- Università: Em Lyon Business School
- Docenti:
Monica Grosso
- Studenti:
Clémentine Hauger, Clémence Martineau, Cyrille Tang, Elisabeth Alexandre, Margot Juvenal, Virginie Huang
The fashion industry has a massive detrimental impact on the environment by producing waste: a simple t-shirt travels an average of 40,000km and since 2013, H&M has incinerated 12 tons of unsold clothing. We need to change our way to buy clothes, but how to convince people that green clothes can be fashionable and trendy? By offering a new consumer experience, based on personalization and technology.
Wear-Able is a ready-to-wear store where five local designers could present their green-fashion collections and where customers could try the garments on thanks to connected mirrors in augmented reality.
Wear-Able’s visual identity is made of soft colours (beige, light brown, white) and curves (as the W of the logo). We want to inspire people going back to simplicity, “Wear-Able: Wear it greener, longer, smarter”.
The store is located in the Norrebro District of Copenhagen: the most lively and artistic place of the city. It presents a sober exterior, but we install classic mirrors on the front of the shop to call out the customers from the street with their reflections.
Inside, there are 5 different areas for the 5 designers, and each one can customize his own area. The connected mirrors are placed in a S-shaped wall in the middle of the store, linking all the areas and creating intimacy for the fitting.
We offer to the customer eight categories: pants, shorts, skirts, dresses, t-shirts, pullovers, shirts, jackets and accessories, for men and women. Most of all, we offer the customer a new buying experience thanks to two connected mirrors with augmented reality technology allowing him to try the garment on without getting undressed. The mirror allows the customer to adjust the garment to his body (ex: bend the waist, shorten legs) so that the designers can produce for him a perfectly adjusted piece.
Wear-Able aims at simplifying the customer experience (no more frustrating time in the fitting rooms, only 18% of customers are going to a fitting room today) and at reducing overconsumption by performing a zero-stock policy (each piece is tailor-made for the customer according to his morphology).
We acquired these mirrors exclusively from the Amazon group, which is the only supplier of such technology. They patented this innovation in 2018 but have not yet launched the official distribution. We place ourselves as an advocate for the evolution of everyone's global mindset by supporting and implementing Amazon's technological innovation in our store.
Our designers are strictly selected based on our green specifications (on production processes, used materials, recycling processes). They are Danish designers to create an authentic and local fashion identity in the store. They have to provide the store with two collections: Spring&Summer and Autumn&Winter, at least made by four garments by category, but they are also free to offer exclusive designs when they want. Our first four partners to start are: Aiayu, Artikel, Carcel and Blanche.
The great opportunity for our ethical & eco-responsible retail shop in Copenhagen is that the Danes are mainly already well-aware of the importance of taking action in order to respect the environment, Copenhagen was the European Green Capital in 2014, and the demand for ethical fashion brands is growing. However, we will have to differentiate from green-washing retailers who can become threats for the cause's credibility.
Our customer analysis leads us to define our personae as Esther, a young woman of 28 years old. She is the head of the Marketing Department of Dansk Supermarketed, a Danish retail company. She is truly sensitive to fashion and its new alternatives. She is looking for buying high-quality clothes, but she rejects luxury and wants to reduce her consumption. She wants to buy less but better. She is highly interested in new buying experiences to ease purchase and save time.
Wear-Able’s online communication is mainly based on social media optimization: we aim to connect and inspire people while promoting our products, and we take advantage of committed influencers. The offline communication is based on events organization. We launch the shop with a big fashion show in the Copenhagen Botanical Garden and a private party in our store with an exhibition of our designers and their collections. Then, seasonal events will periodically take place to present our new collections and new designers.
Speaking of customer loyalty, we aim at building a strong relationship with our customers. Our strategy stays in giving a stamp for each purchase in the store to get 50% off on the 11th purchase, but also in having a strong database thanks to the mirrors. Our offer is entirely customized: we want the customer to consider the mirrors as their friend (visualize and imagine a whole outfit thanks to suggestions based on data). We build a true community: our customers are bonded by the same values’ sharing. They are invited to share with each other and come by the boutique frequently (each piece is available after order within 2 to 4 weeks).
According to our forecasts, we will be profitable from year 2, with an EBIT result of 103,667€. We managed the heavy fixed costs of the connected mirrors and the shop itself thanks to a premium price strategy in the ready-to-wear industry, and thanks to the importance of green trends today which attract customers.
