Venturing into Fashion Tech
This podcast explores topics on fashion tech, entrepreneurship, and fashion business. Host Peter Jeun Ho Tsang looks at how technology is transforming the fashion industry by dissecting themes such as startup innovation, the evolution of fashion jobs and business culture, and the digitalisation of the fashion value chain. Joined by guest speakers from the fashion industry, startup world and wider business community, you’ll hear stories from founders, creatives, and executives to help shape your understanding of fashion tech. The show is recorded from Beyond Form, a fashion tech innovation platform that works with ambitious founders to build fashion tech startups. We’d love to hear your feedback, so please do let us know if you’d like us to explore a topic of conversation. You can email us on podcast@beyondform.io - If you’re an entrepreneur or a fashion tech startup needing a boost in your business journey, then check out our website: https://bit.ly/36qBPXR
Venturing into Fashion Tech
2024 Fashion Tech Year in Review: Gen AI & design, Bankruptcies, Hyper-Personalised Shopping & more with Yoobin Jung
As we close out 2024, this year's final episode is joined by Yoobin Jung, a VC at Plug and Play, where she along with our host Peter break down the fashion tech booms and busts that happened throughout the year. They discuss:
• AI's transformative impact on fashion design: Generative design tools are accelerating prototyping and reshaping brand identities, but raise ethical concerns about potentially replacing junior designers.
• The sustainability challenge: AI could help align production with demand, potentially addressing the persistent issue of overproduction in the fashion industry.
• Luxury brands and AI adoption: High-end fashion houses are cautiously approaching AI, grappling with complexities of clothing structures and concerns about AI-driven overconsumption.
• Recommendation algorithms: Effectiveness varies between Europe and South Korea, prompting questions about enhancing consumer experiences versus fuelling overconsumption.
• Regulatory landscape: EU policies like Extended Producer Responsibility aim to promote circularity, yet industry readiness is questionable, as evidenced by Renewcell's bankruptcy.
• Future of luxury e-commerce: The resale market is gaining prominence, with potential lessons from South Korea's Kakao platform on integrating digital and physical retail experiences.
Contact Yoobin on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/yoobinjung
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The show is recorded from Beyond Form, a fashion tech innovation platform. We build, invest, and educate fashion tech entrepreneurs and startups. We’d love to hear your feedback, so let us know if you’d like to hear a certain topic. Email us at podcast@beyondform.io. If you’re an entrepreneur or fashion tech startup looking for studio support, check out our website: beyondform.io
Now it's that time of the year again where we're drawing everything to a close as 2024 comes to an imminent end. A lot has happened in the space of fashion tech this year. We've had winners such as AI in fashion generative design. We have seen e-commerce and hyper personalization coming to the forefront as well. Equally, we've also had some fashion tech losers, mainly in the space of sustainability, with textile recycling companies, for example, renewcell, going bankrupt earlier this year. Many innovators are struggling with getting their circular fashion or sustainable tech innovations into the market. So what does this mean and why has this happened in 2024 and what can we expect in 2025? On today's episode, I'm speaking to Yubin Zheng, venture Capitalist at Plug Play Tech Center here in Paris. Yubin shares her thoughts, having worked in the space for quite a while now and where she meets innovations and startups globally all the time.
Speaker 2:When this happened I had a deep depression, thinking I may lose my job. What does it mean to the market, you know. So that week, me and my team, we were quite saddened and worried about the future, because Renewal Cell, very emblematic company in this space, let's get this conversation going on.
Speaker 1:this year's final episode with Yubin on venturing into fashion tech. How are you today, yubin? I'm doing fine. How about you? I'm great. It's very cold outside in Paris, but it is the week before Christmas when we're recording this episode. Do you have any nice plans for Christmas?
Speaker 2:I will have pretty calm Christmas holidays in Paris just with a couple of my friends because I'm not going back to South Korea, the country where I'm from. But I'm excited for the holidays in Paris.
Speaker 1:Very good to hear. So, before we get stuck into today's conversation, which is about recapping everything that's happened in 2024 in regards to fashion, tech, climate tech, sustainability and the industry at large, some of our listeners might not know what Plug Play Tech Centre is, so why don't you introduce yourself, yubin? How did you get into this space and what is Plug Play specifically?
