E-Commerce: Social Shopping Take Precedence in 2012

This post was inspired by Macala Wright of FMM.

As we get more savvy online, people get smarter offline, and technologies become more intelligent; we have increasing numbers of new start-ups that are here to cater to everyone’s needs. In today’s world “niche” needs are pretty much met.

Mulu.Me – Launched in December 2011, Mulu is a social sharing platform for sharing the things you love that makes the world a better place at the same time. Mulu, allows users to make product recommendations, ask for suggestions and earn money for themselves or a social cause they want to support.

Buyosphere – Founded by digital pioneer and author, Tara Hunt, Buyosphere is Quora for fashion, interiors and retail, seeking to pick up where the Google product search falls off.

Pinterest – Pinterest is probably one of the most talked-about technologies on the web these days, one may even say users are addicted to their platform. For bloggers, we highly recommend learning how to create post titles and tags for your Pinterest posts. First start with the name of the board, then make sure your content on that board reflect the theme of what you’re showing. Do this for all of your content here.

“There is no direct path to online consumer sales. Consumers desire to broadcast and share their lives, and their web behaviors therefore strike out on a non-linear path to purchase. The whole concept of social commerce is now realizing that every platform and network is a potential lead for an online sale.” As a retailer, all you have to do is supply images and ideas in a way that’s accessible to the online user/consumer and sparks their desire to do all this work for you. In one swift addition to a consumer “pin, post or add,” retailers can build brand awareness, increase online engagement and create direct links to product pages that lead to purchase conversions.

Read Macala Wright’s full article here.

NEW YORK CITY GUIDE: Key Areas To Explore



Chelsea: Manhattan’s art gallery district contains some of the best dealers between 10th and 11th Avenues, from 24th to 27th Street, which explains why the Balenciaga and Comme des Garçons flagships are here. For significantly more retail, head south to the District.

 

East Village : A busy residential neighborhood with a bohemian history , now known for back-to-back boutiques, cafes, and affordable vintage and street wear shops. Its many bars tend to attract college students.

Lower East Side: Some of New York’s hippest contemporary boutiques are here, as well as upscale street wear shops and great vintage. By night the densely packed streets – lined with historic tenement buildings from its slum day s – are filled with twenty something’s heading to the area’s bars, rock venues and small clubs.

Meatpacking District: Slick designer brands, hip denim labels and expensive furniture stores define this downtown shopping mecca. Now there’s also the High Line, an innovative park constructed on the elevated tracks of a former industrial train line. Despite its small

size, the area also has several of the city ‘s more swank hotels, and by night it’s where models and play boys come clubbing.

Midtown: This large area running from 34th Street to 59th, where Central Park begins, is famous for its Fifth Avenue designer flagships, department stores, Times Square, Rockefeller Center and Garment District, where you’ll find fabric and trim shops. Find a convenient lineup of high street brands along 34^th Street at Herald Square, near the Macy’s flagship and JC Penny.

Nolita and Noho: Quaint boutiques, local designers and European-style cafes line the pretty streets of Nolita, which is named for being north of Little Italy. North of Houston, Noho is a like-minded extension of the neighborhood.

SoHo: Downtown’s biggest concentration of mid-market and designer brands as well as cutting-edge furniture stores. Stylish active sports gear, lovely kidswear and sleek beauty stores are also a draw. Once shops close, the streets become empty.

Union Square and Flat iron: Down Fifth Avenue and Broadway between 1 4th and 23rd Streets is a collection of high street brands (Anthropologie, Zara, Puma). The wide, open blocks are not as trafficked as Midtown and are otherwise devoted to small and mid-sized office buildings. Union Square’s big draw is Whole Foods and its outdoor farmers market. Womenswear Accessories Vintage Restaurants Overview Arts & Culture Hotels

 

Tribeca: Large loft buildings, cobbled streets and proximity to Wall Street have made Tribeca one of Manhattan’s most expensive neighborhoods. Upscale furniture showrooms dominate the retail scene; many fine restaurants and medical spas are also here.

 

Upper East Side: Facing Central Park, this posh residential neighborhood includes Madison Avenue designer flagships, tasteful kidswear and European bedding stores, Museum Mile, Park Avenue and plenty of French restaurants.

