Broede Carmody/Smart Company
Alyce Tran is the co-founder of The Daily Edited, an online retailer that started out as a fashion and accessories blog. The business has grown rapidly since its early days thanks to a savvy social media strategy. Last financial year, it turned over just under $5 million and snapped up a partnership with David Jones to have its products stocked in-store.
Alyce Tran is the co-founder of The Daily Edited. (Photo: LinkedIn Alyce Tran)
SmartCompany caught up with Tran to find out why she gave up a career as a lawyer and her advice for budding entrepreneurs hoping to find success in the world of online retail.
“The Daily Edited started as a blog where I showcased things that I liked– dresses or homewares – that sort of thing.My co-founder Tania Liu and I launched a clothing line in 2011 and it totally tanked.We had a good time getting great press and it was really fun to see our clothes in magazines, but it was operationally a very difficult business to run. So we let it die its natural death and The Daily Edited went back to being a blog. We build a big following without really trying, and in September [that year] I was shopping for some leather accessories for myself. ‘I thought, who can actually afford this stuff?
I said to Tania, I think we can do this cheaper and provide a good quality product. So we got a few things made and put them on Instagram. They sold within a week, and we thought that was interesting. So we ordered some more things and it snowballed from there.
My advice for doing social media well? Treat it as seriously as you would any other channel. If you were putting together an ad you were paying good money for, you would put money behind it.More people are on Instagram at night than watching TV. So put content up there and put some energy behind it. If you put effort into content, it will be good. People talk about how to do great marketing but marketing comes from serving your customers well.”
To read the full article, click here: http://www.smartcompany.com.au/leadership/profiles/64257-how-alyce-tran-turned-fashion-blog-the-daily-edited-into-a-5-million-online-retail-business-with-products-stocked-in-david-jones/
