Kiabza is a reseller Marketplace for customers to buy and sell authentic branded and hand-picked pre-owned fashion. The way it works is that sellers consign their unwanted but gently used or unused products such as clothing, bags and footwear. Broadly, the product assortment is divided into four categories – Premium, Luxury, High Street and Fast Fashion brands. Kiabza at present has 3000+ approved brands listed on its website. Since its inception in 2017, Kiabza has worked on and around circularity. Notably, it also partners with budding designers, who through creative upcycling processes, give a new, fashionable life to pre-owned clothing and create exclusive refashioned pieces which are truly unique and original.
Technology is the backbone of the Re-commence Platform
The use of tech in the fashion industry is growing and is responsible partially for revenue growth. Kiabza too uses tech in different segments aligning day-to-day activities to help run its business better. However, there are still a good number of operational processes where tech can be integrated making the systems productive and ethical.
Customised price estimator tool provides sellers with pay-out valuations
Sellers look for the best price and a reseller, a brand or retailer/e-tailer wants to be aware of the different pay-out options available when listing items for sale on a website. Kiabza’s ‘Price Estimator Tool’ is an excellent resource for determining how much earnings one can anticipate from the sale of an item on the website. This tool takes into account the current market value of the item, as well as any fees associated with selling it on the website. The Price Estimator Tool is one of the most useful integrations which helps the customer with pay-out expectations.
Our sellers encounter the Price Estimator Tool, where the website displays the estimated pay-outs. As soon as a product is sold, the seller is automatically notified and the payment is transferred to his or her bank account.
Additionally, from a company point of view, the price estimator tools also segregate the product on the basis of (four) different categories such as brands, product category, gender and condition (Tag, Without Tag and Gently Used).
Logistics and Warehousing leverage the overall seamlessness
Once the product is finalised, the well-integrated backend automatically gets notified via APIs of the said pickup and the same is arranged at the seller’s convenience through trustworthy partners.
The pickup from the seller’s house is important and the logistics partners play a very crucial role in this. The well-integrated backend automatically notifies via integrated APIs of the said pick-up and the same is arranged at per seller’s convenience. Kiabza takes responsibility for shipping and delivery. “We usually tie up with trustworthy logistic partners who deliver the products to customers all over India. Resellers do not have to worry about the logistics or the delivery.”
Notably, as soon as the products arrive at the warehouse, the SKUs are generated using the SKU generator tool that we had customised with the help of our tech solution providers. The unique combination of alphanumeric codes identifies a product and helps our retail business track inventory. For SKU generation, we typically utilise POS software.
Kiabza as a company is based on tech to streamline its processes and give its customers the best possible experience. It uses tech to help simplify its own in-house processes and as a company, it believes that tech is the future and helps make everyone’s life easier. Kiabza also believes in a green future for fashion and has tech in place to show how good it is for the environment.
Process integration for the Buyer’s and Seller’s Interface
Seller’s Interface – Through an in-built pricing algorithm, the seller’s products are auto-priced based on the profile, quality and condition of each SKU. The status and pricing of each product are automatically communicated to the seller by the back-end software. Following the seller’s approval, the approved products are sent for quality control, hygiene inspection and photography. The software uses the individual SKU number provided for each product to track the status of each. The software seamlessly uploads photographed products and their attributes on the website.
Buyer’s Interface – Orders punched are auto-received in the back-end software, with our loyalty tier system. The members of our top tiers have priority on their orders and those get dispatched faster. Additionally, buyers are auto-notified about dispatches and given a tracking number to track their orders online. Each buyer’s Loyalty account is credited with reward points on a successful transaction, one reward point equalling one rupee, basis their tier level. These points can be used by them to claim discounts on future orders. Kiabza also shows its buyers how much water and carbon they have saved by buying preowned.
The loyalty programme has increased the number of sellers. Kiabza offers its sellers incentives in the form of special discounts and coupons. Products that have been approved are automatically uploaded to the seller’s account on the site and the seller can check the status of their products by logging into their account at any time. Each approved product automatically credits a seller’s Loyalty account with reward points, which they can use on Kiabza while shopping. The conduct of each Loyalty account is tracked by the software basis their shopping/ consignment pattern and its status is auto-upgraded/downgraded basis the performance of the account
Our future technology deployments are currently underway
The penetration of the internet in India and ever-evolving technologies has disrupted traditional models of ‘Ownership’ and this has enabled ‘User-ship’ across a number of different product categories, including fashion. We as a brand eventually would like to integrate and deploy most of these on their platform and in their internal processes such as RFID, AR/VR, and 3D technologies in the future including the launch of applications.
Using RFID instead of Barcoding: This helps track inventory faster, keeps a check on slow-moving and non-moving inventory and provides an early warning of a stock-out situation. It would also help keep an eye on spotting counterfeit products.
Using Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) tech: This helps create digital experiences and ‘in-store’ experiences online for the user. For example, Converse has a technology in which the buyer can choose a shoe and just by pointing a camera down at their feet, they can see how the shoe will look like on them. We are working on a similar technology for clothes as well in which somebody can choose the product they like and see it on themselves just by pointing the camera at themselves.
Using AR/VR in Marketing: Create virtual or augmented experiences that delight consumers like an AR pop-up, interactive catalogue or VR recreation of a store or boutique.
Using 3D technology: 3D visualisation tools will help identify customers’ body shapes and suggest clothing sizes. This tech will help bring down Kiabza’s Return rate on account of Sizing by 70 per cent. Again, a camera button that can be added next to the search bar on a mobile website or app will allow shoppers to upload images of their favourite styles through the button, and then see looks inspired by those images on the brand’s site and we are working on this holistic idea.
“In order to customise a user’s shopping experience further, Kiabza has set up its Instagram store to market its products directly to its users and followers. Kiabza uploads a few reels every week of its ‘New Arrivals’ and ‘Drops’ on its website and encourages visitors to check for any attribute of the offered product in-house and payment links are shared online for the customers to make payments seamlessly on any order request. We have also done a few experiments by providing a live shopping experience to customers using the Instagram Livestream feature.”
Employ Digital assistants on Kiabza’s platform: Digital Assistant has lot of personalisation potential in fashion. As visual search and recommendation systems improve with AI, users will be able to send bot stylists photos of items they like and get suggestions for similar items.
Kiabza believes that branded products retain value over time as a result of their enduring desirability and durability. The company is well-positioned to benefit from favourable industry and consumer trends, as well as ever-changing technology. The company can provide hyper-personalised products and experiences while also catering to a consumer-led sustainability push.
