Funding from the new owners of online fashion retailer MyDress.com will be used to expand the brand’s marketing and enable the concept to be expanded across Southeast Asia.
As earlier reported by Inside Retail Hong Kong, Hong Kong publisher SCMP Group paid HK$39.7 million (US$5.12 million) for a 56.65 per cent stake in the business, expanding its growing footprint in the digital media industry.
MyDress was created by Edmund Wong and Leon Lai in 2013 and offers more than 50 brands of mens and womens fast fashion apparel and accessories at affordable prices.
The first big advantage of the deal is the synergy with SCMP Group’s magazine titles including Elle,Esquire and Cosmopolitan which afford opportunities for cross-promotion, content sharing and integrating their respective communities on social media.
In an interview published in the new co-owner’s flagship, South China Morning Post, Wong said MyDress.com will be working to boost its Hong Kong market share, improve user experience, including customer service, and enhance how the site works on mobile devices.
“The major portion [of new funding will be spent] on marketing. In one way, we have to continue to gain our market share to become the number one in the local market,” Wong said.
Robin Hu, SCMP Group CEO, said the deal allowed his company to gain “a firm foothold in the eCommerce space in Hong Kong and extend along the internet value chain of ‘content-community-commerce’, thus enabling new monetization possibilities”.
Wong said that while the China and Taiwan markets are “saturated” with online fashion retailers, the Southeast Asia market was fragmented and thus offered a strong opportunity for MyDress.com.
He revealed in the interview that the average shopper on MyDress.com spending between HK$500 and $550 per transaction, rising to $700 during winter. The the core demographic is women aged 18-35, but the addition of menswear to the offer would likely bring more males to the site in future, he said. About 90 per cent of sales are to people in Hong Kong at present.
With nearly 70 per cent of sales are via mobiledevices, Wong says MyDress.com is looking to invest in enhancing the its mobile-based IT infrastructure..
“How can we optimise your buying behaviour on such a small device? We have to somehow find a way to show you the items on such a small screen and it’s not easy,” Wong said.
- Read more about MyDress.com’s plans, including its experience with cash on delivery service, in the South China Morning Post feature.
