The young generation is increasingly connected, and a good part of their time on their mobile is due to social networks. A real card to play for online retailers! Especially when you know that in the USA, “social shopping” generated over 2.69 billion $ of sales in 2015. What is this successful new trend?
One picture is worth a thousand words. Instagram, Pinterest or Vine… Platforms with strongest growth are those related to pictures and videos ; Places of exchanges and communication, these community platforms initiated a new consumption activity: the social shopping.
Meeting point between e-commerce and social networks, social shopping is THE new 2016 trend!
In this context, a revolutionary new app is willing to emerge: Project September, which allows buying looks of our favorite influencers, directly from social networks!
“Project September is a mobile shopping app that allows a deeper, more immediate connection between fashion and design influencers, their audiences and the brands they love. For the first time ever, consumers can bridge the gap between online shopping and social browsing by tapping an image, in order to instantly make a purchase. Users can scroll through their feeds to explore and discover through images, and buy items they like.” said Alexis Maybank, co-founder.
The principle is simple; leaning on community of bloggers, fashion editors, photographs and celebrities, you just have to click on little green dots corresponding to the products highlighted in the picture, and the app directly leads you to the retailer’s site. In exchange, influencers receive a commission on sales!
(Crédits : Project September)
Recognizing that digital stars are becoming the new flagship leaders of youth and that users go on social networks in particular to find luxury goods that are unavailable elsewhere, Alexis Maybank, also founder of the e-commerce website called Gilt, strongly believes in the power of images to encourage consumption.
“The fashion industry is constantly changing, and Project September is a testament to that evolution. What began as a love of sample sales in New York City was the catalyst for launching Gilt. And in a similar way, the rise in social media platforms’ popularity showed us that consumers are discovering products in a new way. That’s how Project September came to fruition. While at Gilt, we saw that users were unable to easily move from social browsing to shopping and instantly purchase. To that end, we believe Project September is the fashion industry’s next step, and we’ll move forward to make the visual world shoppable. Project September is a seamless and beautifully designed platform with virtually no words. That’s all intentional to create a truly immersive shopping experience” explaine the visionner.
Project September was launched with over 2000 brands, whose Saks Fifth Avenue, Matches Fashion, Coach and Nasty Gal. Among the first personalities associated, we count Nina Garcia, Creation Director of Marie-Claire, the model Christy Turlington or the hairdresser Frédéric Fekkai.
The app is only available in iOS, but the team currently prepares the web version!
THE LOOK FORWARD PERSPECTIVE
Project September isn’t the first app of social shopping, (we already heard of LikeToKnow for example); but it has the advantage of relying on a premium network of influencers, combining the principle of sharing networks and an e-commerce strategy, thus revolutionizing the way we consume and accelerating the buying process. It remains to see if this new app will be enough attractive to be massively downloaded by Instagram followers, and have a sufficient audience for insuring a good conversion rate.