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Japan’s fashion coordination app Wear hits 2M downloads, aspires to be fashion infrastructure

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Largely driven by heavy television promotion with a fun new commercial that began on March 19th, Wear (wear.jp), a fashion coordination app from Tokyo-based Start Today, has surpassed 2 million downloads. Start Today, is of course, the company behind Japanese mega fashion commerce site Zozotown. The app has been online for just five months, and its trajectory looks promising. The recent commercial starts popular model Emi Suzuki, who is also one of Wear’s many prominent ‘Wearistas’ on the fashion platform (pictured above). In total there have been more than 400,000 fashion coordinations posted on Wear, with a current average of 10,000 posted per day. Start Today stated in its announcement that it is shooting for five million domestic downloads, and it would be good to see global expansion follow after that. The company aspires to evolve Wear into a sort of infrastructural service in the fashion sector, an ambitious goal even for this Japanese fashion powerhouse. Start Today (PDF)

emi-suzuki-wear

Largely driven by heavy television promotion with a fun new commercial that began on March 19th, Wear (wear.jp), a fashion coordination app from Tokyo-based Start Today, has surpassed 2 million downloads. Start Today, is of course, the company behind Japanese mega fashion commerce site Zozotown. The app has been online for just five months, and its trajectory looks promising.

The recent commercial starts popular model Emi Suzuki, who is also one of Wear’s many prominent ‘Wearistas’ on the fashion platform (pictured above). In total there have been more than 400,000 fashion coordinations posted on Wear, with a current average of 10,000 posted per day.

Start Today stated in its announcement that it is shooting for five million domestic downloads, and it would be good to see global expansion follow after that. The company aspires to evolve Wear into a sort of infrastructural service in the fashion sector, an ambitious goal even for this Japanese fashion powerhouse.

Start Today (PDF)

Japanese fashion commerce site Zozotown begins same day delivery service

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Start Today, the Japanese company that operates internet fashion commerce site Zozotown, announced today that it will be able to handle same-day deliveries for items ordered before 9am in the greater Tokyo area, with deliveries arriving that evening. Orders between 9am and 9pm will come on the following morning, and orders after 9pm will arrive the following evening. On a related note, the company’s new fashion coordination app, Wear (wear.jp), which recently surpassed a million downloads, has unveiled a series of fun commercials this past week. You can check them out in their entirety over on the Wear YouTube channel. Here’s one of them below:

Start Today, the Japanese company that operates internet fashion commerce site Zozotown, announced today that it will be able to handle same-day deliveries for items ordered before 9am in the greater Tokyo area, with deliveries arriving that evening. Orders between 9am and 9pm will come on the following morning, and orders after 9pm will arrive the following evening.

On a related note, the company’s new fashion coordination app, Wear (wear.jp), which recently surpassed a million downloads, has unveiled a series of fun commercials this past week. You can check them out in their entirety over on the Wear YouTube channel. Here’s one of them below:

Start Today’s Wear app surpasses a million downloads in Japan, will be promoted in national commercial

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Our readers may recall that Start Today Co. Ltd, the operator of Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown, launched its ‘Wear’ app back in October. The application is a fashion coordination search service, letting you save photos of clothes, upload pictures of your own styles, or scan barcodes when you show to get detailed information about an item. In participating stores, you can even buy that item online at Zozotown. Start Today is announcing (today) that the Wear app has surpassed a million downloads, and they’ll be running a promotional commercial for Wear here in Japan starting on March 19th. We’re interpreting this as a sign that the app is off to a reasonably good start, in spite of initial resistance from some local retailers over its showrooming features.

Our readers may recall that Start Today Co. Ltd, the operator of Japanese fashion commerce giant Zozotown, launched its ‘Wear’ app back in October. The application is a fashion coordination search service, letting you save photos of clothes, upload pictures of your own styles, or scan barcodes when you show to get detailed information about an item. In participating stores, you can even buy that item online at Zozotown.