Speaker 2:So I studied chemistry and fashion but during my academic journey which is a little bit of like a unique mix, I will say I love so much about the textile and materials and what the materials mean to the, the fashion world, so I moved to paris just before, so it was 2019.
Speaker 2:I was working as a textile buyer and also I did some innovative textile development consulting for a few luxury groups in Paris. I got a message from Plug and Play that they are looking for a profile who studied material science but who has working experience in the fashion industry. I was very intrigued by this position, like, oh, that's a very specific profile they're looking for because mainly we are working with corporations for their innovation activities. So it means we help them scout and integrate and even invest in those innovations and one of our fashion clients they wanted to work with us and the person who has that scientific and industrial background. So I'm very much into materials, even more specifically, textile to textile recycling, but at the same time, industrial transformation, which is like automation and the circular economy, like how to make circular business models such as resale, repair, how to make it happen and so on. So that's what I'm doing at Plug and Play.
Speaker 1:So you come across so many startups, scalers, innovations in your daily life. I'm sure we're going to talk about some of those a little bit later on. So this conversation is split into two parts. The first part is going to be talking about the fashion tech boom things that we've seen do really well this year, and the second part is going to be okay the opposite the fashion tech first, things that didn't necessarily live up to expectations. I want to break down some of those conversations that we're having about innovations and the industry at large. Let's get stuck into the fashion tech boom section.
Speaker 1:So, with topic number one, generative design's impact on fashion design. So Gen, ai or Gen Design, as it can be referred to, have transformed design processes in 2024. We've all seen it on Instagram, on social media, all these AI generated videos and still imagery as well. But obviously that's happening at a B2B, behind the scenes perspective as well, which means quicker prototyping, assisting designers with creating unique, trend informed products. For example, fashion designer Norma kamali collaborated with meza meta to create an ai fashion design assistant tool which can theoretically carry on her brand legacy by producing new designs based on her archives.
Speaker 1:We can all imagine in the future actually once we passed away that actually our brand dna and our design handwriting handwriting can still be living much beyond our physical self, shall we say, and Beyond Forms. Own startup studio, t-fashion and AI Trend Forecasting and Gender Design Tool, launched earlier this year, and we've seen a huge uptake across the board from many variety of fashion brands fashion manufacturers in Turkey, in the UK, all over Europe and the US as well, and we're having success pilots with these fashion brands. So, yubin, where do you think such technology is heading? Are we replacing junior designers in the low-paying order with such tools? Do you think it is a hyperbole? And then going back to your speciality, do you think such tools can help with things like alleviating overproduction and designing the correct products to the correct demand?
Speaker 2:It's a really interesting and sometimes controversial topic that what will be generative ai's impact on fashion design and are we just like replacing those designers? Um, we at plug and play around february this year, um, I actually hosted a webinar about gen ai in fashion and luxury to talk about what will be the impact of the fashion for the fashion design process and how does that look like, and even we invited a lawyer to understand the copyright problem of using that. My view is that it's not human versus AI problem, it's just how to use Gen AI for more creativity. I think that's the right challenge that we can think of Basically. Some technologies you mentioned a few as well. I think one of the well-known one is Raspberry AI. We invited them for our webinar. They create some kind of design prompts very quickly and give a lot of different design possibilities. What's interesting about it is it's realistic. The visuals are so realistic and to work with designers, they create designs with sketches, but those sketches do not give that realistic feeling like, ooh, this will look like this. It doesn't have photorealistic images, so it's very hard to imagine how that will look like in the collection. But I think one of the benefits of using Gen AI is. It gives photorealistic images that you can easily understand. Okay, this has a different texture, like glossy texture that will work well with this. Another look. That's the main benefit that I will say short-term benefit I am seeing in the fashion industry.
Speaker 2:Now the question is like then how will it boost or even prohibit the creativity is a question mark. Can be both, can be both and for that reason actually, like, some luxury companies hesitate to use it for actual product design process. For example, a brand like Casablanca. They are exploring it for campaign pictures, which is beautiful, and they are doing so many attempts on the background, but it's still kind of difficult to say luxury industry is actively adopting it for the product development phase. The view is that will it really really replace that? I don't think so because, first of all, the challenges that the current tools they have is understanding clothing structure.