 

West Village: The leafy and manicured residential streets of this historic neighborhood have inspired niche retail concepts from Marc Jacobs (who has several stores here), Tommy Hilfiger, Ralph Lauren and Coach. One highlight is the area’s many kidswear boutiques. Celebrities are known to take up residence here and financiers frequent the area’s Eurocentric bistros and bars. Williamsburg, Brooklyn: This youth-heavy hipster hangout has 24-hour appeal. There are stylish boutiques, trendy vintage and creative interiors stores, and local furniture designers, but particulary atmospheric are its many nighttime bars and restaurants.

Thanks WGSN

Super Bowl Plans: Party in Style

How are you getting into the Super Bowl Sunday spirit? (Steelers VS Packers)

President Obama is hosting an event at the White House inviting guests such as Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony. Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and Justin Timberlake are partying in Texas at the Audi Forum Dallas for the Audi Celebration.

As for me, I’m watching the game at a friends house with yummy food and great company!  You may not be the biggest football fan, but Super Bowl is a long time tradition that if anything is an excuse to have a party, and how can you not join in on the fun! It’s time for the perfect casual outfit … Inspiration below:

[images: chictopia]

Bon Voyage 2010, Hello 2011. Celebrating All Around the World

Happy New Year, happy 1/11/11!

Exactly this time last year I was living my life in New York City. Time truly flew
by. Now, I’m in LA. I Wonder where I’ll be next year? Probably in LA, but ‘hey’ you never know. flickr

My entry into 2011 was different. It wasn’t the usual plans with friends, celebrating at an over-energized-ADD environment, at a friends house, with family or on a trip. It was very quiet, and serene. I went to church, and I don’t know if I’ll be doing it again – not the point. That got me thinking about this post. Different new years celebrations:

New York
City

Central
London

Champs Elysees avenue
in Paris

St. Basil Cathedral at
Red Square, Moscow

Hong
Kong

Taipei,
Taiwan (portrait of Sun Yat-sen, really?!)

Singapore’s financial
district

Sydney,
Australia

[image:yahoo]

I’ll end with, wouldn’t it be pretty awesome to celebrate new years in a different country each year?

Boutiques.com: Google Tackles Anothes Segment of the Internet: Fashion + Shopping

Google sees an underserved segment of the Internet: the stylish shopper. It hopes to fill that void with the launch of Boutiques.com on Wednesday.

The new website encourages users to articulate their own fashion likes and dislikes — halter top vs. one-shoulders? — while also asking celebrities and designers, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Nicole Richie and Oscar de la Renta, among them, to curate their own favorite picks.

Boutiques.com offers thumbs-up or thumbs-down quizzes of trends and then asks users to describe not just what they like or dislike, but also why. Inventory will be updated each evening, so shoppers are offered the most current merchandise.

Google will make its money from directing people to those e-commerce sites. 

 

Read more: NY Daily News

Emerging Luxury and Digital Marketing Trends

I stumbled onto this article from the NYT this morning and it got me thinking about changes brands and companies have gone through this past 2009. We can all agree the marketing and advertising landscape has been changing for some time, yet I feel that 2009 was really a big year for “social media” and for companies actually taking the steps to investing time and money for online strategies.

More and more brands are revamping their websites and rethinking their positions in the online space. For instance, Burberry deployed a new Web site, artofthetrench.com, which showcases men and women wearing their staple trench coats. Prada, takes advantage of digital technology in offering their look book to the audience. In my recent blog post Prospects of Social Media and Fashion I reviewed some brands and designers who are experimenting and creating innovative ways to interact with consumers online by live-streaming their Spring/Summer 2010 runway shows!!

I look forward to 2010! I am excited to see how other brands adopt current and emerging technologies. I am also interested to see how they find new ways to be flexible and stay ahead in an industry that constantly accelerating.

Your POV?

New Lady Gaga – Bad Romance

Oh, Lady Gaga …

Recently, I’ve been appreciating Gaga’s latest music video. The visuals, scenes, camera angles, lighting, and choreography is pretty impressive…

I know … watch it again

Prospects of Social Media and Fashion

We are living in exciting times eh? Yes, we are!

