Online retail is continually evolving within the Australian market, consumers are demanding more from brands than every before. The co-founder of fashion store The Daily Edited Alyce Tran discusses the future of online retail, the importance of social media and how the fashion store stands out.
Tran, who originates from Adelaide where she attended law school at the University of Adelaide, established The Daily Edited (TDE) with her co-founder Tania Liu. The online store sells customised leather accessories including clutches, bags, wallets and notebooks. The Daily Edited is sold exclusively online and each design is done on a limited run to ensure exclusivity to customers.
How important is social media for The Daily Edited?
Social media platforms are definitely how we started and grew our business to the form you see it in today. Social media is free and was a great way to share ideas, product images, styles and engage with our customers and fans. It is a great tool for us to use to showcase new products, special promotions and our ideas.
The Daily Edited originally started as an online blog, did this give the brand an advantage?
This wasn’t our intention or part of a greater strategic plan. However, the blog did help us hone our ideas and work on our aesthetic and style. The blog created depth to our social media, previously we had tied social media posts back to our blog posts containing more content.
What have you discovered in the past 18 months about the online retail business?
You have to move really quickly, things change every day, once you’ve worked out how to do something, the process changes or people have already moved onto something else.
Has your opinion on online retailing changed from when you began to now?
I think already the industry has changed so much in the last two years, service offerings have really ramped up, for example we have to offer three hour delivery and next day delivery (it’s basically a given rather than an additional extra). User interfaces are a lot more sophisticated and we are really excited about launching a new site with a lot more functionality tailored to our customers.
What is the future of online retail?
I think we need to get to a stage where there are no surprises for the customer, customers are buying from websites where imagery is so well presented that there is no surprise as to colour, fit, shape when they receive their product. Also, it would be great to live in a world where customers know exactly when their order is arriving down to the minute.
How do you differentiate the brand within a big market?
We are all about being attainable, quality and unique. Perhaps we are the triple threat, there are definitely brands that are creating quality and unique accessories however most of the time they aren’t attainable. I think we also fulfill certain niches in a range of product categories, such as travel and stationery.
If you want to hear more from Alyce Tran, she’s presenting at Online Retailer Conference in Melbourne on the 16th-17th March. Click here for more details. Tran will be discussing how likes, tweets and pins can help lift your game; the rise of Instagram and Pinterest and how to accelerate growth and conversion rate with social media.