Speaker 2:Now your second question is about will it help to boost the sustainability? I think it's a little bit of like, too much assumption, like I think it's not going to be helpful right away. I think, like AI, what can it do is more on the reducing the waste, on the production. So, for example, sxd, the New York-based startup they are making kind of like zero waste, almost like no waste, like fashion cut in the pattern making level, which is quite interesting and also design-wise it can be interesting. So for that reason I think it can have some role and interesting functions. Can it just like generative AI for fashion design? Will it help to reduce the overproduction? It's over assumption, I think.
Speaker 1:It's a little bit too early to say right now, I think, as to the real impact it can have on really understanding. Can we acutely configure it to say, okay, we need this product at this right time and do everything exactly to the consumer's desire? I think there what really kind of like the key phrase for me was it's not about human versus ai, and I completely agree with that To our listeners. I did not script that. We just came to the same conclusion FYI. But I always get approached with the same question as well and I don't think it's an either or. At this moment in time, the AI is complementing what the existing designers are doing. I do think the technology will get more advanced. So next year I think it'll be very interesting to see how it does progress and potentially just re-augment some of the processes within the organization. Do you think it's going to get even bigger next year? What do you think?
Speaker 2:I think it can go much bigger for sure. I mean, like, if we think about the human replacement one more time, maybe technical designers might lose their jobs. Like what they do is, you know, receiving the sketches and making it into tech pack. Maybe that job will be threatened by a generative AI. So now, really, like the designer should be really, really creative. I think the adoption of Gen AI even we do not know, I think fashion brands will not publicly disclose hey, we are adopting generative AI for our creativity process. Yeah, I don't think they will say, but we can actually track if it's growing or not by understanding the growth of those startups.
Speaker 1:So then, moving on from the creation of products to the retailing and buying of products, as you know, as customers, it is the Christmas season of travel or shopping online, offline, in the stores.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm not too far away from galerial fayette, down the road, and which I think also your office is as well for plug and play tech center in the ninth district of paris, it's the christmas lights, so let's talk about hyper personalized shopping.
Speaker 1:So, again on the subject of ai and data analytics specifically, and how it's hyper-personalizing now, the way we show from tailor recommendations, for example, on the online store, to custom fit garments using fit technology, avatars and so forth In 2024, the fashion e-commerce industry has seen a significant AI increase in AI, machine learning, hyper-personalization, matching actually what you really want to what the retailer is able to offer.
Speaker 1:Clearly, investors think so too, having invested, for example, $16 million into Vantage Discovery, which is a product discovery tool, and $25 million into Constructor, again another tool that is, for product discovery. So then, euban, how do you think the user experience of e-commerce stores is going to change with such product discovery tools? And again, going back to that big old question theoretically, because we're getting and buying products that we're more likely to be interested in and keep those products. Therefore, we're not going to be seeing those high return rates that a lot of online retailers see at this time of year between 30 and 40% return rates for some online retailers. And is it going to curb a little bit of the overconsumption or do you think again it could even exacerbate it, because we're just seeing everything that we want to buy?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, maybe I'm a little bit more pessimistic side of the thing, but, like I'm more towards the the second opinion, like may just boost shopping preference to buy more than buy less. But we'll see, it's very difficult to find what you want from online shopping and also people don't know what they want. There are, like multiple e-commerce stores who are trying to adopt that AI algorithm. Like I want to ask you, peter, like if you have ever encountered really good recommendation algorithm, because I didn't find one in Europe. Actually, one I found in South Korea, but have you ever found one in Europe?
Speaker 1:I have not found one in Europe. Actually, that's a very good question. I wasn't expecting that question. No, I haven't. And going back to your question, I do a lot of online shopping myself and I still do a lot of scrolling down the pages. So a lot of the fashion retailers are saying that they're optimizing their e-com platforms, but for some reason, I'm just still scrolling.
Speaker 2:I don't need for the same experience exactly whenever I go to like farfetch or matchless fashion, like I'm totally lost. I'm totally lost like what I want, what designers I want um, maybe I should make more purchasing history, but can you just like understand like what I want from me, like clicking something like like you know, that's what I want from those e-commerce platforms. One really, really good algorithm in my opinion in South Korea is called ZigZag. That's an app name, a very successful one in South Korea, and I made like a few purchases while I was staying last year Christmas and I found it like, oh my God, stop showing me the things that I want and I don't need, Because I couldn't stop looking into this platform. And they also offer offer coupons and discounts at very good timing I will say Good timing and good engagement and also help customers do more reviews, which will help again accumulate data from customers.
