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Shoppable search engine for fashion and style…
Susan Bruch (Founder of Your Style Unzipped, a shoppable search engine for fashion and style – bio) joins Pavan Bahl, Rob Sanchez, Ilan Tito and Marc Raco for an On Air Challenge (a recorded and comprehensive consultation on business development).
The company, the founder and solving a problem
Bruch shares the genesis of the company based on a personal experience, the objective of discovering how you find things and where the “meat” is from a consumer standpoint, how search engines manage and search so many channels, and creating a consolidated platform. She discusses her personal background, her role as an industry educator and speaker, building the company over the last four years, funding and developing a solution, being forced to pivot as the industry develops and changes, and how there are many conversations going on. How POS originating is not as important as how a customer discovers a brand or retailer, why no one size fits all, why Bruch ditched the company’s original concept for a fully customizable one that fits all retailers brands and media voices for any size brand, while allowing consumers to find new and emerging stores and brands.
Front end confusion, closet vs. transaction, and how social media success equals customers
Concerns that the website looks like an e-commerce store, clarifying the value proposition, utilizing one’s own social promotion for one’s own metrics, building metrics to support onboarding process, and working to create an SKU based back end. Content processes, avoiding content duplication, building out the content system, moving forward toward integrating other AI, visual, text, numerical and editorial tools. Fundraising objectives for a technical audit, redesigning the back end and plans for a new front end. Closet vs. transaction, the goal of a massive scale affiliate approach and becoming a tool for the industry, revenue streams, and why the platform is directory-based. Methods for customer acquisition, how the team has achieved successful social media presence with 3 million impressions a week for over 300 industry stakeholders, and the importance of great content.
The value proposition, a use case, and selling search
Confusion on what the offering is and why this offering? Industry consolidation, the future of search, hyper-targeting, and paying attention to who is talking about your brand. A use case that helps the team finally understand how Bruch can “sell search”, and identifying the right target audience. Identity crisis of search engine vs. e-commerce shop, focusing the choice between search vs. browse, growing with the development of visual recognition, identifying what the actual brand is.
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