Start Today is announcing (today) that the Wear app has surpassed a million downloads, and they’ll be running a promotional commercial for Wear here in Japan starting on March 19th. We’re interpreting this as a sign that the app is off to a reasonably good start, in spite of initial resistance from some local retailers over its showrooming features.

Japan’s Smart Auction is a destination for fashionable working ladies

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A few days ago, Yahoo Auction here in Japan made transactions free for individual users. The company is also getting rid of the 18,900 yen (roughly $194) monthly fee for store-owners. With more and more competitors joining the second-hand products market, this is Yahoo’s attempt to retain the users it already has. But that is not stopping other companies from joining the already busy market. A new auction app called Smaoku (a short for ‘smart auction’) was released at the beginning of this month, targeting working women in their 20s and 30s. Many such women have busy lives, and some don’t even have the time to organize their closet. But many are willing to consider an online auction as a way to clear out their closet and get some extra cash in the process. But many online auctions have problems like poor usability, and offline options like pawn shops leave no room for price negotiation. These problems have resulted in an opportunity for services like Smaoku. Any women over 20 can open their own store on Smaoku, uploading photos taken with their smartphones. The service is invite-only for now, with the limited user base already buying and selling high-end brand…

Smart Auction

A few days ago, Yahoo Auction here in Japan made transactions free for individual users. The company is also getting rid of the 18,900 yen (roughly $194) monthly fee for store-owners. With more and more competitors joining the second-hand products market, this is Yahoo’s attempt to retain the users it already has. But that is not stopping other companies from joining the already busy market. A new auction app called Smaoku (a short for ‘smart auction’) was released at the beginning of this month, targeting working women in their 20s and 30s.

Many such women have busy lives, and some don’t even have the time to organize their closet. But many are willing to consider an online auction as a way to clear out their closet and get some extra cash in the process. But many online auctions have problems like poor usability, and offline options like pawn shops leave no room for price negotiation. These problems have resulted in an opportunity for services like Smaoku.

Any women over 20 can open their own store on Smaoku, uploading photos taken with their smartphones. The service is invite-only for now, with the limited user base already buying and selling high-end brand products.

We had a chance to speak with Daisaku Harada, the CEO of Zawatt, the company behind Smaoku. When asked about the major differentiator between other flea market apps and this one, he explained:

Flea markets and auctions are two different things that provides completely different user experiences. Flea markets are about the fun of being a pretend store owner, and it’s also about communication. So its [generally] suited for younger people. But auction are about excitement and a game-like feeling where sellers try to find the most appropriate price to sell at. Smaoku is an auction site, which we designed to satisfy busy working women with no extra time on their hands.

Smaoku plans to officially go live at the beginning of November, and in December they’ll roll out an Android app. It is a member of KDDI Labo, and Zawatt will leverage KDDI’s marketing and business development experience to enhance its product.

Zawatt-team
Team Zawatt strikes a playful pose

Japan’s Stulio is a flea market app for fashionistas

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For a while now, we’ve seen much hype around mobile flea market apps in the Japanese startup space. Many companies are eager to grab a piece of this second-hand clothing market, as we see increasing demand as people transitioning to mobile from desktop auction websites such as Yahoo Auction and Mobaoku. Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities. Stulio is one such flea market app. It started off as a photo-sharing app, and at the end of September the company announced its jump to become a fashion e-commerce app. Users can purchase each others’ used items as well as exclusive items by popular models and celebrities. In addition to selling used clothes, the app also sells new clothes from fashion brands such as Wildfox and Moussy. The company behind Stulio is a joint venture of Enigmo, Stulio. Enigmo went public in June of last year, is the operator of Buyma. That service has 40,000 users (as of June 2013) from all over the world who can function as buyers, acting as a means to access to high-end global brands for more affordable prices than department stores. We had a chance to speak with the…

stulio-lead

For a while now, we’ve seen much hype around mobile flea market apps in the Japanese startup space. Many companies are eager to grab a piece of this second-hand clothing market, as we see increasing demand as people transitioning to mobile from desktop auction websites such as Yahoo Auction and Mobaoku.

Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities.

