Dressingz

Risk 1- Commercial

Authentication Issues

Probability: High

Impact: High

Ensuring the authenticity of luxury goods is critical, and any slip-ups in the authentication process can lead to negative publicity, loss of customer trust, and potential legal issues. Dressingz main differentiator focuses on authenticated services that prevent use of counterfeit products highly present in the luxury trading business (already implemented) as well as partnership directly to luxury brands in the future to support ethical and sustainable product supply to pre-owned luxury lovers.

Risk 2- Regulatory 

Legal and Regulatory Issues

Probability: Medium

Impact: High

While there are no specific resale luxury fashion retail regulations in most countries, certain issues such as trademark infringement, copyright infringement, and gray market goods can cause legal challenges and financial penalties.

Enhanced focus on authenticated services for high end brands protects against such infringement. Combined in-house/outsourced skilled authenticators (certified) and partnership with luxury brands with access to bill of materials will enable trust in Dressingz portfolio. 

Risk 3- Commercial 

Customer Acquisition Costs

Probability: Medium

Impact: High

Customer acquisition costs can be high in this market, and platforms may have to spend significant promotional funds outpacing their competitors to capture the share of the market. Dressingz customer acquisition cost reduction in time can be achieved by development of tech (AI and CRM on users to properly identify and attract an increased customer base).

Risk 4 – Operational/Tech

Supply Chain Management

Probability: Low

Impact: Medium

Securing inventory from consignors and their suppliers can be challenging, and it can affect platforms' profitability and lead to supply chain management issues that can negatively impact customers' experiences.

Fast shipping (40% of inventory stored in Dressingz’ premises, with additional services of concierge included for free now, to be monetized until 2024) and customer support along the process as well as the system of notifications of users from the platform is partly implemented. Further development of tech will allow to maintain a competitive shipment time (now below Vestiaire Collective) as well as a base for additional revenue streams (concierge, cleaning, promotion). Storage policy and constant assessment of logistics cost vs cost of holding the stock is in Dressingz focus to balance between space utilization and keep customer satisfaction high.

Risk 5 - Financial

The Next Round of Funding is Not Obtained

Probability: Low

Impact: Medium

We already have 1 year of proven results (exponential increase of users, a stable tech platform, inventory of over EUR 1 million) and have experienced a first round of financing for the MVP development. Through partnerships we will prove a model to be scaled up and capitalize on the sustainability targets and opportunities in the market (increased interest in younger generations and conscious consumption).

Risk 6 – Commercial

Pre-owned Buying Stigma as a Barrier to Adoption  

Probability: Medium

Impact: Medium

The stigma of buying used goods is shifting nowadays due to the change in lifestyle campaigns to help protect the planet for the future generations. Regulatory changes on sustainability encourage ethical behavior towards resources preservation and ultimately will ban/restrict/financially sanction non-compliant behaviors. Luxury pre-owned combines several attributes from the desire to own unique items to more resilient in time and financially accessible products. Dressingz aims to attract more of the consumer base by social selling with influencers and having the circularity model implemented through partnerships.

1.What does Dressingz?

Dressingz accelerates the adoption of the circular fashion model with the scope of extending the life cycle of premium products and reducing the waste. How is that done? By facilitating the meeting between the fashion consumers that want to buy and sell pre-owned luxury (premium) through a customer centric marketplace platform, that ensures best in class quality / authenticity check, as well as best in class logistic and human support, to the CEE market.

Dressingz ambition is to transform the circular fashion in a new modus operandi, to be adopted by each fashion consumer on the CEE market. For this, it brings along as partners the fashion brands and businesses that make sustainability a priority, offering exclusive benefits to Dressingz users.

2. How do we ensure authentic luxury and fight against fake goods?

For us, the thorough checking of the listed items and verification of the authenticity is a priority. We started this business being aware of the existing risks related to luxury brands and especially pre-owned ones, and understanding that we cannot make it in this business unless we implement a serious verification process.

For this we managed to attract best in class expert partners, the US company „Luxury Appraisal & Authentication”, with an impressive portfolio and a vast experience in photo based authentication - this being the most difficult thing as touching the material is of utmost importance in authentication. With these partners we do photo authentication and the luxury items go to the second verification, the physical one, the moment the product is sold. 

We have to mention that our partnership offers also training in authentication as we want to build this expertise in house, on the long run.

3. Is there a stigma against pre-owned?

I would say that yes, there was a strong stigma related to pre-owned, here more than in other places. And it still is, with a continuous improvement due to the strong trends from abroad and increased interest for adoption of a more sustainable lifestyle from all aspects. Also, the younger generation looks to be more aware of environmental issues and are willing to adapt their behavior accordingly, in order to achieve a more sustainable lifestyle and ensure the future integrity of the planet. For the young generation, social responsibility is even more enhanced, somewhat intrinsic and, as fashion is concerned, to have pre-owned is even very cool. On top of that, in terms of fashion, pre-owned is the new cool for them.