Speaker 2:This AI algorithm was so well made and I think like probably the time that you know each customer's stay in the platform would be quite long for that app, but I didn't find that level yet in Europe, Also from luxury space.
Speaker 2:It was a little bit difficult to find one, but the thing is South Korea has so many good AI engineers one of the best countries around the world who have good AI talent, so I think those e-commerce websites even faster than North American one or European one. They adopted AI algorithm and invested a lot in this space and making really correct recommendation, Like not fashion but beauty side. I also want to see more good recommendation, especially on the fragrance side, because it's already quite challenging to purchase fragrance on the e-commerce but it's, you know, still growing market. I saw bath and body works. They are doing it so with generative ai, which was quite surprising, you know, to help customers to get better recommendations on the fragrance and bath and body body products. The question is like are we seeing that significant improvement? No, it's still not there yet and I think like those tools can decrease some return rate maybe, but I think it will just boost more consumption.
Speaker 1:Maybe we'll see ZigZag coming over to Europe then, if it's as good as you say, it is Euban. I've never tried it personally, but obviously it impressed you enough. And just a fact to go on to this topic, from the Business of Fashion States of Fashion 2025 report, it states that 82% of customers want AI to assist in reducing the time they spend looking for products when they're going shopping, so there's obviously a demand for it. I think, going into next year, hopefully, on this side of the world, these product discovery tools will get even bigger and better. So then, moving on to topic number three. So now, from creation of product through to the buying of new products through, what do we do with these products when we're bored of them? And we're seeing or we have seen this year the resale, the second hand market just exploding even more. By the end of 2024, it is expected to reach a staggering 64 billion dollar, growing at a rate 11 times faster than traditional retail.
Speaker 1:From a combination of factors as to why this is growing so fast, so economic, a lot of countries right now are seeing some tough times. There's not as much disposable income going around. Many shoppers are now are obviously concerned with climate change and sustainability and they're trying to make more conscious decisions and, of course, just changing consumer preferences as well. Thread up the major player in the US, for example, saw a full fiscal year of 2024 revenue which they're expecting to be between $340 million to $350 million Significant actually, revenue growth from the previous year. Trove, the white label resale solution acquired, recurate, for example, this summer in 2024, again strengthening its infrastructure, and we've also seen a myriad of smaller resale platforms opening globally in their home markets. So, yubin, why do you think reseller is getting even hotter as a category? Do you think this reflects consumer preferences? Do you think it's because gen z is now having more spending power? And do you even think that reseller is an antidote to sustainability? Or do you think it's just another way to consume and it's curb consumption anytime soon?
Speaker 2:Well, resale market. I think it was one big chunk of it. Now we are segmenting each technologies more specifically for some target groups. I think it was like vintage, but now it's like okay, is it vintage collectibles? Or to resale and buy your favorite brands? For example, vestia collective they offer brands to run their white labeled resale platform I think chloe chloe is doing that. Some brands like isabel maran is doing it as well. Or is it more like thrifting? Are you looking to buy something really cheap, like a gold mine? You know like we want to find that, like, oh my God, like I'm buying it, like it's such a cheap price from P2P commerce platform. Like it's very segmented now than before, so it is getting hotter. I think also this what you mentioned thread up, it's very encouraging. This market will have a potential. Also, some platforms like Vinted or Vestiaire Collective. They are preparing to go IPO, hopefully next year. So this all gives such a strong and positive signals to the market.
Speaker 2:Now, like what will be the remaining challenges? I think everyone knows that and has the same struggle. It's very hard to find again what you want from the benchmark. It's even more difficult than buying new products because mostly in many cases the visual quality is bad. I mean destia collective is a bit better than the vinted, but still it's very difficult. But I understand also the seller side because making a really good quality of images of one SKU product is very hard. Investing in this image generation is very hard. Another challenge of vintage is that it's hard to understand how it will fit in my body because of lack of measurements on there.