Stulio is one such flea market app. It started off as a photo-sharing app, and at the end of September the company announced its jump to become a fashion e-commerce app. Users can purchase each others’ used items as well as exclusive items by popular models and celebrities.

In addition to selling used clothes, the app also sells new clothes from fashion brands such as Wildfox and Moussy.

The company behind Stulio is a joint venture of Enigmo, Stulio. Enigmo went public in June of last year, is the operator of Buyma. That service has 40,000 users (as of June 2013) from all over the world who can function as buyers, acting as a means to access to high-end global brands for more affordable prices than department stores.

We had a chance to speak with the CEO of Stulio, Hirokuni Miyaji. He elaborates on the pivot of the app.

Stulio was initially developed by Enigmo and I took over back in July of 2012. I had always wanted to develop a flea market app so it was a great opportunity. To describe it in simple terms, Stulio is a flea market app that is used by fashionistas and celebrities.

The updated version of the app was released in September where we added official accounts by popular models and brands. What differentiates our app from other flea market apps is that the average price of sold items are around 30,000 yen to 50,000 yen which is much higher compared to other apps.

Stulio’s strategy to acquiring more users is to be active offline and to leverage a sort of Ameba-like tactic by having fashion influencers join, which then helps them reach the mainstream. The company recently opened a pop-up shop at Lafore Harajyuku where it held a renewal party with many notable guests.

Miyaji says the company is going to focus on building a fashion platform for now. But in the near future, it plans to launch its own line of fashion brand as well as expand to the wider Asian market.

Stulio-app

Japan’s Snapeee to host fashion event in Taiwan

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See the original story in Japanese. Snapeee is a Japanese photo-sharing app serving more than five million users worldwide. Mind Palette, the startup behind the app, announced today it that it is planning to hold a promotional event featuring runway shows and music live performances for its fans in Taiwan. The event is called Snapeee Fes and it will take place on September 14th at ATT Show Box, Taipei, Taiwan. In addition to serving individual users, the service has set up corporate accounts for apparel brands and fashion magazines. According to the startup, one of the most popular users has so far earned 1.3 million followers on the platform. The event will be the first chance for the startup to promote their service, which has a very distinct Japanese ‘kawaii’ flavor. They will invite popular Japanese models like Tina Tamashiro and Yuka Mizuhara, as well as prominent Japanese fashion brands like Vivi, Peach John, and WeGo. 70% of Snapeee’s users comes from Japan, Taiwan, and the rest of the Asian region, and they tend to be mostly female. In Taiwan in particular, the user base includes many fashion bloggers or models who are conscious about the Kawaii fashion trend. The startup…

snapeee-fes


See the original story in Japanese.

Snapeee is a Japanese photo-sharing app serving more than five million users worldwide. Mind Palette, the startup behind the app, announced today it that it is planning to hold a promotional event featuring runway shows and music live performances for its fans in Taiwan. The event is called Snapeee Fes and it will take place on September 14th at ATT Show Box, Taipei, Taiwan.

In addition to serving individual users, the service has set up corporate accounts for apparel brands and fashion magazines. According to the startup, one of the most popular users has so far earned 1.3 million followers on the platform.

The event will be the first chance for the startup to promote their service, which has a very distinct Japanese ‘kawaii’ flavor. They will invite popular Japanese models like Tina Tamashiro and Yuka Mizuhara, as well as prominent Japanese fashion brands like Vivi, Peach John, and WeGo.

70% of Snapeee’s users comes from Japan, Taiwan, and the rest of the Asian region, and they tend to be mostly female. In Taiwan in particular, the user base includes many fashion bloggers or models who are conscious about the Kawaii fashion trend. The startup expects to keep organizing such kind of events in order to establish a solid brand image in the region.

