INFORMA TEAMS UP WITH NUORDER ON DIGITAL TRADESHOWS
Informa Markets Fashion, the parent company of Project and Coterie trade shows, has teamed up with wholesale e-commerce platform NuOrder to launch a digital tradeshow experience.
NuOrder said it will power the future of Informa’s digital trade events that will run alongside its physical shows, the first of which will launch with men’s in August followed by women’s in September.
The partnership will bring an already established and highly-curated marketplace to a virtual environment, accelerating connection and commerce for both brands and retailers.
Brands will be able to tap into NuOrder’s advanced digital capabilities, including custom digital catalogs, line sheets, in-platform ordering, and the latest interactive 360-degree Virtual Showroom technology, to more accurately tell their brand story and virtually present new collections.
Retail buyers will now be able to more easily and efficiently discover, connect, and do business with new brand partners through category and price point search functionalities, access to curated content and relevant product recommendations, and in-platform order placement.
“We see this as an important next step in the evolution of our business, and the fashion industry as a whole,” said Nancy Walsh, president of Informa Fashion Markets. “The live event experience is irreplaceable; fashion, in particular, is a very tactile business—buyers want to feel fabrics in their own hands and see colors with their own eyes. But we also believe that the future of fashion wholesale is a synergy of physical and digital. Our first step in this direction is our partnership with NuOrder and the digital tradeshow we will debut this year, which we believe will help translate the experience of discovery and connection that is at the heart of our physical events to a new and exciting virtual environment.”
“Both NuOrder and Informa are market leaders and we are excited to power the largest global platform for fashion brands and buyers,” added Heath Wells, co-founder and co-CEO of NuOrder. “Our partnership marks a defining moment in the industry solving real customer needs at a critical time. This is the beginning of a new era for fashion markets and the standard for discovery and commerce moving forward.”
A few important issues that will help immensely for the success of this virtual show concept for all parties involved.
(1) The first important comment from almost every buyer is “I need to feel what I’m buying”, so there must be a way to zoom so extremely close to whatever garment or item of interest, so you can seriously view the fabrics up very close. Adding even a live short video showing the softness, so customers can actually see and hear from the model wearing the garment how soft each product actually looks and feels.
(2) How something actually fits is also very key, so showing each item worn by a model or two (even different size model statures) would also allow the buyers to feel more confident it the fit and look of each item being shown and offered on multiple size and shapes of regular people.
(3) Also, a very important “no issue return policy” if needed, so your customers will feel even more confident in trying and buying something with this new virtually platform. You need Instilling confidence early in this new way of selling that will take some time, but this is totally the future.
I believe the old school trade shows will come back, but differently, the cost of flying around the worlds markets, with retail businesses not the same volume for maybe some time. This virtual concept allows one to see entire collections from all trade shows globally while sitting in you own office or even from home. 😎 Now all they have to figure out is how to virtually show me walking down every isle as I always do saying hi to everyone and stopping for an occasional warm embrace.. ♥️