Before I go discuss further some of you may still not fully understand ‘social media‘. I like to think it as media that is socially disseminated online. The web and Internet supports and continues to accelerate this type of communication and human interaction. It allows individuals to form communities. Again, due to the web there are no clear definitions for community.  You might be wondering – I know I have –  what constitutes a community. Schools? Towns? Companies? Forums? MySpace groups? Facebook fan pages? Tech sites? Fashion sites? Do they need to be off-line or on-line? I would say that all that I’ve listed rightfully can be deemed a community. More and more things are becoming if it already hasn’t, a blur. I tell you, technology. Crazy.

At the same time it’s wonderful. It’s paved the way and brought us 2009 Fashion Week shows right into our own homes.

Alexander McQueen did it

Vivienne Tam did it

Burberry Prorsum did it too!

At this point, fashion bloggers and enthusiasts around the world can all become fashion market editors. Next season, we can watch shows during dinner right in the comfort of our own home with friends! Don’t get me wrong, I would still attend shows over watching them with friends It used to be SO exclusive and you would starve to attend the shows, NOW, times are changing and things are definitely becoming more open. All industries are clearly modifying their business models and PR/marketing strategies. For the fashion industry, however, I’m excited to see how we will embrace these changing times.

Any thoughts?

Perspective: Working Assets (Business Ethics)

Is it wrong to use sexual power for personal gain?

As I stand in front of my mirror, I ask myself, “is this too much?” Is there sort of a blurred boundary in our culture/society that suggest it to be taboo for a woman to “use what she’s got”? I mean, you could argue from both sides, … but after reading this article by Nancy Hass, I feel confident more than ever that as a woman, you should never settle, ”you have to ask yourself how much your sexuality is integral to your very being. And you have to be willing to take the blows if being true to that hold you back in your career.”

This past semester I studied that the male gaze, everything in movies, films, and media, for example, is from the perspective of a male staring at the woman, “males see while females are meant to be seen.” Many theorists and experts, such as Laura Mulvey would argue this point, and say that this notion is also prevalent in all our surrounding advertisements. I sometimes wonder if for some women the idea of women being subjected to a male gaze develops into a sort of an empowerment, an authorization … because “as long as sexuality is an organic by-product of self confidence, not the other way around, it may be a force for good, out lasting youth and its accompanying self-doubt and inexperience.”

“Obviously there remain a few clear boundaries: It’s tacky to flash cleavage at work, and sleeping your way to the top is demeaning and fraught with peril. But, in an era when displaying femininity is no longer automatically dismissed as a sign of weakness, surely that’s not all there is to say.”

“What if your sexiness if without intent, if its simply integral to your personality – are you morally bound to suppress?”

Read the rest here at ELLE, thanks Nancy!

505 Games & IMG: Fashion Videogames

These past couple months I’ve spent more time than I thought on the topic of video games. The industry of video games is big, huge, gigantic, big, huge (you get the idea). To enlighten you on just how big the gaming industry is I’ll share with you some information …

1) Sixty-eight percent of households in the US play computer or video games

2) It’s an 18 billion dollar industry 

3) Every year there’s a HUGE Game Developers Conference here, it brings together the best people 

The industry profits through multiple platforms. Meaning, games come in many and different formats, there are console games, games that can be played with roommates, virtual reality games, games online played in real reality, this is one. Did you know the average gamer is now 30 years old? Really? Yup. Companies are fully taking advantage of this market, and more are tailoring their games to their consumers. For example, this Fashion Week video game expected to come out soon…

“A Fashion Week video game is coming out next year. No, seriously. Created by 505 Games, IMG, and world-renowned makeup artist Pat McGrath, the game will offer players a “true insider’s point of view” of Fashion Week. It will include “world-class industry gurus,” models, and celebrities, and will be available for the iPhone and for Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony consoles. Women ranging in age from pre-teen to mid-thirties are the target audience. But who among them plays video games in their idle hours? Fashion people are supposed to spend their free time going to parties, shopping, drinking, getting body scrubs, BlackBerrying, and looking at themselves in the mirror — not playing video games. Unless a certain new fad in the world of gaming has created a feverish interest in the pastime among editors and designers and fashion aspirants — the Wii Fit. (Perhaps by now it’s not the absolute latest cutting-edge technology to come out of the video-game world, but what the hell do we know about video games?)”

Read more about it here…