E-tailer Finds Demand for Design Online
When designer Kara Janx was eliminated from the competition of Bravo’s reality show “Project Runway” last month, Tanya Zilinskas didn’t spend a lot of time mourning the defeat. She already knew that Janx was a winner in another arena.
The “Project Runway” contestant’s kimono dress was already a big hit on Zilinskas’ e-commerce fashion boutique Maneater Threads.com, which started business in November 2005. The first-time retailer plans to focus on selling the fashions of independent designers for her store based in San Francisco.
Eventually the 26-year-old Zilinskas will sell basics and jeans, which are among the top categories sold in online retail. But Zilinskas believed she could differentiate her new store and support some of her favorite designers with her boutique-style Web site.
“It’s about carrying items you believe in,” she said of her site, which also does well with dresses, although the category is not quite as popular as denim pants. Maneater Threads also offers the goods of independent designers Geren Ford, Soul Revival and Boulee.
Selling designers online is a good strategy for carving a niche on the Web, although retailers should not expect to sell as much volume as with jeans and basics, according to retail analysts and online retailers.
“Basic apparel retailers seem to have the most success in volume,” said Patti Freeman Evans, a senior analyst for Boston-based Jupiter Research. The Dodgeville, Wis.–based Lands’ End, a manufacturer and retailer of basics, is one of the most successful e-commerce merchants, according to Freeman Evans. “But there’s specialty retailers online, and they have a broad appeal,” she said.
Designer names command a lot of interest on the Internet, according to Suzanne Scott, eBay Inc.’s senior manager of clothing, shoes and accessories. Some of the top key words searched on the San Jose, Calif.–based online marketplace are Prada, Marc Jacobs, Burberry, and Louis Vuitton. However, jeans also do incredible business, according to Scott. During the fourth quarter of 2004, 190 pairs of women’s jeans sold every hour on eBay.
Designer fashions compose 20 percent of the sales on New York–based Web site Daszign.com. While the biggest sales come from premium denim brands such as True Religion, Don Daszkowski, the president of Daszign.com, believed his designer sales would increase if consumers were better acquainted with a fashion designer’s product.
“The customer is so much more educated on basics and jeans,” Daszkowski said. “Year-to-year denims and basics don’t change much. People already know the sizing well. But each collection is unique for designers, and they can be more of a hit and miss with sizing for new customers.”
Zilinskas hopes the advocacy of new designers will turn into a competitive edge for Maneater Threads. The site will feature a page that will showcase designer clothes featured in five different looks with monikers such as “sexy librarian” and “glamazon.”
She will also use other avenues to gain an edge such as same-day shipping for those who live in San Francisco. There’s also sales tax breaks given to online retailers when they ship out of state. Zilinskas said that 25 percent of her customers are based in New York City, with another 25 percent in New York state.
Freeman Evans forecast that 2006 would be a good year for fashion sales online. She said fashion e-tailers would sell $10.3 billion online, or 4.2 percent of the fashion market. By 2010, online apparel sales are forecast to increase to 5 percent of the market.
