Bag Borrow or Steal has a large selection of designer handbags and accessories to match every occasion. All you have to do is find the perfect accessory, enjoy it, return it and repeat. 

Subscribe to The Crowd with these links:

• iTunes
• Stitcher

---

Transcript:

Kevin: Do you have the next great marketplace idea? If so, give Near Me a call. Let’s talk about it.

 

Hi. Welcome to The Crowd, a podcast by Near Me. We’re talking about peer-to-peer marketplaces. We’re talking collaborative economy and we’re talking about thought leadership. We’re talking about all these things, any and all of them with some of the best minds in the field. And of course, I’m your host, Kevin Cohen.

 

Today, we’re going to be talking to Evan Wight. Evan Wight is the Head of Marketing for Bag Borrow or Steal. What is Bag Borrow or Steal? It is a marketplace where you can get handbags from Dior, Louis Vuitton or Gucci at a fraction of the cost. What? What does that mean? How about renting a Chanel bag for 200 bucks a month? Well, that’s what you can do at Bag Borrow or Steal. Let’s jump in to the interview.

 

Hi. I’m your host, Kevin Cohen. I am super excited about today’s interview. Today, I’ll be joined by Evan Wight. Evan is the Head of Marketing at Bag Borrow or Steal. Evan, welcome to the show.

 

Evan: Thank you for having me.

 

Kevin: Awesome. Well, for all our readers that don’t know about Bag Borrow or Steal., what is it?

 

Evan: Well, what we do is allow people to buy, borrow or consign luxury handbags online. We have a philosophy where we believe that everybody, every fashionista should have a pop of luxury in their life.

 

Kevin: Very good. So before we jump in and learn about Bag Borrow or Steal and your journey there, let me ask you some rapid fire questions.

 

Evan: Okay.

 

Kevin: What book do you recommend most often to your friends and co-workers?

 

Evan: I recommend Where The Wild Things Are. I think it’s a great story of monsters and redemption at the end.

 

Kevin: Very good. Where do you spend most of your time online?

 

Evan: I love gossips sites. I love fashion sites. Anything pop-culture related really gets me excited. So yeah, I’m a reality TV lover and all things kind of pop-culture and music.

 

Kevin: Nice. What peer-to-peer marketplaces or services do you use?

 

Evan: I really like Polyvore. I would probably say that they’re my favorite in terms of allowing people that user-generated content but also having that marketplace piece to it as well. I love to go on there and see how people style our bags and what collections they put together with our inventory. So yeah, I spend a lot of time on that site.

 

Kevin: Nice. So what do you do when you’re not working? What do you do for downtime?

 

Evan: Well, I spend a lot of time with my niece and my nephew. We like to go on tour and follow bands between here and the Pacific Northwest down to California. And my greatest role is being an auntie.

 

Kevin: Nice, nice. So give us your back-story. What did you do before you joined Bag Borrow or Steal?

 

Evan: So I’ve been in the Seattle tech community since probably the mid 90s. I have spent a great deal of time in startups, mostly analytic startups. And in between my startups, I worked for agencies and had Fortune 500 million-dollar budgets. So my whole background and everything I’ve learned have really led me to Bag Borrow or Steal. And I’m really excited. This is my dream job. I haven’t been here quite a year yet but I really love the company and I love the people. And it’s just really fun.

 

Kevin: Awesome. So what are some of the challenges in the 10 months that you’ve faced in your tenure at Bag Borrow or Steal?

 

Evan: Well, there’s a couple. First, I think getting in front of sort of the younger audience that doesn’t know necessarily who we are. We’re a company that’s just about 10 years old. And so kids, they were 10 years old when we started and now they’re just getting into college and that’s kind of our ideal customers. So trying to find unique ways of providing content that really leads them to like our brand and to understand kind of what we do. Also getting inventory can be a challenge as well. We’re very selective in the styles and the brands. We can’t always follow trends. And so it can be trouble at times but we have a great merchandising team that does a heck of a job. But yeah, those are a couple of challenges I’ve faced since I’ve been here.

 

Kevin: Let’s go, let’s dig a little deeper on that and let’s talk about the demand side of the equation. What are your primary ways that you drive users in to your marketplace?

