TheDrop, the first direct-to-consumer retail platform for the global streetwear market with the largest online selection of streetwear brands, has entered into its second year. Founded in 2017, TheDrop has become a central point for consumers to connect with their favourite streetwear brands, allowing discovery of new brands hitting the market everyday.
Going beyond the standard marketplace model, TheDrop is powered by DAISI, a proprietary data aggregation, integration, and synchronisation layer. Utilising this technology on TheDrop will pave the way for future opportunities to monetise data back to the streetwear industry.TheDrop, the first direct-to-consumer retail platform for the global streetwear market with the largest online selection of streetwear brands, has entered into its second year. Founded in 2017, TheDrop has become a central point for consumers to connect with their favourite streetwear brands, allowing discovery of new brands hitting the market everyday.#
Foraying into the second year of business, TheDrop currently hosts an inventory of over 85,000 active SKUs which is confirmed as double the inventory of any online streetwear retailer. Focusing on Men's, Women's and Kids categories primarily, the TheDrop also caters to the Skate, Home, and Tech and Gadgetry categories. By focusing on what is relevant to the Streetwear consumer and not just specific categories, TheDrop's agility to adjust to trends is not able to be matched by online retailers with heavy inventory risk. This diverse offering and agility have played an integral role in the growth of the platform which surpassed its own goals in year one (2018).
The next generation DtC retail platform replaces big retail online with a platform populated with the inventory of 100's of brands, allowing them for the first time ever to control their pricing, realise direct margins, and have the stories behind their brand, collections, and collaborations to be told within a niche 'retail' environment. By balancing the storytelling of the unique collections from the big brands along with those of the younger, next generation brands, TheDrop has established itself as the primary point of discovery for the streetwear consumer.
"With most large retailers going bankrupt the last few years and while consumer demand continued to increase, brands large and small realised that Direct-to-Consumer strategies needed to represent a larger percentage of their sales mix. Public brands such as Nike and Adidas have stated this intent publicly numerous times. And with Supreme being the model that most brands aspire to be, yet with few understanding what it really takes to get there, and combined with the fact that the streetwear consumer is a multi-brand consumer, we saw an opportunity to replace big retail online. Our approach is one that always focuses on the newest product and brands hitting the market, so we really don't push discounted product even though we have plenty of discounted product buried in TheDrop."
With a domestic reach and 8-figure sales estimated in 2019, 100 per cent of TheDrop's sales support the Direct-to-Consumer strategies of the premium streetwear, sneaker, and skateboard brands in the market. By centralising a customer destination, TheDrop has made the discovery of global brands and trends seamless for customers in a short amount of time, maximising customer engagement and sell through.
"TheDrop.com is coming to market with similar timing as iTunes did to a music industry where the consumer embraced technology (mp3's) faster than the music industry itself. Today, the Streetwear consumer lives with their phone in their hands, yet most of the 1,000+ brands in our industry would not consider themselves as tech or digitally savvy. This is where TheDrop helps brands ramp faster and reach an audience they normally would not reach. A customer looking for adidas originals could end up discovering a young brand like Clearweather, for example. Clearweather isn't able to connect with that adidas visitor like we can and this affinity data will be powerful in constantly introducing the Streetwear consumer to the newest, hottest Streetwear and Sneakers dropping at any given time".
The 100's of brand commitments on TheDrop are a wide range of product offerings from Clearweather, CLAE, Ewing and Forwin to Staple, Official, Reason, and Riot Society. (SV)
ALCHEMPro News Desk – India
marketing@alchempro.com
