Retailers, let's face the challenges
of innovation together

01
sep
2020
Elisabeth MENANT
Innovation Trends Manager
4 minutes
The advent of fast fashion has made buying for cheap thrills much easier and cheaper – as consumers we now buy twice as many clothes as we did in 2000 and use them 40% less. There are 500m urban professional women who have too many clothes (lying idle in their wardrobes) and no idea how to style them. Whering helps women see, use and style what they own in a seamless manner by digitising their closets. they are a mobile destination for all things fashion and a platform to empower conscious consumers to utilise their spending power for good and make the most out of what they already own.

Technological innovation

The modern shopper wants a solution for multiple pain-points, all in the palm of their hand. Whering helps millennial women take pictures of what they own, style them and enable them buy smarter to fill wardrobe gaps.

 

With the help of Machine Learning Whering provides daily styling advice as well as curated, sustainable product recommendations to complement their looks. From their customer validation experiments they realised user experience was the biggest barrier to adoption – their main advantage is customer centricity and user experience: automatic item tagging and cropping in under 15 seconds and their white glove service*.

personal quiz

They are breaking down the barriers by creating a product that speaks directly to millennials offering lifestyle guidance throughout and diversity at its core. They have multiple revenue streams: a core B2C propostion (subscription service) which enables them to provide unique insights into customer behaviour and wardrobe content to brands, as well as further upside potential by taking a cut of sales from in-app purchases (which enables retailers to market their product in a more bespoke manner and drive repeat customers) and a margin from their white glove service (which enables Whering to become a key partnership for rental/resale models as their customers can effortlessly export these pictures to their platforms to realise more sales/rentals).

 

Look Feminine

 

Minimalist look

*The white glove feature removes the hassle of taking the pictures – The whering assistants come to the clients houses to digitise their wardrobes for them and revamp their wardrobe set up.

Somes Business Cases

Reve en vert (Platform), Mamoq (Platform), Mother of Pearl (Brand)

For these sustainable brands/platforms, Whering aims to help users buy quality over quantity (fast fashion) by curating sustainable product recommendations to fill user wardrobe gaps.

Retailers benefit by having first hand user data insight, a better understanding of consumer wardrobe gaps for specific occasions and the possibility of listing unsold stock on the app.

Depop, Vestiaire, Next Closet, Hurr

For these Rental/Resell Platforms, with Whering, lending, borrowing and selling on different platforms is simplified both from a user perspective but also from lead generation perspective for these businesses trying to drive user base growth (taking pictures is a major obstacle). Users can sell items they are ready to let go of and rent for a ‘newness fix’ that does not create new unnecessary waste.

Benefits for the retailer include increasing repeat customers and a higher number of listings, data analytics on what eco-conscious users want to rent and driving a higher number of rentals.

The Restory, Shoe Spa, Blanc Dry Cleaning

With their Ecosystem of Caring Partners, users are able to have their items repaired, refreshed and eco-dry cleaned in order to extend the life of their garments or accessories.

Benefits include of course expanding customer reach and gaining new clients through Whering.

About the startup

logo whearing noirWhering was founded in 2020 by Bianca- an ex banker who always had more shoes in her wardrobe than stocks in her portfolio- with the goal of bringing an end to the “buy-use-dispose” model. Whering is the cure for the ‘I-have-nothing-to-wear’ syndrome and a mobile destination for all things wardrobe a platform to empower conscious consumers to utilise their spending power for good and make the most of what they already own through digitalising your wardrobe.

Elisabeth MENANT
Innovation Trends Manager
To explore with you the transformation of retail with a double approach both editorial and business
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