We use pre-owned and I would point that when we talk about premium fashion the term of ‚second hand’ is even obsolete. Terms as pre-owned and pre-loved are used to eliminate the low quality perception that ‚second-hand’ might induce. As pre-owned luxury are very high quality products and in case they were well preserved, they are indeed pre-loved. And most of them are well maintained, as we talk about luxury products, designers that one wears with greatest pleasure. 

4. Isn’t luxury expensive for Romanians?

Luxury is prohibitive everywhere, for most people. And here comes the good catch. Having open access to luxury pre-owned we make luxury affordable for many more people – we somehow democratize the access to luxury. And when we say luxury, we mean premium brands, designer brands in general, not just luxury. 

Coming back to prices, we have in the platform iconic items from brands like Prada, Celine, Vivienne Westwood, Gucci, Dior at very good prices – some around 100 EUR! Yes, checked, authentic. They are treasures, indeed, one needs to chase them to catch such a bargain. What we mean is that these brands become accessible also for the ones that aspired to luxury or simply did not want to pay a full price. And now they have the chance that instead of buying fast fashion of 5-6 items a month, they better buy a designer product that will make a difference in many outfits and on top has also a resale value. 

In US, the main criterion of Gen Z in purchasing fashion items is the resale price. To be precise, they look at any purchase as of an investment, considering its worth once they get bored of it. 

So, pre-owned luxury is not prohibitive, it is more likely an extremely smart investment that comes together with quality satisfaction and sustainability reward in the same time. 

5. Technology advancement, how does Dressingz integrate this?

Dressingz is a startup based on technology and we can say we have an advanced platform as far as technology used, security, optimization is concerned. 

In addition to this, we have an important focus on innovation and the Virtual wardrobes is the innovative value added service that we are working on and planning to launch this year. However, for us it is not important just the tech per se, but the innovative way of using the technology so that the user gets the benefit of an unique and rewarding experience. 

6. Sustainable fashion. A trend or a must?

Sustainability is a very important topic for us, it is the goal for which we are in this business. Even if it is not a very hot topic for many, maybe as it was overused, for the ones that are into the smart, conscious lifestyle, acknowledging the major environmental issues, sustainability is not just a trend, it is an absolute must. 

The good news are that young generation is already showing up to be more conscious and interested by sustainability, the topic is more and more present in the international media and on the agenda of international institutions that started to impose a series of regulations on this.

Therefore, for the ones informed and responsible, sustainability is a need. And for the ones that are not very familiar with it yet, we hope that through education and the advantages brought by our business to change them into future adopters.

7. What is the Vision of Dressingz?

Dressingz vision in just a few words is Fashion for the better – to be precise, better quality wardrobe, better investment of customer’s money and a better future for the planet, with each and every wardrobe we change. No wardrobe without preowned is our ultimate goal.

8. What is the Mission of Dressingz?

Our mission is to extend the life cycle of premium items, thus reducing the waste – planet resources waste, as well as personal resources waste - and making circular fashion a new modus operandi.

9. What differentiates Dressingz from other resale platforms?

Right now, there are a few global luxury resale platforms, Vestiaire Collective operating in Europe, and lately penetrating the US market and TheRealReal being the leader in US. 

We built our service carefully observing what the big global players failed to offer regionally, aiming to deliver a differentiated service for the CEE markets, based on their specific expectations and needs.

This is why our differentiators are:

•Best in class quality and authenticity check

•Human customer support

•Best in class logistic, with fast deliveries & returns accepted, plus personal Concierge service.

•Circular partnerships with local and international brands

•Virtual wardrobes value added service

10. Does Dressingz consider scale up?

Yes, we want to be ready for scale up in the following 2 years and will „attack” two CEE countries in the first phase. We strongly believe that our product combining rigourous authenticity check, logistics excellence, human customer support and rewarding partnerships with brands will be the recipe to replicate in the region.

11. How do the partnerships work?

We have already tested and implemented the basic ‘one in, one out model’ with 9 designer brands în România. When a user sells a product from a partner brand, the platform issues automatically a co-branded gift voucher for the purchase of a new product. The discount is supported by the partner brand. 

In case of luxury partners, exclusive benefits are offered to the customer that bought a pre-owned item from the respective brand.

Moving forward, the Virtual wardrobes service will help us to obtain B2B revenue from data monetization, while delivering a better, personalized & rewarding experience to our customers.

12. In what marketing activities do you plan to invest? 

We have a coherent marketing plan that supports the business objectives such as increasing the number of users, increase of the inventory uploaded on the platform and of course acceleration of the sales.

For this it is very important to be visible and credible – to increase the brand awareness and trust. We will focus on the communication through ambassadors. We name them ambassadors and not influencers as I personally consider that the term influencer has a negative stigma as manipulative, that is against our values. These partners, the brand ambassadors – are public persons, active in social area, with or without fashion expertise but fashion consumers that inspire, not influence, the consumers in the spirit of circular fashion. 

The second action is obviously in digital marketing, paid ads, where we will invest both with awareness and performance objectives.

The third direction are the events and partnerships. I would mention that the offline presence is still of great help and accelerates purchasing, and like partnerships, in addition to the ones with the brands that do not stretch a financial effort on us, we target strategic partnerships. We just mention one, that we have in progress currently, Residential partnership, for pick up items in concierge system.