In less than a year, GET THE TREND has become essential in its sector and collaborates with groups such as Galeries Lafayette, Printemps, Matches, 24S, as well as with independent labels. Meeting with its founder, Laura Merle.
After more than 10 years spent in communication, supporting fashion and jewelry brands in their offline and online strategy, Laura Merle took a closer look at the challenges of the customer experience. From these regular exchanges with communication directors, she was able to highlight the difficulties of brands in creating an advanced digital experience due to HR and financial issues, or even long hierarchical validation circuits, especially for large houses.
If the COVID has accelerated the rise of digital, and this in many uses of daily life, it is clear that in terms of e-commerce, the experience is often not up to the level that we can live in shop. “Customers go to brand sites, but don’t really know what they want, or they use it to do research before finalizing their purchase at the point of sale,” explains Laura Merle, founder and CEO of GET THE TREND. In a digital market dominated by influencers, the colossal amounts requested by some are gradually pushing brands to withdraw from this type of collaboration, even if it means losing visibility. And on the client side? “Consumers are well aware that these partnerships are remunerated, which casts doubt on the authenticity of the recommendations”.
During her professional experience in China, Laura Merle followed the rise of the Live Shopping, whose conversion rates between 15 and 20% turn the heads of fashion houses, accustomed to a rate of 3 to 5% in e-commerce. If she likes the concept, the entrepreneur wants to adapt it to put the customer at the heart of the online buying and selling process. After a year of development, Laura Merle is launching GET THE TREND, the first platform to offer share shopping, a technological innovation that combines live shopping driven by customers, gamification, recommendations, all on an eshop. “Share shopping allows customers to be active by hosting live shopping on the site, and by allowing their community to benefit from sponsorship links. The customer becomes a seller and is remunerated accordingly. It’s up to him to decide whether he wants to use his kitty on the site or transfer the sums to his bank account,” explains the business manager. If the advantage is obvious for customers, it is also for brands. “Thanks to recommendations and advice, GET THE TREND allows brands to reduce their returns,” points out the CEO.
With a contribution of €400,000, the GET THE TREND company is launched in 2021, first in the form of a marketplace. In September 2021, other functionalities will be launched, such as share shopping with brands, and the implementation of an internal affiliation system to monitor all customer actions, and commission sellers as fairly as possible. In less than a year, many brands have chosen to trust this new concept. Among the 3,000 partner brands are Galeries Lafayette, Printemps, Nike, Etam, Maisons du Monde, but also young independent labels such as Le Rouge Français and DESTREE. With these 7,000 visitors per month, the start-up, which has the dual role of market place and production company, intends to accelerate the pace. “This year, our efforts have focused on the French market, but we are preparing for the internationalization of GET THE TREND from 2023”. From the start of the school year, the site will be enriched with a categorization between luxury, ready-to-wear and designer products, before welcoming children in the last quarter of 2022. A mobile application is also expected for the start next year. An ambitious roadmap, for which the founder is preparing a second funding round, for an amount still confidential.
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