Founded little over a year ago on the back of a credit card ‘investment’ Show Pony Fashion has defied the industry trend of sliding sales to post it’s first million dollars in revenue.
A combination of internationally-inspired, Australian-designed and affordable garments coupled with an intelligent approach to social media and ecommerce seems to have struck a chord with Australia’s fashion-conscious women.
Show Pony has had it’s fair share of print exposure, but it’s in digital that company founder Jane Lu is seeing her greatest returns. By working Facebook and generating exposure in fashion blogs, Show Pony is connecting with its customers where they most commonly congregate — online.
With close to 33,000 Facebook fans, Show Pony uses a simple but effective engagement technique of inviting customers to tag themselves in promotional photos to win the profiled garment. Not only does this increase engagement on the page, it spreads the promotion directly to the customer’s social network through their public feed, dramatically increasing brand awareness.
In order to streamline purchasing, Show Pony has kept its online shopping experience as lean as possible. Garments come in only four sizes with no colour variations, making it quick and easy for shoppers to make a decision. Further, by focusing on moving sale items online, Show Pony continues to drive traffic to their site, while simultaneously freeing up space in their three Sydney retail stores to focus on current season stock.
It’s an approach to digital that indicates Jane Lu — formerly in corporate finance with KPMG and Ernst & Young — understands that both online and offline marketing and selling are substantially different exercises; to achieve success in the highly competitive world of fashion, you need to give the right kind of attention to both.
To check out Show Pony’s Facebook page, click here.