 

Evan: So we do – my philosophy in what I do marketing-wise is I build kind of the heartbeat of our marketing program and really that search and display advertising. And so that is always on and we have a great team that’s always in there and optimizing. The second layer is the social piece of it. Fashion just in general is so social and somewhat shared online whether it’s people sharing their personal style or blogging about it. And so really to try to engage those fashionistas and partner with them and get them to be advocates of our brand are really important especially to kind of drive that new younger audience that may not have seen us in Sex in the City movie that we’re in a couple of years ago.

 

But that’s been really fun. I’ve met a lot of really great bloggers. And what I find interesting in this whole situation is that it’s not just about the sharing of goods but we also share our resources. So when I partner with bloggers, we promote back and forth. So it’s really like a collaboration between the people that we partner with. And it’s kind of fun that way too. So we’re sort of putting our money where our mouth is. Not only do we offer goods collaboratively but also the way I’m approaching the marketing follows the same kind of rule set.

 

Kevin: Okay. So in terms of specific social networks, I would assume that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest all play a part in your strategies? Is that correct?

 

Evan: Not as much as Pinterest. We do a lot on Polyvore. So yes, Instagram, definitely Twitter, definitely Facebook. We started a blog, a style blog since I’ve joined the company. But yeah, those are the primary channels.

 

Kevin: Okay. I was curious if you had played with any of the promoted pins on Pinterest that have just recently kind of been coming out.

 

Evan: We haven’t yet. We’re still trying to really get our community engaged and grown. And I have a slim team. So as we can add more things and more social networks and that kind of stuff, we will.

 

Kevin: Right. And when you talk about your team, do you have both internal and external resources? Or is everything in-house?

 

Evan: I have internal and external resources. The nice thing about having worked in Seattle at agencies and smaller companies is that I have a whole slew of people that I have worked with for years and years that we all just kind of follow each other around. And so yeah, some are outsourced and then I do have a small team internally as well.

 

Kevin: Great. And I saw on your profile on LinkedIn that you spent some time at Avenue A which in a lot of ways was the foundation of the digital movement in Seattle from an advertising standpoint. I’m sure a lot of your co-workers and resources came out of that.

 

Evan: Yeah. Definitely. Avenue A was an amazing place to work full of really smart and talented people. It was data bootcamp. And that was great. And what I like about and why I do web marketing is everything is data driven and you can make all your decisions based on the data. And that’s great and it’s fun. And if it weren’t for Avenue A and my background, I definitely wouldn’t be strong in that area.

 

Kevin: Wonderful, wonderful. So in terms of the demand side of the equation, we covered that. But let’s jump over to supply. You said that one of the things that you have to do is to generate supply meaning inventory for your marketplace. How does that look? How do you reach out to someone? How do you connect with them and get them interested in putting their items inside your marketplace?

 

Evan: I think people that own goods tend to skew a bit older and they – we already have the brand recognition with them which is really nice. So it makes that portion of our business rather kind of easy because people come to us. So we don’t have to do a lot of outreach on the kind of the consign and buy side of things. On the borrow side, it’s a little more challenging because you have to take into consideration that this bag is going to be shipped every month or every other month. A person is going to be wearing it. We don’t know how they will take care of it.

 

There are certain trends like the fringe trend for example. It’s really big right now on accessories and that wouldn’t work in our business model because the fringe would come off. So we really have to be very smart and very selective in sort of the trends that we follow when purchasing our inventory for the borrow side of the business. So we like to kind of look for classic styles and brands that kind of stand the test of time and also stand the rigor that a bag goes through while it’s being borrowed.

 

Kevin: Right. So you know your sweet spots it sounds like.

 

Evan: Yes.

 

Kevin: Cool. So in the short time you’ve been there, give us some of your wins. Tell us about some of your campaigns or some of the things that you’ve done that you’re proud of that you can share with us.

 

Evan: Yes. So when I first got here, I had a partnership with the designer called Trina Turk and she is Californian by way of Seattle. And she was launching her handbag line. So what we did is we have some exclusives of her line that you could only get at Bag Borrow or Steal. It was on the borrow side. And so during the Fashion Week back in August, we had celebration at her flagship store in New York City and had a lot of fashionistas come and a lot of bloggers and a lot of press. So that was about within the first six weeks of me starting. And it was really fun and really successful. I was able to come in to kind of this fashion industry which I don’t have a big background in and kind of get to know people that we still work with today. So that was a big win for us kind of straight off the top.

