California Apparel News

One of the big challenges with buying goodsonline is not knowing who the seller is, according to Jim Rose, founder andchief executive officer of the San Francisco startup Copious. 

This lack of trust between buyers andsellers is why he, along with his two co-founders, Rob Zuber and JonathanElhrich, developed a “social marketplace” based on knowing buyers and sellersthrough their existing online personas.

Copious requires users to sign in usingtheir Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram account,which gives other users a chance for familiarity and connection before engagingin a transaction.

“Unlike the first generation of onlinemarketplaces, like eBay and Etsy, you can useexisting online personas and bring those to the marketplace,” Rose said. “Youdon’t have to come into the marketplace entirely cold.”

A user’s friends or followers will displayonline after signing in, allowing other users to have a sense of who the personis and to see if they share common friends before deciding to purchase or sellany goods with them.

“We thought the time was right to rethinkthe marketplace using the tools of today. eBay feels old and stale, and Etsy isgreat for handmade and custom-made goods, but it’s not a place formass-manufactured goods,” Rose said.

They wanted to provide something for thebuyer who wants to buy vintage, handmade or mass-produced goods.

Sellers tend to consist primarily ofindividuals, smaller shops and younger designers selling clothes, shoes,jewelry, accessories, housewares, and health and beauty products.

“It’s just a little cooler and seemed like agood alternative to Etsy and a little bit less saturated,” said designerChrista Halby, who started the using the site to sell her handmade scarvesafter having it recommended to her by a fashion student who manages her socialmedia.

The company announced on April 23 that ithas “re-architected” its website to allow shoppers to follow trends and fashionbloggers who have partnered with the site so users will be able to gainexposure to specific items tailored to their choices.

Rose describes it as a “socially curatedexperience.” Users can see new products and styles based on their interests andare notified when their friends follow, share or comment on Copious.

“We re-architected the user experiencearound the notion of social—instead of a storefront where everyone sees thesame homepage and the same 25 or 50 products are promoted,” Rose said. “Weasked ourselves, ‘What if we created an experience entirely personalized on theuser and the people they follow, the trends they like, and the items that theylove?’”

Users can “love” an item and “follow” otherusers, designers or bloggers, and then the items shown to each user are curatedbased on their selections. 

Copious also partnered with five fashionbloggers and put them on the site to act as stylemakers and sellers.

“When you’re a fashion blogger, you have alot of clothes,” Rose said. “So we said,

‘Why not sell all that extra stuff inyour closet?’” 

Rose used the example of the LosAngeles–based fashion blogger Oh Joy, who posted 30 items on Copious, rangingfrom $10 to $400. After sending out a tweet that she was selling on Copious,she sold all of her items, except two, within 30 minutes. 

E-commerce has changed from one of onlineshopping to online browsing, Rose said. Until about a year and a half ago,shoppers tended to use the Internet to search for a specific item they knewthey were looking for based on price and location. Now, shoppers are coming tothe Internet to browse and “window shop” online, taking cues from fashionbloggers, social media and their friends’ postings.

“At the end of the whole process, it’s acompletely personalized view of the marketplace driven by the actions thatCopious users take,” Rose said. “Facebook is a platform of a billion differentconversations and users, and Copious is similar. It’s a billion differentconversations on fashion, based on their page, their style and their friends. Wehave 125,000 listings, yet everyone’s view of those 125,000 listings will bedifferent.”

In addition to providing a curated shoppingexperience, part of what the site offers is access to a range of sellers, Rosesaid.

Sellers tend to fall in to three categories:vintage shops; closet sellers (individuals who have extra clothes in theircloset or occasionally sell on Etsy or at flea markets); and professionalsellers, who make their living through selling fashion items.

“We want a marketplace where sellers want tobe buyers and vice versa,” Rose said. “For the person that comes in and listsone thing, we would love if they came in and bought four things. For us that’sthe holy grail.”

Before launching Copious last year, Zubu worked for the e-readingservice Kobo (www.kobo.com) and Rose and Elhrichfounded the tech company Mobshop, after which Elhrich workedfor Facebook. All three founders have been involved with socialcommerce and the tech industry for the past 14 years.—DeidreCrawford