It all started with the 3Rs in retail: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle; by limiting unnecessary consumption, Reduce waste production, Reuse everything possible to limit environmental waste and Recycle all environmental waste produced, as much as possible.
Environmentalists critically judge apparel giants with the entire product usage and lifecycle, expecting companies to produce as less waste as possible, re purpose and reuse products and encourage customers to reduce, reuse and recycle through collection, donations and second hand sales. Today, a brand’s Corporate Social Responsibility decides how they give back to the society and the environment, reflecting their brand values. With the rampant rise in pollution globally, it is high time brands as providers and we as consumers dwell into how much waste we create through apparel. Our client, a boutique fashion house, serving the retail industry with exceptionally high quality designer wear, decided to be true to and strengthen its vision of building an environment friendly apparel ecosystem.
For this genuine thought, they required our help to build and master a solution that will cover two aspects of business; one was building a direct-to-consumer channel to simplify and heighten sales, and second was to build a mobile application that allowed vendors to submit details of high end apparel and accessories allowing our client to repurpose it to meet consumer needs. Aiming towards providing an equally luxurious and sustainable experience, our client, through their Corporate Social Responsibility policy was focussing on pushing second hand repurposed apparel and accessories. Highly critical from the environmental conservation perspective; it helps lesser commodities end up into the landfill, produces lesser waste and simultaneously drives consumerism by circulating luxury items at a much lesser cost.
As a solution addressing both issues, we built an eCommerce platform allowing our client to create a virtual presence and cater to consumers globally. With an aim to serve customers and extend reach worldwide, our product helped the client increase sales multiple folds with higher discounts and coupons, convenience of 24*7 availability, locating products quicker and building trust and reliability with reviews and comparisons. Focussing on repurposing second hand luxury apparel and accessories, we designed and built a web portal that allowed vendors to click pictures of high end luxury items, add requested information and submit it to our client site. While this solved the problem of lack of standard information of uncategorised products and made the product extremely convenient for both vendors and client, we built what was missing – a virtual outlet that could sell the repurposed customizable products. Instead of selling these repurposed garments and accessories locally through physical stores, as vendors for our client this was a value added advantage that enhanced sales and built a global virtual presence and also allowed consumers to build a sustainable and a more conscious lifestyle.
Building a positive brand around the business through philanthropic means, we helped our client initiate a responsible chain of retail. With 160 franchises, today our client runs a network