Speaker 2:Will generative AI give the possibility to do virtual trial on Vantage? Like you know, that's possible. I think by just reading the picture will it give the size recommendation right away? I would love to see that. You know, obviously, gen Z. They are driving this market growth. But I think not only Gen Z but other generations as well. They're all aware of the impact of the fashion industry. According to some statistics, this generation, like us, like everyone who are alive on the earth, like we are possessing in our wardrobe, can dress seven generations of human beings Like so there are so many clothes in the resale market that can dress everybody.
Speaker 1:It sounds like we don't need to purchase any new items at all. You know what you were saying there you've been seven generations on earth and there's enough resale clothing or secondhand clothing to close all of those generations which you know. It is food for thought seven generations on earth and there's enough resale clothing or second-hand clothing to close all of those generations which you know is. It is food for thought. It does make you think. Why do we keep on churning out new products when we don't actually really need it? So then, going into the second part of this conversation, the fashion tech bust section, things that didn't necessarily do so well, or we're having a bit of a question mark on. So my next topic and I know this is a topic that is very close to your heart, specifically you've been epr policies, which I'll get you to explain. What does that mean specifically in a second. However, it doesn't seem to be helping the innovators.
Speaker 1:The EU commission is proposing to introduce EPR schemes for textiles in all EU member states. In the context of textiles, obligated producers are typically brands, retailers and online marketplaces that have clothing, footwear and so forth. Producers will cover the cost of management textile waste, which will also give them incentive to reduce waste and increase the circularity of textile products, which we discussed that circular resale platform notion just then. However, earlier this year, for example, on the podcast show, we talked to Pauline, who is the co-founder of Refact, who has a textile recycling solution, and she was telling us actually how difficult it is and how much of a struggle it is for innovators like her to convince investors and fashion brands to support them. It doesn't seem to be like brands are putting their money where their mouth is. So the question to you even is is the fashion and textile industry ready to embrace such EPR schemes and will this regulation make the fashion industry actually more circular?
Speaker 2:I mean I it's really sad to say the regulation will be the only tool to drive the fashion industry more circular. I would not want to say in this way. I think it should be also coming from customer behaviors as well. But it is true, the regulations will help a lot significantly. Regulations will help a lot significantly.
Speaker 2:Epr scheme is an acronym of Extended Producers Responsibilities. It is actually existing policy for other sectors like electronics or paper. So the producers of electronics can be Apple, samsung, like all those guys do have that responsibility as a producer, like Zavando, whoever sells textile products here we mean garments, footwear and home textiles like furniture or bed linens this is all going under these textile products in the EU member countries and they will bear this responsibility to boost the circularity. So what does it mean? They will bear this responsibility to boost the circularity. So what does it mean? They will bear some costs of contributing to the circularity.
Speaker 2:I think from 2025, those member states should first of all sort out textile waste from generic waste. They should have a sorting scheme to get textile waste collected differently. So that should be done first, because textile recycling is poorly done. That's one thing, and also the reason why it is poorly done is the collection and sorting is not designed or done yet in the EU level. So that's the first thing let's collect textile waste separately and also figure out how to sort them out from the product category level and the fiber level polyester, polyester, cotton, cotton, something like that to find a way to recycle those textile wastes and also boost the resale market as well, to find valuable items and go back those valuable items, go back into the secondhand vintage market. So it is there. It will work.
Speaker 2:But now the question mark is how can it help significantly to boost the circularity in this sector? We think it's going to be impactful, but like will it be significant to make it significant? What kind of financial incentives should we give? It's still not done. So this is what policymakers should do to make it work. But I think, first of all, fashion and the industry are really not ready. They have to rush to prepare that. But historically the fashion industry is an unregulated industry. It's not going to be easy for fashion brands to prepare that.
Speaker 1:So they not ready, but they should be and we need to understand what financial schemes will be required to make it actually happen, so why they have you then you've been, they come to you know yeah, they should hire me but I think, in all seriousness, I think what you said that is very important the fact that they are not ready, and but this is not new we've talked about this thing, you know, over the last couple of years, since we've had the start of the podcast show, actually, and this law, these schemes, these regulations have been coming into force and have been drafted for quite a long time now. So I'm always alarmed to hear that the fashion brands are not ready. For example, we have a company called Fines in our portfolio and they're still trying to educate all of these fashion brands around Paris, and it's just always so alarming to hear the stories that they tell me. So then, talking about recycling innovators there, the start of this year, we did see the company Routes Renews Cell, which is a textile to textile recycling solution, filing for bankruptcy.
