Salesforce set to disrupt Fashion, mounts interest in apparel eCommerce.
All in the same week, Salesforce sponsored the Milan Fashion Week and hosted a fireside chat with John Varvatos at the New York Fashion Week. We couldn’t help but wonder if any hints were being dropped.
So, we picked up on that trail to see if something big was on the cards. Here’s what we uncovered.
Striking Unmistakable Interest - Sights set on Fashion eCommerce?
For one thing, these developments are in keeping with the Salesforce tradition of going where the action is.
Unsurprisingly, Commerce Cloud folks have steadily sponsored fashion events for years now. A three trillion-dollar a year industry, the apparel industry is sizable enough to draw attention from online retail giants and get its due space.
Possibly, acquisitions of pioneering fashion think-tanks could be on the cards. Already, Salesforce counts names like Adidas, Boggi Milano, and Brunello Cucinelli as collaborators.
Add to that, the acquisition of Demandware, and it’s easy to picture these developments as part of a grander plan to upsell eCommerce capabilities to Fashion houses using its CRMs. If that’s the case, the apparel industry might see a spike in cloud adoption.
Competition could get a lot stiffer, and popular apparel and eCommerce giants might need to step up their game.
Showstopping Functionality
From experience, we know that Salesforce’s approach is as much about details as it is about big-picture. And Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud went all-in on cultivating the store persona for apparel lines.
- Delivering aesthetic through Lightning
When it comes down to aesthetics, the sharp and revamped Lightning interface is a radical upgrade over the Classic edition.
Moreover, we could see the Salesforce Cloud could augment a 360-degree virtual shopping experience. Also, it could help deliver on the promise of originality and authenticity.
- Immersive, personal, connected, in-store experiences
Going forward, personalized recommendations and fashion-house-like ambiance could be mulled over.
- Digital transformations powered by the commerce cloud
Gives lesser-known brick-and-mortar fashion houses a chance to step into the limelight and carry their offerings online.
- Connecting with instore stylists for designer apparel names
You could contact a fashion advisor to make informed decisions on the latest arrivals.
- Bringing eCommerce to designer wear
Adoption in these niche experiences, traditionally, hinges on connect and exclusive access.
This would need building touchpoints across different channels and bringing the cloud to the store through augmented reality.
Alliances across the board
Increasingly, Salesforce concentrates on bringing on-board the best of Fashion mavens. Thus, it projects itself as a platform capable of maintaining the high customer experience standards that the former often get held to.
Salesforce also collaborates with The National Chamber for Italian fashion, the non-profit representing Italian fashion the world over.
This could prove as vital, now more than ever, given how protectionism stifles collaboration – something essential to creativity and inspiration.
Urging Responsible Fashion through Tech
Contrary to popular perception, humans still make most clothing in the world. While the fashion industry has given the world thought-provoking creativity, the celebration of diversity, and self-expression, it leaves great socio-economic damage in its wake.
Generally, fast fashion comes at the cost of worker emancipation, water resources, cultural representation, waste generation, and patronage for original works.
To combat this, touchpoints need to bring artisans, regulatory bodies and environmentalists to the fore for more responsible and compliant practices.
Salesforce’s 1-1-1 approach to philanthropy and core focus on equality through Equality Groups (WindForce, Earthforce) make it the most worthy contender to shoulder this cause.
Besides this, compliance tools and Saas-CRM capabilities of Salesforce, naturally, could serve as an enabler to meet tech adoption challenges head-on.
A Friendlier Crystal Gaze
Unsurprisingly, we could see Einstein Analytics take on a more prominent role to understand user behavior to suggest personalized catalogs and put the finger on the upcoming trends.
Even more, using generative design to inspire newer ideas could become more accessible to aspiring fashion houses.
Finally, the Salesforce Commerce Cloud could act as a much-needed enabler for compliance to respond to concerns and drive better consumer behavior.
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