Design Challenge
#3: How might we learn from COVID-19 to reimagine our future for life, work, learning and play?
Project Description
The Fashion Butler is a fashtech company that presents a new channel combining the elements of the in-store and online experiences. It supports retailers to create a compelling experience for their customers providing a fun, easy, convenient, and effective shopping journey.
In partnership with Fashion Butler, retailers will be able to fix the best fashion box, with the right curated assortment of fashion items (including what the customer already has chosen plus a selection of recommended items), to be delivered at the customer’s doorstep.
Customers will be able to try-before-buy while in a highly personalized, convenient, and a fun new way.TFB will support fashion retailers during difficult times and help in their transformation to adapt to the new normal in the Post-COVIR era.
Criteria #1: Value
The coronavirus outbreak is first and foremost a human tragedy, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. It is also having a growing impact on the global economy. People are still trying to understand how they will cope with this new reality and with all the fear and anxiety that comes within the pandemic outbreak and businesses are trying to survive, adapting to new restrictions, using all the financial support they can to get through this time.
In the meantime, fashion retail, like all the other segments, is witnessing an acceleration and more immediate behavioral change arising from social distancing and the inability to physically acquire products.
Retailers are doing everything they can to protect the well-being of their employees and customers at the same time they try to survive.
Criteria #2: Inspiration
It is a very difficult time to retailers all around the world. But even before COVID-19 the fashion retail industry was already undergoing significant disruption caused by digital technologies, new channels and demanding customers. “Consumers prefer to touch, feel and try the products for size and fit.”
(SME Portal, 2019) This is the time and the opportunity for businesses to recalibrate and rewrite old ways of doing things in order to quickly recover.
In the midst of unprecedented challenges, there is an opportunity to improve customer’s experience and safeguard business financial results. Therefore The Fashion Butler is presented as a new channel that combines the benefits of brick and mortar and online journeys.
Criteria #3: Impact
Fashion Butler will offer a new channel merging online and offline shopping experiences, raising revenues and presence. Besides enhancing personalized fashion curation to customers, increasing sales conversion, and reducing returns, the collected data will also enrich retailers buying plans and inventory management.
In a preliminary study, TFB demonstrated the ability to increase at least 14% in revenue for an SME in Singapore.
The Fashion Butler will be a new way of connecting and engaging, increasing retailers’ relevance in the customer’s life during and post-COVID. Therefore, I truly believe that TFB is able to help the fashion sector to survive and thrive through a new channel.
Criteria #4: Timeliness
The roadmap consists of one month planning, one month testing the MVP and iterating, two months for a pre-launching, and adjusting in a controlled environment (few retailers and marketplaces). Finally, the launch is planned for the fifth month.
Criteria #5: Systems Thinking
Most of The Fashion Butler’s idea is planned to be developed and managed with partners.
First of all, it will be plugging on marketplaces that are already in the Singapore E-Commerce Programme (Lazada Singapore, Amazon, Qoo10, and Shopee) or even plugging in retailers’ e-commerce. Another important partnership will be done with courier companies (NinjaVan, GogoVAn, DHL) and with ride-hailing transport platforms (GoJek and Grab) understanding that they also would be beneficiated to join this solution. TFB plans to work side by side with Fashion Institutions (Raffles Design Institute, MDIS, and Lasalle) in order to provide the stylist service. To address the technology part of the solution, TFB will reach to IPI Singapore in order to request their support.