Speaker 1:This shook the industry. There were shockwaves sent through, right through. It really showed actually you know what you were saying there even that it is a tough road to commercial success. Despite raising 10 million dollars in the short term from investors in december 2023 to help some of those cash flow issues, ultimately they weren't able to sustain long-term growth or long-term financing to keep their operations going and, of course, they collapsed, which was a major blow for circular fashion in In terms of what it has left behind. It has left behind 4,000 tonnes of fibre, 1,000 tonnes of pulp that has not been used, so this puts the whole element of sustainability and materials into a big question mark. Where is it heading? What does the collapse of renew sales signal to the industry? You kind of touched upon it there, but what? Those gaps are still in the industry and are we going to see? You know similar companies like when you sell, seeing the same fate?
Speaker 2:well, we should not we should not see the similar fate. So when this happened I had a deep depression, thinking I may lose my job. What does it mean to the market? So that week, me and my team, we were quite saddened and worried about the future because Renewcell, very emblematic company in this space, by, I will say I will call them generation one recycling solution in the fashion industry using cotton textiles. Well, they are safe. They are bought by PE. The business will still go on. So that's silver lining. It's not the worst situation. They didn't stop the operations Overall. Like, this sustainable material space is really not easy job because, out of fashion industry, this year's sad news one was white insects. It's a French unicorn producing alternative proteins from insects. They went bankrupt. Norsvold, the battery recycling startup, like, was the most successful one. They went bankrupt this year.
Speaker 2:This gives a lot of like concerns to investors, at least for the financing this type of material innovation in general, not only the fashion industry, but also mobility, food industry. Like, investing in materials, will it something to gain return out of investments promptly? It's not, you know it's. I mean frankly it's not. So then, like will investors still have appetite to invest in innovations? I hope so. I hope these innovations will get better funding next year.
Speaker 2:I don't think renew sales problem. Sometimes people just blame fashion brands hey, you guys didn't want to purchase those materials and you guys made it collapse. It's not entirely incorrect. It's not entirely true. I mean it's like have some blames on them, but also how. What renewal sale materials were also that technical performance and so on. But also how what RenewCell materials were also that technical performance and so on. Everything together must have played for that reason. So I think Generation 2 startups in the space will quickly learn the challenges RenewCell was facing in terms of, like supply chain, how to manage demands and so on, and also performance. I hope, like sustainable theories in the fashion industry, do not stop here and even go bigger next five years.
Speaker 1:So let's hope it improves next year. I do believe, though, that we're still quite a way off, though, to seeing such innovators really come into fruition and seeing that commercial viability and scale. And I completely agree with you, it's not just the fashion brands fault. I think there's many stakeholders that are trying to keep everything up, and, unfortunately, in this case, it did collapse. I think it's very interesting how RenewSell was acquired by a private equity firm, because, as the owner, interesting how RenewSell was acquired by a private equity firm because, as the owner, pe firms quite often push the profit over everything else. So we shall see how this does impact RenewSell's business moving forward. So, then, my final topic for today's conversation is the downfall of luxury e-commerce and digital platforms and luxury in general, shall we say, because it hasn't been the best year, with Kering Group and LVMH posting not so good results in the second half of the year.
Speaker 1:But, however, the big story at the start of 2024 was the digital player Farfetch going into you know, near death Uxnet-Aporté, and and matches fashion as well. Later on in the year, not seeing too good faith. For example, the acquisition of Yook's net-a-porter by my Teresa from Richemont marked a turning point, resulting in a staggering four billion yes, listeners, that is, four billion euros worth of loss for Richemont. This came on the heels of Farfetch's near collapse, which saw South Korea's Coupang Group acquire the company, and the valuation from 21 billion dollars made 250 million. So from billions to millions dollars. So quite a big difference. There, luxury groups are increasingly bought, bringing e-commerce operations in-house.
