Michelle Lomas
Hey there hustlers. Welcome back to another episode of Flex Your Hustle. I'm your host, Michelle Lomas, and this week I got the pleasure to sit down in the studio with Sam Wood, the CEO and co-founder of Azura Fashion Group. You might be forgiven for thinking Azura Fashion Group is all about, well, fashion that as our discussion will uncover Azura is so much more than that.
Samuel Wood
Perfect. No, thanks for having me. So I'm Sam Wood. I'm the CEO and founder of Azura Fashion Group, and I founded it with my business partner, Tim Law. We founded Azura Fashion Group on the back of Burberry, Louis Vuitton Prada getting done for burning their excess stock and destroying all these, all their excess stock to keep it out of the hands of discounters and to keep their the brand a premium.
Michelle Lomas
For the listeners. There might not be people who know about this. So explain like what happened. 'Cause this was huge news and I was working in New York at the time in a fashion house and it was all of a sudden we had people walking around in the fashion house not wearing like Burberry for instance, and some of the brands that were really called out for this.
Samuel Wood
Yeah, definitely. So I guess the one that we kind really zoomed in on was Burberry. Basically, they were holding stock back from wholesalers and retailers because they didn't want the Burberry name to be tarnished by discounting it all.
Samuel Wood
Nike were part of this, Prada, Louis Vuitton. There were a number of brands that were part of this. And this was all over the news that went, when it came out and we were talking with a a retailer as well as a supplier that would buy Dolce and Gabana in bulk, during that time.
Michelle Lomas
Partnering with them. Great.
Samuel Wood
So we started partnering with the likes of eBay, Amazon and Catch of the Day first in Australia to test that market.
Michelle Lomas
Incredible. The scale of which you guys have grown in such a short period of time. I'm really interested in how you sort of started out as this retailer and then very quickly pivoted to partnering with other retailers and being almost like I guess, the backend feel that you know, of, of all the products that they sell.
Samuel Wood
We kind of pivoted from almost day one. We worked out in, when we were doing the business plan that doing Google Shopping was never gonna be a viable option. Just because of kind of the cost per click and everything with these brand terms.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. Great. If you can't beat them, join them.
Michelle Lomas
And I like the fact you didn't hold onto you know, your own site. You kind of went well, no. Like, that's just a distraction. Let's just focus on these partnerships. The interesting part of your business is you're kind of like a tech platform and you use a lot of data to be able to discern what's gonna work where.
Samuel Wood
Yeah, exactly. That was probably the biggest hurdle that we came across when we first started. Especially for when we were buying from wholesalers or the number one distributor, a lot of them would be line items where there'd be very little data in the actual data feeds, for the products. So for example, it would be a Armani Black T-shirt. It wouldn't have anything like crew cut, it wouldn't have polo, it wouldn't have, the size would be in Italian. It would have it wouldn't have the material with it. It would be very basic. So we used different technologies and data to transform that and build that out and work out all right that we needed to convert Italian sizing to international sizing or we needed to convert Italian sizing to US sizing, australian sizing, UK sizing 'cause as we grew the business, we decided to branch out internationally.
Samuel Wood
Another pre-loved bag.
Samuel Wood
And again, it's powered by Farfetch.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah, let's talk about that. I know that's your new passion project, so let's talk about it. Where'd you get there? Is this a nice evolution? How's it going for you? And maybe for people listening as well, like how can they get access to some of it?
Samuel Wood
Yeah. So middle of last year we launched Azura buyback, sorry, azura Pre-loved, which was our pre-loved fashion which was only luxury pre-loved, so the Chanels, the Louis Vuittons, the Pradas, gucci's all the pre-loved bags. And then we've slowly rolled that out to incorporate clothing. And we partnered with The Iconic middle of last year.
Samuel Wood
Fashion in general is continuing to stabilise, not growing too much. But luxury pre-loved fashion is growing at 16 times.
Michelle Lomas
Isn't that incredible?
