Last Thursday night saw The Soup Kitchen on Spear Street and Stevenson Square in Manchester’s Northern Quarter hijacked by yet another MFN event. The event’s special guest speakers are two of the UK fashion industry’s new leading ladies; Sarah Curran, CEO and founder of my-wardrobe, and her Director of PR Lauren Stevenson. The two perched, elegantly attired, on two stools in front of a crowd of journalists, bloggers, designers, retailers and e-tailers, students and members of marketing teams from various brands; to share their stories from the building of my-wardrobe, the “accessible luxury” e-tailer.

After a brief history of the special guests the audience was presented a brief history of my-wardrobe and how Sarah Curran found the idea. Curran, after leaving Times Online, opened a premium boutique called Power which stocked brands similar to those available on my-wardrobe. After the company’s financial successes Curran felt the need to expand onto the new frontier in commerce, the internet, this was the birth of my-wardrobe. Curran and her husband and business partner, Andrew, sold their family home to self-finance the project and exploited the good relationships with brands stocked in their bricks and mortar store to gain suppliers. This was not always as straight forward as many would first think as brands were apprehensive about how my-wardrobe could deliver the experience their customers expected from shopping their brand. Curran voiced certain brand’s “discount associations” of the internet in saying: “How do you create a luxury experience in a virtual world?” Fortunately not all were pessimistic about the venture and after three rounds of investment, which span a four year period in the company’s brief history, my-wardrobe had not only secured the money required to push forward but also some important figures which Curran targeted to attract to her company’s board of directors. The final round of investment which closed in June of this year also included the £6m injection which will see my-wardrobe.com push into Europe.

Another figure that Curran had attracted to her business was Lauren Stevenson. On her role as director of Marketing Lauren says: “I had to build a personality for the brand ... It is very hard to build a personality for a brand but what I did have was Sarah”. It has probably become clear to my-wardrobe customers and those that have tracked the e-tailer’s rise to e-commerce dominance that Sarah Curran is very much the face of the brand. Stevenson said of her mascot “you’re not scared by Sarah and Fashion can be a scary place”, Lauren’s expertise saw the transformation of the company’s CEO into the face of a brand and an opinion those in the fashion industry would gladly print on glossy paper.

Many of the questions asked by both Dale Hicks and the audience were about the company’s Marketing strategies and the methodology my-wardrobe has taken to seat itself in its current position within the ecommerce sector. The main Marketing channels the e-tailer uses are brand partnerships, pay-per-click, affiliate links, social media and direct/viral marketing including emails which Curran admits is the company’s “most effective channel”. Curran went on to warn about some of the negativities that she had discovered from her own company’s Marketing strategy including the true cost of certain channels. Pay-per-click or PPC offers e-tailers the chance to bid to advertise on search engines like Google and if their customers click from Google and eventually purchase, a commission is paid to Google for sourcing the buyer. This can be a costly method as Curran explained that “if my wardrobe were to actively bid on a certain product on Google it would cost us £100 when that product only costs £150”. However, my-wardrobe still stands by PPC but only use certain products and brands to drive clicks and interest in the site whilst avoiding paying hefty commissions to Google.

A question, asked at this event when hosted in London by sister Fashion Network LFN, was repeated by Hicks. The question asked about Curran’s thoughts on the recent IMRG evaluation that the UK fashion e-commerce sector has only grown by 1% this year and was reaching saturation. Curran quickly dismissed the claim stating that the online market still has “massive potential” as the online sector “is a huge part of people’s lives ... there isn’t going to be a massive shift and we’re not going to lose the high street ... but online isn’t going anywhere”. Lauren Stevenson also said “we’re seeing huge surges in the international market” commenting on the company’s international aspirations.

Social Media is another very important element of the company’s Marketing Strategy, Stevenson commenting on the channel’s dominance by saying: “it is a really really important channel, you can’t ignore it” but warned, “it could be a dangerous game because you have very little control and opening yourself up”.  After telling their audience a little about the methods that my-wardrobe utilises to fully exploit their Social media, Lauren was asked about the company’s stance on censorship of negative customer feedback on the platform. Censorship is not part of the company’s strategy at all and Stevenson concluded that “you wouldn’t let an unhappy customer walk out of your shop and you have to approach social media like that”.

Feedback for the company is managed externally by Fifo who contact my-wardrobe customers 30 days after their purchase has been made to ask for feedback. Sarah proudly stated that the brand regularly receives 98-99% positive feedback. The company adopts alternative methods of data collection which includes surveying their 120,000 strong subscriber database. A recent survey found that 70% of the subscribers visit the site weekly, which contributes to the 800,000 average footfall my-wardrobe welcomes monthly.

The general consensus between the event attendees was that Sarah Curran and Lauren Stevenson were two ladies to be reckoned with and that the future of my-wardrobe was surely going to be an exciting and prosperous one. If any e-tailer attended the event with a hope to take away just one piece of advice let is my these words spoken by Sarah Curran: “[being an etailer] is not just about being a web store or a catalogue of product, it is about creating a loyalty from your customer and an environment they want to keep coming back to.”

The evening closed on a high with many happy event attendees staying on late to enjoy the cider tasting event that The Soup Kitchen was hosting later. If you’re interested in attending the next MFN of LFN event become a member today to find out about the next events in advance. 

Words by Jordan McDowell, images by Jennifer Urwin

You may read more about this event at Jordan's personal blog here

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