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Designerex [SMART 100, 2018]

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This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.

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1. THE BEGINNING

This innovation initially came to life when…

Our Co-Founder Kirsten Kore encountered a problem in her life as a former real estate agent. Struggling to justify spending $800 on a dress for an awards night, and knowing she would only wear it once or twice, drove her to quit her real estate career, and along with her Co-Founder Costa Koulis, build a secure, end to end solution that enables women to securely share high end designer dresses between each other.

2. WHAT & HOW

The purpose of this innovation is to…

…provide one secure destination for women to rent and lend their designer dresses. Designerex’s streamlines the sharing process whilst tapping into under-utilised designer dresses, giving women one destination to compare different providers and book a designer dress for their event.

It does this by…

…utilising real-time ID Verification technology, used also by the likes of Airbnb and EasyJet, which scans Drivers Licences and Passports for legitimacy, creating the necessary trust and security between users in the marketplace. The platform also aggregates the dress listings of rental dress businesses and individuals, which gives women one destination to compare and book from different providers.

3. PURPOSE & BENEFITS

This innovation improves on what came before because…

Unlike inventory based models and non secure forums, the secure, peer to peer model of Designerex allows both owners of designer dresses to earn money from their under-utilised dresses and also allows Renters to compare providers and rent a high end designer dress for their event, at a fraction of the retail price.

Its various benefits to the customer/end-user include…

The largest selection to find and rent a dress, the ability to scan and verify their ID in a matter of minutes, flexible payment options such as ‘rent now, pay later’ with zipPay, track parcels and earn 5 star reviews.

4. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

In the past, this problem was solved by…

Renting and Lending through non-secure forums such as Facebook and Instagram, as well as non-secure peer to peer websites that did not enable ID verification or a payment gateway. There was no previous solution that enabled dress owners to instantly accept disruptive Fintech payment methods such as ZipPay without a lengthy merchant application processes.

Rent a dress Australia – a website for listing a dress for rent, however the transaction was then done offline and not tracked whatsoever. It also costs money to list a dress before you make any money.

5. TARGET MARKET

It is made for…

Women attending events such as a birthday or race day, and who require a once off, high quality designer dress to wear. The platform also caters to dress owners, who are able to list their dress for free and make money from Renters. The average of a Designerex user is 28.

It is available for sale through…

https://designerex.com.au and has grown to be Australia’s largest designer dress hire destination with over 8,500 listings. The platform is purely online and available to any user nation-wide.

Our marketing strategy is to…

Personalise the experience and communicate the benefits of renting and lending through channels where our users frequent the most. Given our rapid success in Australia, we are soon expanding the Designerex platform to the USA.

 

FINE PRINT: This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.

Maven Judge Vote: Designerex – Smart 100 2018
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