Today I am presenting another written interview with Emmanuel Ley of FashionStork.com 
Check out the interview:
- What got you interested in staring your own men’s clothing subscription service? Share your story.
When buying inventory, there were lucrative deals for ODDS and ENDS (pieces of clothing with only one or 2 sizes in a particular style). Odds and ends were a turn off for the online retailer, because it involved lots of preparation such as sku, picture, description, categorizing, etc.- only to sell one item. However, the items had value and I knew that if I put the items in the hands of the right guys, they would love them. This is where I developed the idea of asking the man his sizes and preferences. Once I gathered this info, I could look through the inventory of odds in ends for something he might not have picked out himself, but would wear because it fit and looked good on him.
- How do you stand out from all the competitors out there offering similar services?
The 1st way we stand out from our competitors is in value. We believe we have the most affordable box at $65 to $75 monthly which includes 2 to 4 pieces of clothing and/or accessories.
The 2nd way we stand out is through our cause. For every box we send out, we donate $1 towards the adoption of a child. We work with families one at a time, to speed up the process of the adoption in efforts to reduce the time the child has to spend away from their new parents.
- How often do customers decide to buy the clothing vs. returning it?
We like to say that our customers are our “MEMBERS”. Our members have already paid for their clothing with their monthly subscription fee ranging from $55 to $75, depending on when they signed up, and what promo was given to them. They keep everything sent to them. That being said, we do have flexible 365 day return and exchange policies in place. On average, our members return or exchange %7 of the time.
- What have you been doing to get your brand out there and drive more sales?
We focus lots of our marketing efforts on social media with an emphasis on ENGAGEMENT. We’ve found that an engaging audience makes for more revenue. We also encourage our members to send us their word of mouth referrals through incentives. Finally, our PR is focused heavily on our cause of helping orphans. This gives us the ability to broaden our audience by gaining exposure through other channels such as charity, philanthropy, family and doing good.
- What are your future plans for 2015 and beyond?
We plan to become the “practical” subscription box for men. We believe if we can train our members to stay with fashion stork the same way they do with their cell phone provider, it will make for a highly profitable company.
