California Apparel News

Trade shows and runway shows have been looking to produce extra revenue streams for their vendors.

Agenda tried a consumer day on the last day of its July 13–15 run in Long Beach, Calif. (See related story, page 1). For the price of a $45 advance ticket, the trade-show floor was opened to the public. A consumer could walk the trade show and buy items from their favorite brands, ranging from skateboard decks to shoes and T-shirts. Canadian cloud-based, multi-channel commerce platform Shopify served as an official commerce partner for that event.

A few days later, and across America, Shopify worked with trade shows Capsule and Liberty Fashion & Lifestyle Fairs as well as the Council of Fashion Designers of America to facilitate sales during designer presentations during those shows, which ran July 17–19 at the Javits Convention Center in New York.

Consider these markets something like a flash sale. The Capsule/Liberty Fairs/CFDA sales were powered through Shopify’s Frenzy mobile flash sales app. Brands such as Daniel Patrick and Band of Outsiders produced presentations of their looks. The public checked out the presentations through a Facebook livestream show.

Through the Frenzy app, the consumers were able to purchase the item with the ApplePay mobile payment service, according to Tucker Schreiber, Frenzy’s cofounder.

Chris Corrado, director of Capsule, said that the flash sales had the potential to open the trade show to a new audience. “We’re very interested in helping our exhibitor base to discover alternate or progressive paths to engaging the end consumer. Our partnership this season with Frenzy is part of this exploration,” Corrado said in a statement.