Samuel Wood
It's huge. It is growing from a standing start, but it is growing at,
Michelle Lomas
It's so great.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. Excellent. I'm curious as to know your first round, your first founder piece, you didn't want to do a direct to consumer site, and now you are doing a direct to consumer site. What's the thinking behind that?
Samuel Wood
We just found that there was no one really doing pre-loved well in Australia. And we saw the opportunity where even through the year of Covid for us, pre-loved fashion just climbed and climbed in terms of market share for us we are now connected to boutiques and auction houses and Farfetch and now Neta Porter that where we buy leather, luxury fashion, pre-loved.
Samuel Wood
On Azura Reborn.
Michelle Lomas
Oh my God the, the women listening are gonna be like, oh my God, what is this site? I'm going on there. Yeah.
Samuel Wood
And it's just a really good piece as well. And I guess going out there and saying, oh, we sell luxury fashion and we sell past season products it is already a good story to go out there and stop this products from any in the landfill.
Michelle Lomas
Interesting. So how are you kind of marketing this? Because there's obviously a lot of messaging involved with this at many levels. The environmental responsibility factor, the access to, to products at cheaper prices, the ability to sort of sell and buy.
Samuel Wood
So we've been quite quiet with the marketing in terms of launching the business. We wanted to get the foundation right. But we've gone through a lot of PR with Marie Claire Magazine. We've gone through Seven News and through other PR outlets to just show the market that we are here and that, that pre-loved is an educational piece more so than just, here's pre-loved, go and buy it. It's more you can monetise your wardrobe or this is the difference it makes on the environment by buying from pre-loved fashion. We also look at different ways of doing social selling. So as I mentioned, we're doing things with influencers in the US and we're starting to do it in Australia where people are coming to our warehouse or office and just doing a live stream and auction of some of the bags we've got there and and we are finding that, especially millennials, they just love that and it's just being able to see it, watch it.
Michelle Lomas
What do they do? They do, what do they, how do they engage?
Samuel Wood
It's just basically how they start. And there's a platform called Get Wanted. There's a little plug. But they go on the site, they upload their credit card.
Michelle Lomas
Oh my god.
Michelle Lomas
It's like telly shopping in the nineties
Samuel Wood
and it is, and it is, and this launched in Asia probably five years ago.
Samuel Wood
And this is how all people shop through Alibaba, Lazada, so it's just rolling out in, into the western world. Yeah. And I'm assuming that it's gonna come to Australia within the next little while.
Samuel Wood
Um, Because it's just way that people shopping now.
Michelle Lomas
What's the adoption of that like at the moment in Australia?
Samuel Wood
In Australia it's been quite slow.
Samuel Wood
In the US it's huge.
Michelle Lomas
It's getting there. I know, I think Amazon and a few others deploy those tactics now as well.
Samuel Wood
They're starting to. Yeah. I think eBay are looking to do it as well.
Samuel Wood
And I know The Iconic are probably looking at this as well, but it, it is something that, that in, especially in the US like you've got Depop, Poshmark, Get Wanted, stockX and they're all doing the same thing. It's how people can really liquidate these bags and someone with a following and it doesn't need to be a following of hundreds of thousands. It just needs to be someone that has a following that knows fashion.
Michelle Lomas
That's fascinating. I don't know, I just feel like we go through so many iterations of the same thing sometimes in marketing, like to hear that we're basically doing buying live on social, the same thing we used to do on TV.
Michelle Lomas
With the lovely lady that would come out with the beautiful pearls that you could buy by calling the number and we're doing it again.
Michelle Lomas
It's, it just baffles me, but it's really interesting. So you guys are you know, you've scaled to global heights, really. What do you think your secret is?
Samuel Wood
We've always been in sales and we've always been in, in trade, so buying and selling and using different commodities. But this has been very much about relationships for us and having these earlier conversations with wholesalers or the, even the brands themselves and finding out where these pain points are.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. It's interesting. I think there'd be a lot of people listening who might be interested and curious about that because there's always kind of, I guess, a desire to keep everything in house, keep my product in house. I'm gonna compete, I'm gonna compete and certainly like with some of these bigger retailers, It's too hard to compete anymore.
