With the creation of Fashaholics, Kylie Jo wants to create a multipurpose one stop vintage and independent designer shopping oasis. Despite a few major players -think Etsy and ModCloth – the founder of Fashaholics, Kylie Jo, has big dreams to help “fashaholics” shop easily and virtually.
The goal of Fashaholics.com is to launch a multi-purpose website. As Jo describes it, Fashaholics is a “comprehensive shopping guide” that essentially maps out “all the local and independently-owned shops and boutiques in hundreds of major cities nationwide.” And if that weren’t enough, Fashaholics plans on operating a daily blog with content generated by “a creative group of writers, photographers, stylists, illustrators” that provides viewers with fashion insight and independent ideas. Whew.
The offline focus is pretty solid. The idea is that shoppers will no longer have to wander through cities that they are visiting (or living) in order to find great stores. Unless, of course, you like that sort of thing, which we suppose some do. But if you don’t, with the click of a button, Fashaholic will display local stores for shoppers to discover and pursue for shopping endeavors. Alternatively, if shoppers prefer to find items virtually, Fashaholics plans to have direct and immediate access to treasures hand picked from Jo and the Fashaholics staff members. The blog rounds out the trifecta of Fashaholics goals: shoppers can read about the hotest trends if they just want to see what is happening in the world of fashion.
For some, Fashaholics is taking an “Etsy idea” and enhancing it, helping shoppers and businesses all over the world. For others, Fashaholics is taking dead aim at the 1600 pound gorilla in the room in the chic vintage A-Line dress and choosing to ignore it. It sort of depends on your perspective. That said, there are many facets to Fashaholics, shoppers have the luxury to locate fashion, shop fashion virtually and browse fashion all in one website. This sets Fashaholics apart: it’s vintage one-stop-shopping. If you’ll forgive the pun.
And lets be honest, the growth of the vintage market doesn’t seem to be declining. Even if the laws of physics would seem to dictate that everyone is just buying and selling the same dress at some point. So there’s room for more challengers to find unsolved needs for consumers. The desire for vintage or independently-owned shops is so prominent in urban cities such as San Francisco, New York, Seattle and Los Angeles, Fashaholics has a chance to succeed just by existing. There are four Crossroad locations and two Buffalo Exchange locations in San Francisco alone. Each location has consistent foot traffic and a steady following. Fashaholics solves a lot of the store hunting for these consumers by providing information about the vintiage desitions in one location.
With all these great ideas, Jo needs help to actually make her idea a reality. She believes that “it is vital to get the word out and build a strong web presence,” thus startup costs and promotional materials must be factored in. Jo’s goal is to raise $5,000 through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign by October 20, 2012.
Click here to help shoppers, bloggers, businesses and Kylie.
CrowdFunding Series
The crowdfunding series is an eight part series pertaining to fashtech and lifestyle. Each article will discuss the crowdfunding platform, an overview of the business or product, and it’s connection to the fashtech industry. Articles will also address how consumers, bloggers, and users are affected by the business or product. To read the articles in the series, click here.
