SHOPTHEMAG
www.shopthemag.com
THE rise of Asian designers such as Alexander Wang, Jason Wu and Prabal Gurung has, over the past few years, turned the spotlight onto Asian fashion. And yet, in spite of the growing interest, discovering new Asian talent to shop from hasn't been the easiest thing to do.
That is, until Shopthemag.com came along earlier this year. Billed as the world's first luxury website to be dedicated entirely to showcasing premium Asian fashion brands, it broke new ground with its unique shopping proposition.
"Before we launched, there was no one spot that women all over the world could go to and discover emerging brands from countries like Hong Kong, Vietnam, India and Thailand," says one of its co-founders Corinne Ng. "Now they come to us not just to shop but also to learn and discover."
Ng herself had been a keen fan of Asian fashion even before she started the site, often stocking up on Rajesh Pratap Singh and Manish Arora when visiting India and clothes from Issue and Disaya when in Thailand. "But I never thought about making them available to women all over the world until I started to hear my own friends go, 'I'm sick of shopping - there is nothing to buy'," she reveals.
"We then ran an international survey and the results showed that almost 80 per cent of women from all over the world had the same complaint - they felt shopping had become unexciting in their countries with only the same handful of luxury labels and high-street brands to shop from." The only exception, she says, was Thailand where 99 per cent of respondents said they were very happy with the domestic shopping scene.
She adds that the decision to launch the product online was so that it could have a wider global reach which cannot be achieved with a brick-and-mortar enterprise. "When we said we wanted to throw the spotlight on Asian designers, we wanted the attention of the world, not just of one market," she says. "For another, online shopping (while big) hasn't reached its fullest potential yet both in Asia and the world. It's a huge area of growth."
About 70 per cent of Shopthemag's customers are currently from Asia (including Singapore, Hong Kong, India and Middle East) and 30 per cent come from the United States and Europe.
"This response is the opposite of what we projected," exclaims Ng. "We knew women outside of Asia would love the collections but we didn't think women in Asia would embrace Asian designers so much, but evidently, they do."
The labels doing particularly well on the site are Thailand's Disaya, Indonesia's Jewel Rocks and Singapore's Koonhor, alldressedup and Burgundy.
"I think it's because these labels have designs that are relevant to women all over the world and are priced very well for what they offer," muses Ng on why these brands are successful. "A hand-made JewelRocks bracelet is US$100 (S$128) - they are bought in multiples for gifts. A flattering, sharply tailored, fully-lined wool dress from Koonhor is USD$600. In one of our customer's words, 'It's a steal!' "
Not, that things have been a walk in the park for Ng who has faced challenges in the process.
"Establishing contact with the Japanese, Filipino and Indonesian brands was (like) teeth-pulling. I'm going, 'I can help your brand get bigger' and they're like, 'We don't need to be bigger.' A lot of Asian brands are content with their domestic success and don't see a need to expand," she reveals. "I got round this by either persistently coaxing them myself or by getting a representative in that country whom they trust to coax them."
Although Shopthemag stocks mostly only semi-established to established brands at the moment, the long-term aim is for the site to become a platform to discover Asian talent.
"We're very likely going to expand our product offerings in the next two years to include both higher-end designer collections and lower-end contemporary collections," she concludes. "So everyone can own a piece of Asian designer fashion, whatever your budget."
This article was first published in The Business Times.