 

Another thing is we launched a blog. I think that’s a great resource for sort of opinion on fashion and we have guest bloggers that write for us. So it’s really great content and kind of gives our opinion on fashion and all things fashionable. We have done a little bit of offline advertising. The interesting sort of quagmire you get when you’re an online only marketplace especially with luxury goods is that people when they shop they kind of like to touch things once in a while. So I feel it was important for us and is important for us to be out physically in the world whether it’s I’m at some trade shows or we’re at different designer stores. So people know that we are a real person and we authenticate all our goods and that there’s a team. It’s not just nobody working for this company and that’s been real important for me to kind of get across too.

 

And then most recently, we’ve started kind of a new campaign around Pop of Luxury. So you have a lot of fashionistas talking about a pop of color in their wardrobe. And what we provide really is that little pop of luxury, like a Chanel bag that someone can take to a wedding or to a reunion that they may not otherwise be able to have. And that little pop of luxury is really important. So you’ll see a lot of that sprinkled into our initiatives going forward.

 

Kevin: Very cool. So what are some of your big to dos for 2015? What are some of the big objectives that you have as a marketer and as a company?

 

Evan: We try not to give away the bank, you know.

 

Kevin: Totally.

 

Evan: We’ll have a focus definitely on mobile. I’m really trying to understand patterns of data so we can start being more informed marketers and be more efficient in our marketing spend and our initiatives. I haven’t been here that long and so it takes a while to sort of get to understand the business as a whole, how it works, how the customers ebb and flow, what they’re interested in. So really, I’ll spend the next couple of months really kind of finessing that, really understanding the business and then allow that to inform our strategies going forward.

 

Kevin: Right, right. Well, you keep on circling the wagon around data. I think that’s really the big piece that – I want to emphasize with people that are looking to start marketplaces and people that have existing marketplaces that data is gold.

 

Evan: Yes.

 

Kevin: I mean it tells you everything you need to know and where to go. And the biggest challenge is you need enough of a sample of data. You need enough traffic. You need enough transactions in order for you to have meaningful data. And so one of the things that we were talking about with potential customers of ours at Near Me is that “hey, you need to have a budget where you can spend some money either doing active social media campaigns and also spending money on paid advertising so that at the beginning you have some meaningful data to make decisions about where you should go to grow and nurture your marketplace.” Would you agree with that?

 

Evan: Absolutely. And I think it’s interesting – like I mentioned I don’t have a fashion background. And Bag Borrow or Steal has typically hired people with fashion backgrounds but I came in data driven and that really appealed to kind of the direction that the C levels in our company are taking the company. So I really fit that because at the end of the day, we’re in ecommerce play and you can track everything. That’s what I love about doing digital marketing is you could track everything, you can celebrate your wins, you can optimize things that aren’t working and it’s a lot of fun.

 

Kevin: Right. Totally. I mean right off the bat, I mean the biggest one that I can think of is optimizing towards the CPA and understanding how you make your money and where you make your money and when you’re negative, when you break even and when you start making money because in a lot of marketplaces it takes the second or third transaction before you’re in the gravy because you’re only getting a clip of the transaction. You’re sharing that revenue oftentimes with a lot of people. So it’s really important for people to know their unit level economics in their marketplace.

 

Evan: Yeah. And that piece of business has been something that I really need to wrap up with quickly. So it’s been nice to also learn while I’m doing my job because that’s what keeps me thriving and doing what I do. So yeah, it’s a great fit for me and the company for sure.

 

Kevin: For sure. So Evan, where can people go if they want to find out more about Bag Borrow or Steal? Where can they go to check it out?

 

Evan: Well, you can check us out at www.bagborroworsteal.com. And then there are links to our blog if you want to read our fashion perspective. You can understand how our site works. And you can make a submission if people have things that they want to sell or consign. So yeah, I recommend people check out our site.

 

Kevin: Wonderful. Well, Evan, thank you for your time today. It’s been great learning about Bag Borrow or Steal. And everybody if you want to learn more Evan or Bag Borrow or Steal, please go to the show notes below this and you can find out all the information you need. Anyway, thank you very much, Evan. We appreciate your time.

 

Evan: Thanks, Kevin.

 

Kevin: So that’s it for today’s show everybody. I’d like to thank Evan from Bag Borrow or Steal for joining us here today. They’re doing great stuff so check them out. If you want to learn more about Bag Borrow or Steal, we’ve got all of their information in the show notes at www.near-me.com. Click on the blog and then go to the podcast listing. Also, if you like today’s show, we’d really appreciate it if you could go to iTunes and leave us a five-star review. Also, subscribe to the podcast while you’re there. Make it a great day.