FASHION SAYS “Me two” Style Says “Me only”- Do you just follow the crowd?

Over the past few years, the demand for female clothing has sky rocketed with thousands of new boutiques across the country taking their business online. As such, the competition within the online industry is brutal, making it almost impossible for smaller brands to survive.

The likes of ?Missguided?, ?Boo Hoo? and ?Pretty little thing? dominate the online market, their ranges seemingly so endless that the smaller brands can?t contend. Through the use of bloggers, fashion influencers and the strength of social media, they have quickly become the first point of call to help end your weekend outfit traumas. Then, with the addition of free delivery and unmissable discount offers, this puts smaller brands out of the game almost immediately.

But does this mean that the smaller brands aren?t worth a look in? As a serial online shopper myself, I think that they offer a refreshing change from the mainstream stores and often, their stock is better quality. This may just be my personal opinion, however, I find that the bigger brands initially offer good quality clothes for cheaper prices to grab your attention, then, as the rise to the top of the fashion food chain, this changes. It?s logical really, a growing company means an increase in overheads and so, in order to maintain the same profit margin as before, they cut corners on the quality and bump up the price.

With this in mind, why is it that no one notices the smaller brands? Maybe we are afraid to step out of our comfort zone, maybe it?s the fear of being ?scammed? by a fake site or maybe it?s just the sheer volume of sites out there, that makes us unwilling to look. Either way, I think the blame doesn?t solely fall to our negligence; the smaller sites share equal responsibility as often they do nothing to stand out and get noticed, they simply follow suit in the shadows of the major sites.

We have manged to find one site who is offering a refreshingly different approach to tackling the industry. A new face within the online scene, gigidy.com, has impressed us with big promises. Not only will they have their online boutique, but they are wanting to tour up and down the country with a new fashion show concept, combining shopping with partying for all of you females! They have their first event booked for the 2nd March at Bolton Macron Stadium, called GETgigidy, (I have put the link to tickets at the bottom of the article). They advertise that guests will watch a catwalk of the latest trends and then try on and buy what they like, all whilst drinking, dancing and winning free prizes throughout the evening! Now that sounds like a good night out to me! They also plan to bring a similar version of this event into your own homes. They would like to recruit ambassadors to present home clothing parties. These can be hosted by anyone who wants to have a fun night in with their friends, where gigidy will bring the shopping to you.

In addition to this unique approach, gigidy are bringing in a brand new deal that they call ?Style Up Stack?. This ?meal deal? based concept offers a bargain to their customers, where they can create their own outfit and purchase the complete ensemble, for a discounted price of £50. You will have 3 categories and choose one item from each to create an outfit combination. Each category includes a selection of shoes, bags, dresses, pants, tops, skirts, short and even jewellery!

Finally, yet another point of difference that gigidy is offering, providing your total basket is over the value of £100, gigidy are planning to introduce online credit. This means for a small deposit, you can pay for your items in monthly instalments. They also claim that this service will be completely interest free, a payment option that none of their competitors are offering! Keep your eyes peeled for the full details on this one being released.

I fully commend gigidy for their bold approaches to the industry and hopefully, this will inspire some of the other small brands to open their minds to new approaches. As for all you shoppers, why not step out of the mould and give someone new a try, you never know, you might even like them better than the big companies.