How to Start a Fashion Marketplace

Fashion Matters! and yes, to each of us personally. It is not just ‘wearing clothes’ but also the ‘making’ part of it, which is as much insistent. 

With that being said, let’s put light on some other features of Fashion Marketplaces:

• Renders fashion availability in every corner of the globe, and this is this one to the global economy. 
• Fashion retailers get to reach out to the customers and reckon their purchase stats in a better way, which is even beneficial for improvising their brand image. 
• Most of all, any seller or retailer, owning a big or small fashion venture benefits equally, i.e. both have equal fortunes in selling their fashion through Fashion Marketplaces.
• It provides a platform for upcoming designers around the globe to exhibit their designs and sell them out to the fashions. 
• As sizes may vary by different brands and retailers, measurement tools like Magento 2 Size Chart, allow customers to find the right fit for their clothes.
• Not forgetting, the major goal of any Fashion Marketplace is making fashion easily accessible to consumers, while they sit back and relax in their homes. 

Establishing a marketplace is not at all as easy a task as it may seem. Choosing the right platform to integrate the right features, is quite a daunting task. 

Similarly, to create an affluent Fashion Marketplace, it is essential to:-

Pick a Right Platform to set up a Marketplace

Indeed! as it forms the base of any online business. One can select from a variety of e-commerce platforms that are available for developing a marketplace. 

For instance, let’s take into account a very known e-commerce platform- Magento 2. 

Magento, written in PHP,  is an extremely efficient and flexible e-commerce platform, and no one can deny the extensive features it inlays.

Be it feasible product/ catalog browsing or as simple as placing an order, efficient shipping, or payments, Magento has always got e-commerce entrepreneurs who have lived up to their expectations. 

Along with Magento, there are various other platforms to set up an expeditious marketplace, such as Opencart, WooCommerce, Bagisto, Prestashop, Shopify, and the list goes on.

Learn more about how you can create your fashion marketplace using Webkul Multi-Vendor solutions.

Moving on, we must take a deep dive into the imperative elements of a Fashion Marketplace:

• DAM or Digital Asset Management,
• Image Management

Okay! we have an interesting term to discuss, i.e. DAM or Digital Asset Management. 

If we go by layman’s terminology, DAM is “something that manages Digital Assets.“

Each one of us is very acquainted with digital assets. These are videos, photos, brochures, newsletters, documents, logos, etc. Doesn’t these sound familiar?

Well yes! Digital assets are the core elements of any business which are effective branding and marketing tools. 

As now that we know how essential digital assets are, managing them in the right they as well plays an imperative role for any e-commerce business. 

That’s when Digital Asset Management comes into play! Digital Asset Management is an optimized software solution for storing, creating, deploying, and tracking, king digital assets. 

In simpler terms, DAM provides a centralized location for storing the digital assets by virtue under are easily accessible. 

For instance, a DAM system in a business will organize the digital assets in a specific media library for the employees to easily access the digital assets when there is a need. 

Not only this even the client can have access to it. A well-set well-solution will make way for secure and organized access to digital assets. 

Advantages of Digital Asset Management

The way how a DAM manages our digital assets is undeniable! The list given below stipulates the benefits of DAM:-

• Storing digital assets centrally improvises internal efficiency. 
• This in turn saves space and even time that otherwise is spent in finding these digital assets. 
• Maintains integrity when the branded assets are shared through trusted platforms with outside parties. 
• Makes it simpler to collect, analyze and manage data from different origins.
• Most of all, it gives an idea of how one must utilize digital assets for a flourishing business.

DAM & Amazon S3: are they similar?

Almost! as they share a similar concept.  From storing the digital assets or data (in the case of Amazon S3) centrally and saving space and easy access to the digital assets and data which is saved centrally, both DAM and Amazon S3 share the same grounds. 

Amazon S3: a brief idea

Also, known as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is an Object Storage Service that AWS provides. It helps store a large portion of the data in the Amazon S3 bucket, which makes it accessible to users at any time of the day and the speed is comparatively faster.

The major benefit of this scenario is that it reduces the load on the local server and creates a backup of the files on the Amazon Server, which in turn can be retrieved whenever there is downtime. 

Well well! have you ever purchased anything online without going through its pictures?

The answer is, definitely Not! Of course, if I am supposed to spend some penny on a purchase, then it is likely that I will surf the nitty-gritty, especially the images of the product I am about to buy. 

When talking of an E-Commerce business, then it is necessary to mention how important images are to describe any product, as they are the source to lure customers.

Image Management, hence, is an image optimization scenario that acquires the ML or Machine Learning techniques for the same. 

The best example that we can state here is Lenskart which is India’s giant eyewear brand.

Its online store facilitates a 3D Try-On feature where the customers can upload their facial videos and try on the eyewear and view every angle before buying the frame. 

Likewise, nowadays many offline stores as well integrate this feature.

The customer’s image will display on a screen and they can choose the product attributes and see how it looks on them and finally purchase the right product. 

The above feature is the outcome of the ML or Machine Learning implementation. 

It accesses the product images and product description which in turn, displays appropriate results for the customer. 

The system on its own deduces the product attributes from the given set of Product images and product descriptions, to display the right product.

This is the essence of Machine Learning! 

Spinoffs: Image Management

Now that we have a clear idea of what Image Management is, let’s contemplate its beneficiary aspects:

SEO

• Images are an essential aspect of any website and account for almost 60% of a website’s page. 
• Through Image Management, one can achieve faster page load times as it completely automates the process of image compression and changes the formats accordingly. 
• Thus, a faster-loading website will always have a better SEO ranking. 

High-Quality Images: better user experience

• With so many gadgets that our customers use, business entrepreneurs need to deliver high-quality images of their products fitting any device’s resolution. 
• Image Management again automates this scenario as this cannot be achieved manually. 

Image Updates

• To keep the website updated online entrepreneurs have to keep on altering their website’s data. 
• Image Management eases and automates the process of altering the image options as well, automatically for online entrepreneurs. 
• It allows online entrepreneurs to store their images in one place (a centralized Content Management System) thus simplifying the process further. 

A Cost-Effective Deal

• Image Management facilitates the customers to customize the product at their end.
• For instance, a t-shirt printing website allows customers to add logos, prints, or texts as per their needs. 
• This way the online merchant will not have to spend extra money in storing the other options for the t-shirt on the server. 
•  From the main image, multiple options for the same image can be created, thus saving bandwidth costs as well. 

Now that you have a well-set-up Fashion Marketplace, equipped with all the necessary features, what is your next prime move?

Choose an appropriate Web Hosting Service so that your website is available for users over the internet. 

A Web Hosting Service marks your presence online and makes it available to your users. 

Choosing the Web Hosting for your Website

One may have either a giant website or a small-scale website. Hence, as per the website’s requirement, one may go forth and choose the apt hosting service. 

Dedicated Hosting

As per the name, Dedicated Web Hosting is optimum for large-scale online businesses as they require large bandwidth and disk space. 

It facilitates the site owners to rent the server and store your website, i.e. this server will have just your website stored on it as it is dedicatedly rented by you. 

Though they are quite expensive, it lets you have admin rights and you have the right to manage everything. 

Shared Hosting

On the other hand, Shared Hosting is apt for newly set up websites that are placed or stored on the servers along with other websites. This also means that all the websites present on the server will share similar resources such as Memory or CPU. 

This also accounts for the drop in the server costs as the hosting the completely shared and this is why most newbie websites always seek to acquire Shared Hosting, initially.