Passion For Fashion
Video Entry
Business Information
Female Founder:
Ekaterina Richardson
Links:
How has the business been funded to date?
Bootstrapped
Tell us about your business:
Hello, my name is Ekaterina Richardson, and I am a Gold Coast businesswoman and leading digital marketer. I am the Founder of Passion for Fashion, launched in 2023 as an online fashion rental and resale platform that is transforming the way we consume fashion.
Passion for Fashion offers women their dream wardrobe, filled with a curated collection of designer clothes and accessories provided by our network of lenders and available to rent at a fraction of the cost of buying from a boutique.
Why pay a high price for an outfit you might wear only once? The appeal and value of Passion for Fashion is that we are bringing the designer fashion experience to women everywhere.
A special mission and vision underpin Passion for Fashion, namely a more sustainable future in fashion. This is very important to me and is happening via a “buy less, reuse more” approach in which our customers become part of the sharing economy.
How would $5k or $10k enable you to create more profit and impact in your business?
Initial success and growth confirm the demand for Passion for Fashion. I am so delighted at how warmly we have been received by the community and industry. However, we are far from complacent.
Our goal is to build upon that wonderful start by continuing to grow our customer, industry and product base, to share our environmental philosophy, and to become the most user-friendly rental platform in the marketplace.
App development looms as a crucial part of this objective, with the technical advances available today presenting exciting opportunities. To that end, we are already working on the introduction of AI to assist customers with size selection, as well as revamping our backend for lenders.
Other works in progress include integration with Australia Post to make our delivery/collection service even more efficient and convenient. We are also looking to establish a Loyalty Program and to grow our partner network to 80 lenders.
Finally, we have been so busy since starting Passion for Fashion that we have not actually had time for a launch event. We look forward to doing that this year.
Please outline what you would spend the grant on:
We will spend the Grant on the following:
- $2,000 - Revamp backend for lenders: design, notifications and automation workflows, integration with Aus Post to make fulfilment more efficient as well as setting up messaging functionality for lenders / clients
- $3,000 - digital marketing campaign on Pinterest, Google Ads and Instagram as well as ShareASale (affiliate marketing) to drive sales
- $2,000 - PR Launch event with influencers from the Gold Coast and Brisbane to boost visibility and awareness to celebrate the app launch
- $500 - hiring an assistant to help with onboarding and sourcing new partners and consignment partners
- $2,500 - App wireframes and design. Building Australia's first dress and bag hire app.