Michelle Lomas
We've talked a lot about lots of trends that are happening in fashion, et cetera and shopping. I'm curious to get your perspective on the trends that you're sort of seeing in the affiliate marketing space too. Cause I know you work quite heavily with the Commission Factory team and in the affiliate space.
Samuel Wood
Definitely. And I think when we first launched the business through, with the Azura Runway, which was all our kind of the new products and the off season products Google Shopping, and paid social was just wasn't quite an option for us because of how competitive it was and the kind of brands that we were selling.
Samuel Wood
Through paid socials or paid marketing.
Michelle Lomas
I love that. I think there's such a misconception with affiliate marketing that it can't be creative and it can't be content led and it can't be collaborative like that.
Michelle Lomas
Fascinating.
Samuel Wood
Um, And we would basically be the backend behind it. And doing that, and we're finding there's a lot of companies popping up that are doing that through affiliate marketing.
Michelle Lomas
That's super interesting. And for a consumer they wouldn't know the difference, right?
Samuel Wood
No. No, exactly.
Michelle Lomas
They just think they're buying a celebrity brand and something that a celebrity's created when in fact it's not at all.
Michelle Lomas
You are obviously also hugely know, knowledgeable in the kind of consumer buying space and all the trends that are happening. For anyone listening and thinking about, okay, what's next from a how consumers buy and how they shop and their decision making process, what sort of advice do you have them?
Samuel Wood
I think the next 12 months are gonna be quite interesting in terms of how people are going to shop. A lot of people now are looking at AI and looking at being told what to go and buy and how to, and how trends are being done. But I think we are moving away from those Instagram days where, you see something on the Kardashians and you go out and buy it from Zara the next day.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah. Really interesting. It's almost like we've come full circle again it became, very much about price and convenience. Price and convenience, Price and convenience. People are starting to be a little bit more discerning about the products that they're purchasing. Do you think from a, a circular economy standpoint, even just corporate and environmental responsibility, how is that set to grow?
Michelle Lomas
Environmentally friendly.
Samuel Wood
I think every company is looking at ways how they can start going down this, this, this avenue. Mm-hmm. Whether it's the, the satchel bags that they go out in, we've just adopted like a plastic, which is the plastic that's taken outta the ocean to build the satchel bags.
Michelle Lomas
Oh, incredible.
Samuel Wood
So it's going through different pieces like that. Every brand that we speak to is doing something around that model. And I think returns are the biggest headache for all retailers because the return policies and everything else, it, it just, they're just dead stock.
Michelle Lomas
They're doing something about it.
Michelle Lomas
Changing your packaging reselling it. Like those are the little things that can make such a big difference.
Samuel Wood
Definitely. And there's so many partners out there that we found rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
Michelle Lomas
and also create that kind of cool factor for consumers too.
Michelle Lomas
I'm getting something that's limited, it's only out for a short period of time and that's something that I can keep and collect and not feel bad about. I'm buying something cheap that I'm gonna throw out in three months time.
Michelle Lomas
All right, Sam, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story
Michelle Lomas
Really appreciate you coming in and um, good luck with it. I don't think I have to say good luck. You guys are doing great.
Samuel Wood
No, thank you very much. Been great.
Michelle Lomas
Thanks so much for listening to another great episode of Flex Your Hustle. I don't know about you, but this has certainly inspired me to be a little bit more mindful about how I shop and how I research my products. Next week we have another great episode to get inspired by. Here's a sneak peek.
Isabella Cavallaro
I think it's important when it comes to your affiliate program to work with affiliates that you can't necessarily implement in-house. So say for example, you wanna target students and that's really difficult to implement in-house, perhaps consider a student partner that has access to do that.
Michelle Lomas
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