How Buyosphere Can Help You Drive Sales For Your Fashion Business? - Fashion Labels

In general, many independent fashion designers have a great website where they share the products they create and deal with customers. However, just a great website can’t be enough. Everyone who owns a fashion startup knows how hard it is to bring customers in the door and keep them coming back. 

This is why when I want to get in touch with new customers who need to buy a bag, I come on Buyosphere. What I love the most about this website is the fact that it easily connects people and designers, who know something about stuff (where to find great deals or interesting pieces) with people who need to find something that is right for them, but don’t know where to start. 

I recently spoke with Tara Hunt (the founder of Buyosphere ) on the story of how she came up with the idea of the website and how Buyosphere actually helps designers grow their businesses.

Firstly, let’s have a look on how Buyosphere works:

Tara, how did you actually came up with Buyosphere and why?

I came up with the general idea of Buyosphere in 2007. I’ve always been a big online shopper and I was finding that it was getting harder and harder to find really unique, interesting items without spending half the day wading through junk.

I believe it was a search for a plain black skirt that made me think about how to solve this. I searched for 3.5 hours and went to 14 sites and only found overpriced designer skirts when I wanted something elegant at a reasonable price. I thought to myself, “I need to solve this,” and since I was working on many social web projects at the time, it was natural that I thought about how online communities could help with better discovery.

It took me another 2.5 years to commit to solving this, but meeting my cofounders Jerome and Cassandra helped! The three of us were able to put our heads together to come up with what you see today: a Q&A platform where people help people shop.

What is Buyosphere? What’s the problem it solves?

Buyosphere is an online search where people help you do the searching.

It’s simple, just ask what you are looking for, giving some details like price range and a short description, then we send your question to thousands of people who are avid shoppers as well as small retailers and designers who make products that may fit that description. Chances are that someone in that group will have come across that perfect something in a place that you never thought to look.

Why a Fashion/Accessories Designer should be on Buyosphere?

We love designers on Buyosphere! In fact, that’s how we met Julia - designer of the World of Wonderful. I would have never discovered her amazing bags.

The benefits we offer designers:

• - direct access to potential leads - people with the intent to buy a product are posting public questions. These are SERIOUS shoppers. :)
• - better SEO results - because of the rich user generated content of our site, Google loves us. And if Google loves us, they love the links out on our site. The way you answer a question is to post a link to your product page. Links=love. 
• - really inexpensive way for them to advertise - currently it’s 100% free to answer a question with your own products. We’ll be exploring a business model around that in the future, but it will always be our intention to make it accessible for small brands and designers to get in front of potential customers. 
• We also get most of our conversions (people clicking ‘buy’) from unauthenticated users, so there is a residual benefit of posting their products on Buyosphere. They show up in searches and related products.

How do a designer can get started on Buyosphere?

It’s pretty simple!

If you design a product that other people are searching for and they have already asked about it on Buyosphere, just search the products - into the ASK/SEARCH box. Then ANSWER by posting a link to the product you design and we bring in the information to create a recorded answer that includes image, price, description, store and link to buy.

And btw, anyone can answer a question!

Where do your visitors come from?

A big part of our traffic comes organically from search (Google). Because our content is UGC (user generated content) rich, Google bots love us. A search on Google for a colorblock clutch will probably bring up the post where one of Julia’s bags first appeared. :) Our second biggest visitor spikes come when people post to social networks after they ask or answer a question. Otherwise, we get decent traffic from our PR and various other sources.

How a designer who is on Buyosphere can nurturing relationships with existing and potential customers?

I always found service to be #1. It’s simple, but effective.

Some examples may be: A little thank you note. A personal message. An extra surprise in the delivery package. Great communication (sorry we are held up, but ran out of the size you requested. It will take an extra week. In order to ease your inconvenience, we are giving you a 25% discount on your next purchase…).

With potential customers, it’s great to show them that you are looking out for their needs. My favorite story comes from big retailer Zappos. When customers call them to find out where they can get something that is out of stock, they search to find where else the customer can get what they are looking for even if it isn’t on Zappos. Wow. I love that.

Does a designer can build out a community of fashion lovers on Buyosphere?

Not yet, but soon we will have designer/retailer pages that you can claim (sort of like a FB page, but really focused on products). Would love to get ideas and feedback on what you’d like to see there. Right now, answer questions. Be helpful. Even answer questions with other designer’s products. Build trust.

Do you think Buyosphere might be a tool that may help designers market their creations? How they can increase their notoriety with the help of Buyosphere?

We hope so! It’s definitely our goal. As Buyosphere grows, we will also grow our designer tools to help their businesses grow.