ModCloth logo

I’m a designer by trade, not a marketer, but I come from a sales and merchandising past which requires knowledge about how customers think and react to certain stimuli. This helps me to integrate with the marketing team I work with and helps me design with the customer in mind.

And I am the customer. I absolutely hate (HATE!!!) malls and will only shop places that are clean, spacious, not crammed with crazy people and don’t have a scowling face manning the one open cash register with a line out the door. So I shop thrifts, Marshall’s on their slow time, or I go —more than ever— online.

This mirrors the current trend. As consumers get more comfortable spending money on the net, stores will react by creating attractive and user-friendly web stores, which is an entire blog post in itself. But along with attention being paid to creating highly shop-able web stores, we must also pay attention to the growing trend of destination web stores, where tribes, forums and communities of brand-fans thrive. We need to learn how to make web stores more organic.

Be the Buyer at ModCloth!

A strategy I like is from my latest favorite online clothing and accessory store, Modcloth. Modcloth allows you to set up a detailed profile, RSS subscribe, join on Facebook and Twitter, and leave reviews, which is pretty standard fare (if you don’t think so, it’s time to wake up, Rip Van Winkle!). But its “Be the Buyer” program is unique in that it encourages customers to vote on the merchandise Modcloth should carry. Modcloth will then email the voters about the availability of the product they chose to be placed into production. The static customer is now a dynamic participant. Modcloth has invited their customers to be part of their community.

Name It and Win It!

Another program they have is the Name it and Win it contest. Customers contribute names to Modcloth’s newest additions. The Modcloth brand is young, fun, indie and creative. Much like J.Peterman, copy and product names are used in a lyrical narrative that spurs the imagination and creates excitement about the brand. Modcloth invites its customers to be a part of their brand, not just a static observer, by actively creating cool names for the products they may purchase one day. How many companies invite direct participation in such a fun way?

(Don’t even get me started on their Flickr community where customers post pictures of their wicked cool ModCloth threads! Weee!)

Lots of online marketing strategies start out with a few successful formulas but then fear to deviate becomes a habit. But what worked today may not be sustainable tomorrow. While email blasts, free shipping and deep discounts work now, everyone in retail is doing them, and customers will always expect them. It might even cheapen your brand. What made you so different in the first place? Why should your customers be excited by you? (What makes you think you’re so special, huh?) If customers are going to continue to buy merchandise in the fourth dimension of the internet where they can’t pick it up, touch it, or smell it, we need to think of how to give them other ways to connect to it. Going tribal is one way. Modcloth is doing just that.