How a Japanese women’s magazine is using Google+ to find its next top model

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CanCam is a women’s fashion magazine from publishing house Shogakukan, first published in 1982. The magazine is wildly popular among girls, especially those in their early 20s. The magazine’s circulation was high as 800,000 back in 2006, but it has declined since then. Its popularity was largely due to three popular models who appeared on the cover at the time. And now the magazine is searching for its next-generation model online. To be precise, they’re looking on Google+. Anyone over the age of 13 can participate in the contest [1], simply by posting photos of themselves with the dedicated #cancam hashtag. The magazine’s editors are looking for more than just girls who can pose, but also someone with a mix of talents such as styling, editing, and self-expression. The number of +1s a girl receives in a given day is taken into consideration as the magazine chooses one girl per day. Generally speaking, there are two types of girls/womens’ magazines in Japan: Aomoji and Akamoji. Aomoji are magazine that encourage girls to express themselves uniquely, and Harajuku street magazines or Kyary PamyuPamyu would fall under this category. But CanCam is the latter type, focusing more about whether or not boys…

CanCam-plus

CanCam is a women’s fashion magazine from publishing house Shogakukan, first published in 1982. The magazine is wildly popular among girls, especially those in their early 20s. The magazine’s circulation was high as 800,000 back in 2006, but it has declined since then.

Its popularity was largely due to three popular models who appeared on the cover at the time. And now the magazine is searching for its next-generation model online. To be precise, they’re looking on Google+.

Anyone over the age of 13 can participate in the contest [1], simply by posting photos of themselves with the dedicated #cancam hashtag. The magazine’s editors are looking for more than just girls who can pose, but also someone with a mix of talents such as styling, editing, and self-expression. The number of +1s a girl receives in a given day is taken into consideration as the magazine chooses one girl per day.

Generally speaking, there are two types of girls/womens’ magazines in Japan: Aomoji and Akamoji. Aomoji are magazine that encourage girls to express themselves uniquely, and Harajuku street magazines or Kyary PamyuPamyu would fall under this category. But CanCam is the latter type, focusing more about whether or not boys will like them. So in that sense, Google Plus is a sensible choice for the magazine. Looking at the comments on the model’s pictures, it’s not surprising that many of them are boys.

CanCam’s next generation model audition will start on July 23rd and will run for 100 days. The final winner will receive a 10 million yen contract fee (about $100,000). If you’d like to follow along, you can check out CanCam Plus to see how the audition is going.

On a related note, Google+ has previously been leveraged by Japanese girl supergroup AKB48, as we mentioned in a past article.


  1. Being a Japanese national is not an requirement.  ↩

Japanese fashion-focused startup Youtfit raises $310,000 from Incubate Fund

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See the original story in Japanese. Japanese fashion startup Youtfit today announced that it has raised 30 million yen (approximately $310,000) from Tokyo-based Incubate Fund. The startup is known for having started Japan Style, a magazine-like mobile app targeting the Asia region. In addition, the company launched a social fashion app (also called Youtfit) back in May of 2012, allowing users to post and share their outfits. Available in Japanese, Thai, and English, the app also allows you to evaluate other users’ posts with a five-step evaluation system, with cute, sexy, cool, elegant, and unique being the chosen criteria. With these new funds, the company expects to strengthen their management base, and improve the value offered by the Youtfit and Japan Style apps. Prior to this funding, the startup raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Japanese incubator NetAge. The Youtfit app is available on the App Store if you’d like to give it a try.

Youtfit-logo

See the original story in Japanese.

Japanese fashion startup Youtfit today announced that it has raised 30 million yen (approximately $310,000) from Tokyo-based Incubate Fund. The startup is known for having started Japan Style, a magazine-like mobile app targeting the Asia region.

In addition, the company launched a social fashion app (also called Youtfit) back in May of 2012, allowing users to post and share their outfits. Available in Japanese, Thai, and English, the app also allows you to evaluate other users’ posts with a five-step evaluation system, with cute, sexy, cool, elegant, and unique being the chosen criteria.

With these new funds, the company expects to strengthen their management base, and improve the value offered by the Youtfit and Japan Style apps.

Prior to this funding, the startup raised an undisclosed amount of funds from Japanese incubator NetAge.

The Youtfit app is available on the App Store if you’d like to give it a try.