Speaker 1:The viability of mutual luxury good platforms came into the question. So it is begging the question where does this leave, in the fashion industry, paces for multi-brand retailers and marketplaces and e-commerce platforms of the like? Who do you think's next on the chopping block, vin? And is this a real problem In 2024, are we only seeing the beginning of such collapses? Is it a consumer behavior or demand problem? Is it a technology problem? Is it an industry problem? We're not quite sure. Is it because the markets were overinflated? In the late 2000s? There was that big, big boom of e-commerce. Now present day, it's recalibrating. So where do you think the fault lies there, nubin?
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, my first job in South Korea was luxury buyer at a multi-brand luxury concept store. They closed their business this year. Oh, okay, I was really. How do you feel about that? Yeah, because it was my first job and I had such an affection to the company. It's called Han Style and when they stopped operating I was like, oh my God, it's really bad.
Speaker 2:And at the moment, actually in South Korea, a lot of e-commerce platforms they stopped their business. There was some kind of like, I will say, fintech scam as well by a few e-commerce platforms. So, like this market is, it raises a lot of concerns. But, like, apart from that, like this luxury e-commerce, when we are purchasing luxury items, what do we want, you know? Is it experience? I think it's a lot of experience. Let's say, you are going to Cartier boutique in Paris and the whole experience to purchase Cartier jewelry is such an experience, isn't it? So always the question mark was will e-commerce be able to replace that? And then, if it is, what's the added values for customers to choose e-commerce instead of physical stores? Because after the COVID, we have seen it that customers do go back to the physical stores. They do want experiences. So I think what e-commerce was missing is for sure. That experience part Today.
Speaker 2:I'm somehow referencing a lot of South Korean examples, but it is a very interesting market. That's why the Kakao Talk. Do you know? It's a messenger app. So in South Korea nobody uses WhatsApp. People don't even know we use Kakao Talk. It's a Korean native digital company. It's a huge conglomerate. Now it's an IT company. They started with the messenger app called Kakao Talk and in Kakao Talk it's like WeChat.
Speaker 2:You can do so many things. You can buy products, you can do the gaming, you can make reservations in your favorite hair salons, so you can do that. And one of the features it has and works really well is Kakao gift. So I get a notification like, let's say, peter's birthday is tomorrow, buy some gift and show your love, you know. And then I go to the gifting and I buy a voucher. I buy a voucher for you that Peter will like this candle, so I'm going to buy it and send it to him and give a personalized message there Like Peter, happy birthday. This will make your mood boost and hope you like it. You know, like you make that thing and then you have to bring that voucher to the physical store to exchange the products or you can get it delivered like it's up to you.
Speaker 2:But, um, but what's interesting about cacao is that they work with luxury brands to also offer experiences. So, for instance, I saw that they work with Chanel Beauty. So by gifting a voucher of Chanel perfume, you can also enjoy the experience of making Chanel perfume or learn about Chanel perfume, and this is a whole experience of purchasing luxury items. So I really like this approach, like omni-channel approach, you know, and the Kakao gives their vision, should I say, to beat a department store or to do a better job than the department stores, this IT company.
Speaker 2:They're not only limited themselves you know digital experience, but like physical experience together. It is so interesting. So I think that every luxury e-commerce players they should find out how they can bring that new experience to the customers that current physical stores cannot do yet. And it's not just a technology but it's about like your business strategy, like what do you try to do better than the conventional business models, and only by doing that, I think luxury e-commerce have better chances to do. And also, like the benefit of luxury e-commerce, they actually have better relationship with the social media figures, influencers, so they actually have so many tools to use. It's going to be quite difficult, because customers will always seek exceptional experience I never must say no to a gift.
Speaker 1:You've been so. If you want to send more gifts my way, I don't mind. So I just want to finish off this conversation with a quick fire round of questions. The first answer that comes to your head are you ready?
Speaker 2:favorite 2024 fashion tech trend um, I will say everything around resale again, like I think the resale market is just growing more and more and it offers different solutions, a different experiences. I just want to see that my experience will get improved by AI. It is still very exciting and I think after a few unicorns go to IPO, we will see even more interesting offers in the market.
Speaker 1:Digital fashion dead or alive?
Speaker 2:It is alive.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So a question mark for there Rental, repair or resale, which is the biggest winner?
Speaker 2:I will say in the order of resale, repair, rental I mean. At the moment rental is bigger than repair, but I think repair has better chance to win.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for your time, Yubin.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
