Kitsy Lane, an e-commerce platform for small fashion businesses and entrepreneurs, launched July 24, says Andy Fox, CEO and founder of the platform.
Fox says the idea for Kitsy Lane came to him when his wife hosted a Stella and Dot trunk show party—during which friends buy jewelry and handbags from a company representative—last year. The idea was to take this Mary Kay-style business model and bring it into the e-commerce realm, Fox says.
“We see this as the next evolution of social commerce,” he says, referring to the concept of face-to-face social commerce.
“It’s a lot more time consuming than you would think,” Fox says of the party-style sales method. “And it’s hard. It’s hard to understand how to sell your product. It’s hard to expand your network.”
That, he says, is where Kitsy Lane comes in. The platform is customizable to feature different fashion-related products and is free to use. Kitsy Lane takes a part of sales made through the site’s interface, he says. All websites are followed by .kitsylane.com, signifying that they are users of the platform.
Each site is called a “boutique” and business owners and participants are called “boutique owners,” he says.
“The way our business works is our boutique owners invite their networks to be a part of their individual store,” he says. “They become a member and they use our platform to market to customers.”
Marketing tools available through Kitsy Lane include email marketing campaigns and the ability to share on Facebook and Twitter. Boutique owners can ask their customers to share with their friends on social networks or to recommend their products, just as they would in a in-real-life environment, Fox says.
Originally, the sites will be optimized for fashion retailers, Fox says. Expansion into other verticals will be introduced in the coming months.