Youtfit

Fashion commerce is heating up in Japan

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Fashion commerce is a fast-growing industry in Japan, a 104 billion yen market (over a billion dollars) according to the nation’s Ministry of Economy. Many companies are trying to get a piece of this very fruitful internet sector. And here are just a few of the ones that have caught our eyes recently. Emoclo Marketplace is a shopping site that works similar to Locondo, allowing users to try on clothes before they buy. Users can try clothes at home and send them back (at no cost) if they don’t meet expectations. You can buy up to five items at once and have a week to decide. At the time of launch, there are over ten fashion shops on Emoclo, with over 500 items available. We previously mentioned popular fashion site Zozotown in our previous article about Japan’s hottest online shopping malls. The company is expected to release its Wear app sometime soon, and that will certainly help its mobile strategy (see their promo video below). The app allows users to archive items that they like in offline shops by scanning the price tag, and then sharing and discussing these fashion items with other users. Another Japanese fashion e-commerce service with…

zozotown-wearapp-scan

Fashion commerce is a fast-growing industry in Japan, a 104 billion yen market (over a billion dollars) according to the nation’s Ministry of Economy. Many companies are trying to get a piece of this very fruitful internet sector. And here are just a few of the ones that have caught our eyes recently.

Emoclo Marketplace is a shopping site that works similar to Locondo, allowing users to try on clothes before they buy. Users can try clothes at home and send them back (at no cost) if they don’t meet expectations. You can buy up to five items at once and have a week to decide. At the time of launch, there are over ten fashion shops on Emoclo, with over 500 items available.

We previously mentioned popular fashion site Zozotown in our previous article about Japan’s hottest online shopping malls. The company is expected to release its Wear app sometime soon, and that will certainly help its mobile strategy (see their promo video below). The app allows users to archive items that they like in offline shops by scanning the price tag, and then sharing and discussing these fashion items with other users.

Another Japanese fashion e-commerce service with a long history is Buyma. It launched back 2004 and will expand to the U.S. market as Avenue K. At Buyma, Japanese people who reside in overseas countries function as local buyers. Imported brand items are often more expensive in Japan, but by using Buyma, people in Japan have access to the most recent items that have not yet been sold in Japan — and at a cheaper price too. Avenue K will be operated by their partner ImageNetwork. Beyond Japan, Buyma has already expanded to Korea.

These are just a few of the companies that are active in online fashion these days. Hopefully in the future we can continue to tell you about even more.

Japan’s e-commerce service Locondo raises $6.3 million from Excite Japan and VC firms

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See the original story in Japanese. Locondo is a shoes and fashion e-commerce service that says it allows consumers to ‘buy first and than choose.’ Readers may recall that we recently featured the company after it partnered with Spanish brand Desigual. Locondo announced today it has just wrapped up series B funding worth 600 million yen (approximately $6.3 million) from leading Japanese web portal Excite Japan, Lead Capital Management (LCM), and Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV). LCM and ITV previously invested in the company in the series A round. Locondo was launched back in February of 2011 and has acquired more than 300,000 users with an annual turnover of 3 billion yen ($31 million) by using the strategy of easy refunds with free shipping and handling. By partnering with Excite Japan, the e-commerce company aspires to increase its user base by reaching the portal site’s 50 million monthly visitors. The two companies also plan to integrate their e-commerce platforms and cooperate on developing new services and features.

locondo

See the original story in Japanese.

Locondo is a shoes and fashion e-commerce service that says it allows consumers to ‘buy first and than choose.’ Readers may recall that we recently featured the company after it partnered with Spanish brand Desigual.

Locondo announced today it has just wrapped up series B funding worth 600 million yen (approximately $6.3 million) from leading Japanese web portal Excite Japan, Lead Capital Management (LCM), and Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV). LCM and ITV previously invested in the company in the series A round.

Locondo was launched back in February of 2011 and has acquired more than 300,000 users with an annual turnover of 3 billion yen ($31 million) by using the strategy of easy refunds with free shipping and handling.

By partnering with Excite Japan, the e-commerce company aspires to increase its user base by reaching the portal site’s 50 million monthly visitors. The two companies also plan to integrate their e-commerce platforms and cooperate on developing new services and features.