Updated: Feb 16, 2021
(Zalando’s Dr. Carsten Keller speaking at Retail Without Borders 2019.)
The Retail Without Borders 2019 summit saw some of the worlds largest marketplaces and retailers come together in London to discuss the state of retail on a global scale. The Smartzer team were lucky to catch Zalando’s Vice President of Direct to Consumer, Dr Carsten Keller as he kicked off the day with his talk on how online platforms are actually fuelling the high st.
Dr. Keller opened with the fascinating case study of John Mcpheters’ sneaker store Stadium Goods. Last year the sneaker company only had one store and yet it was selling over 40 million shoes. How you may ask? Stadium Sneakers also sells on some of the worlds biggest online marketplaces, and it sells a lot. Having snapped up by $250m to Farfetch last year, Sneaker Stadium is a great example of the power of mastering online in an evermore interconnected landscape.
ONLINE TO OFFLINE (O2O)
Tmall and Alibaba were also pulled upon as great examples of how to navigate online and offline retail effectively. In China, they have created a new ecosystem of connected ‘offline’ stores that sell on their platforms. Leveraging offline in partnership with online is part of the reason why Tmall and Alibaba have built such vast businesses. Keller also pointed out that the ‘offline’ retail landscape in Europe is not also a healthy one with 35,000 stores closing since 2008, which inevitably has raised a few eyebrows.
In particular, Fashion is positioned in Europe with 88% of sales coming through offline. Therefore, it could potentially be at risk to the growing online landscape. Furthermore, one of the big problems online Fashion is availability, with an estimated 8.6 million people per quarter unable to find the item they want online in 2018. The combination of established bricks and mortar and growing demand for online availability in fashion has really fuelled Zalando’s solution of ‘Connected Retail’.
Zalando’s Connected Retail solution realises that through connecting with physical stores you gain access to the biggest warehouse on earth. By integrating their system with stores, items can be shipped/collected/returned in store, thus creating a much more efficient and localised way of online shopping for customers. Stores majorly benefit not only from increased revenue but also from footfall and consumer data. Keller described it as a ‘3x win’ as Customers, Stores and Zalando all can make serious gains. With 700+ Stores connected to Zalando in 2018 it truly is a business model fit for online and offline retail.
(Cartoonist impression of the talk.)
- Feb 18, 2019
Updated: Jun 1, 2021
Smartzer joins LVMH in the second season of its incubator "La Maison des Startups" on the Station F campus.
We are thrilled to announce that Smartzer will be part of the second class of LVMH’s La Maison des Startups that will welcome 26 young companies on the Station F campus in 2019. It is an honour to continue on from the first promotion of the acceleration program and have the opportunity to continue to develop our collaboration with the Houses of LVMH (Moet Hennessy, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Sephora, etc.). The thirteen other places were awarded to startups identified by LVMH thanks to its Innovation Award, an annual competition organized as part of Viva Technology. Several LVMH employees whose projects have been rewarded in the various editions of the DARE initiative (Disrupt, Act, Risk to be Entrepreneur), dedicated to the development of intrapreneurship within the Group, will also join the second promotion to develop their projects.
La Maison des Startups allows entrepreneurs to benefit from personalized support from experts in the LVMH group within a work environment conducive to innovation. Workshops dedicated to the challenges of the luxury industry and pitch sessions are regularly offered to each start up to present the evolution of their solutions to representatives of LVMH Houses.
With this second season, the acceleration program addresses the Group's major current issues: sustainability of raw materials, reinvention of the customer experience, use of Artificial Intelligence, improvement of data analysis and CRM systems and the use of virtual and artificial reality.
The selection consists of Alcmeon (Dialogue via Social Networks and Instant Messengers), Allure Systems (fashion visuals without manikin), Daumet (gilding on exceptional materials), Dreenk (wine analysis scanner), Euveka (robotic manikin) , Ferpection (UX tester community), Fitle (garment size measurement algorithm), Futur 404 (Sustainable Innovation), Haptic Media (3D collection modeling), Heuritech (visual search and trend detection), Holooh (human holograms in AR and VR), Kronos Care(followed by an e-commerce order), Mercaux (tablet for sellers), Neos (in-store scanning and payment application), Orbis (holograms), Sericyne (manufacture of silk objects), SimpliField(communication with vendors), SkyBoy (Story Telling augmented reality), SmartPixels(product customization), Smartzer (video tagging for e-commerce), Southpigalle(collaborative tools), Spoon (artificial creatures), The Bradery (flash sales instagram) , V-cult(3D experiments for trade or training), See (virtual makeup) or Woodoo (translucent wood).
Read more about the LVMH Season 2 Launch:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lvmh-lance-la-deuxi%C3%A8me-saison-de-son-incubateur-des-f-le-garlantezec/
https://lamaisondesstartups.lvmh.com/en/startups/
- Jan 3, 2019
Updated: Feb 15, 2021
The 2018 e-Pitti Summit in Milan this year saw the launch of a partnership with Fashion Technology Accelerator - a world-leading infrastructure allowing retail and fashion corporations connection with the companies that make digital brand enhancement not only a viable but an essential, part of growth. Therefore, an invitation for Smartzer to attend as one of seventeen startups active in this field was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate network with industry professionals and to share more about the new shoppable video platform.
Whilst the bridging of fashion and innovation was evident on both days, the Brands + Start-Ups Catch-Up on the 21st provided us with ample opportunity to forge connections with brands interested in innovating their marketing strategies by expanding into the virtual sphere.
CONVERSE - LIBERATO
Maximization of brand-consumer relationships was stressed by Manuela Strippoli (Converse’s marketing director) within the talk Smartzer representatives attended at the e-Pitti summit. Building intimate relationships with consumers through content marketing has the ability to ‘unpack the power of the youthquake’ by demonstrating brand authenticity. Converse’s recent collaboration with the faceless Napoli rapper ‘Liberato’ has aimed to strengthen these relationships by allowing accessibility for the youth of today to connect with such an iconic brand. The appeal of Liberato and his air of mystery created a ‘social tsunami’ for the collaboration, with promotion sticking exclusively to digital methods, and this optimisation of online presence proved a roaring success for the campaign; over 35,000 people attended the concert Liberato announced on social media in tandem with the collaboration launch.
In addition to this example, the importance of content was a theme running throughout all the discussions, making it ever more important for brands to think about how to tie this back to commerce in a measurable way.
Check out the e-Pitti website to discover more about their ethos and opportunities:
https://www.e-pitti.com/en/fieradigitale.html