format; 200-400 people would show up to each lunch and hang out.

The brand exposure from the partnering truck’s Twitter followers, Facebook fans and people who showed up in person couldn’t be bought from Google AdWords. Cool factor: Moxsie was targeting potential customers by the food they ate! While the marketing tactic didn’t translate to direct sales spikes, the organic traffic and sales began to tier up and currently continues to increase.

John, Julia and everyone at Moxsie, thank your passion and your candidness. I’ve always been asked if there was a brand or company that I’d drop everything to go in-house for. The answer used to be Hermes.  Now…it’s Moxsie.

Want To Learn More about Social Commerce and Fashion?

Join Jon Fahrner of Moxsie, Shari Gunn of Kaboodle and Staci Riordan of Fox Rothschild at Retail Camp in San Francisco on September 30th, 2010. Register Online!

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