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Once a
month, you can automatically receive in the mail a
bottle of wine, a box of organic fruit and now, a pair
of sequined stilettos.
In a
cyber twist to the traditional monthly sales clubs, shoe
membership websites have become a hit among
fashion-forward women, who say they bring together the
convenience and affordability of shopping online with
the personalized experience offered in a boutique.
“This
is fashion of the future,” said celebrity fashion
designer Kimora Lee Simmons, who recently signed on as
president, creative director and an investor of
JustFabulous Inc., an El Segundo, Calif., membership
club. “It speaks to the modern-day woman’s budget
and lifestyle.”
Members
register on sites such as ShoeDazzle.com Inc. or
JustFabulous for free and take a fashion personality
quiz — What outfit are you most likely to wear on a
first date? Which celebrity’s closet would you most
like to raid? — to determine their unique style
preferences.
On the
first of each month, members log in to their accounts to
view a limited, customized showroom of shoes: five-inch
gold platform heels for the Hollywood clubgoer,
conservative flats for the girl next door, studded
leather boots for the rocker chick. The shoes are
designed in-house, often by a team of high-profile
celebrities and stylists, and customers receive the pair
of their choice starting at $39.95, including shipping.
Members can skip a month if they don’t feel like
receiving a new pair of shoes, provided they opt out
(usually by the fifth of the month).
The
member-only programs have quickly attracted hordes of
loyal shoppers. The sites, subscribers say, are easy to
use, are customer-friendly when it comes to returns and
exchanges, and usually do a good job identifying what
styles they like.
“It’s
very addicting. I have a heel collection now; before, I
probably had maybe like one or two pairs that lasted me
years,” said Yucaipa, Calif., resident Amber Venturina,
26, who joined ShoeDazzle in June and also became a
member of JustFabulous. Now “I have to have shoes in
every color.”
Shoe club
officials say the websites make the process of buying
shoes less overwhelming while bringing the elite service
of a personal shopper to the masses.
“Not
everyone has access to a stylist, but we can be a
stylist through that technology and hopefully recommend
the right products,” said Josh Berman, chief executive
of BeachMint Inc., which operates newly launched shoe
club ShoeMint. “Rather than going to an Amazon or
Google and typing ‘shoes’ and having thousands of
things to choose from, what we’re learning is
consumers like to be curated and shown what is hot.”
But as
fashion memberships surge in popularity, they’re
adding to the increasing pressures on bricks-and-mortar
merchants. Because shoe clubs sell directly to customers
and don’t operate physical stores, they’re able to
save on overhead costs such as staffing and rent,
enabling the brands to price the shoes for about half of
what they would cost at the mall, company officials
estimated.
“We are
in the midst of a reinvention of retail,” said Kasey
Lobaugh, a principal at Deloitte Consulting who follows
online shopping trends. “Retailers are being forced to
innovate the business model. If they don’t, there is
now a long list of nontraditional competitors who
will.”
Another
problem for old-school retailers: Many members are
flocking to the shoe clubs’ Facebook pages and other
social media sites to ask other shoppers for help
choosing a style or pairing their latest purchase with
the right outfit. That high level of interaction is
creating tight-knit Web communities of shoe aficionados
and replicating the in-store experience of shopping with
a group of girlfriends, historically something that
couldn’t be found online.
“I’ve
made a lot of good friends from the shoe clubs. We keep
in touch in real life: We email, we text, we call,”
said Joyce Moore, 33, a Palmdale, Calif., stay-at-home
mom who has bought dozens of shoes through the
membership programs. “We understand our love of shoes,
that it’s not weird to have so many shoes, and you can
never get enough.”
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The clubs
have more in common than monthly delivery of cute shoes:
Four of the companies — ShoeDazzle, JustFabulous, Sole
Society Inc. and ShoeMint — are headquartered in Los
Angeles County, part of a growing crop of e-commerce
fashion brands that is helping to raise the profile of
the region’s fledgling start-up scene. Many are
garnering big sales and investment dollars and have
their sights set on adding more product categories and
expanding internationally.
ShoeDazzle,
co-founded in 2009 by Kim Kardashian, has raised $60
million from investors, including a $40 million round in
May led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz,
which has invested in major tech companies such as
Facebook and Groupon. Based in Santa Monica, Calif.,
ShoeDazzle expanded to Britain and South Korea this year
and is launching in 10 other countries in 2012,
co-founder Brian Lee said. In May, the brand said it had
more than 3 million members.
Since
launching in March 2010, JustFabulous has gained more
than 4 million members nationwide and is posting $5.5
million in monthly sales. The company — which also
sells handbags, denim and other products — announced
in September that it had raised $33 million in new
funding. Revenue and membership have increased 20
percent month over month this year, and the company
expects to sell 2.5 million to 3 million pairs of shoes
and handbags in 2012, JustFabulous co-CEO Adam
Goldenberg said.
Santa
Monica’s ShoeMint launched on Black Friday and three
days later had sold out of its entire inventory of
women’s shoes, which are designed by actress Rachel
Bilson and Hollywood stylist Nicole Chavez. Parent
company BeachMint said ShoeMint — its fourth
e-commerce site — attracted about 80,000
pre-registrations and was its most successful website
launch to date; 10,000 people are on the wait list to
buy shoes.
Another
competitor, downtown L.A.’s Sole Society, announced
this month that it had been spun off from HauteLook, a
“flash fashion” website owned by Nordstrom Inc., so
company officials could better focus on growing the shoe
business. Sole Society launched in March and today has
nearly 500,000 members.
As young
companies, the brands are still finding their footing.
Some
shoppers have complained that it’s too difficult to
remember to opt out when they don’t feel like a new
pair of shoes, or note that their showroom of styles
appear to be the same regardless of what they filled out
in their style questionnaires.
Company
officials say they’re still tweaking the software
behind the recommendations and note that the more
consumers who join, the better the sites will become at
predicting what they’ll like.
“The
model will work well in any country where women love
shoes,” ShoeDazzle’s Lee said. “I think that’s
99 percent of the world.”
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