Marshalls new “what’s in” online community
[Originally posted by Lois Kelly on bloghound]
I love and hate shopping. Love finding quality products at bargain prices, but hate having to go to stores and wade through all the stuff. Now one of my favorite bargain-hunting haunts, Marshalls, the big off-price retailer, has opened an online community that hopefully will cure what ails me — and others.
Called What’s In, the site has plenty of features — maybe even too many. (Note: it’s in beta so I’m sure the kinks are being worked out.)
The feature that seems most appealing:
You can set up personalized alerts for your favorite brands and local stores; when someone posts that they’ve found that brand at that store, an alert is sent to your mobile phone or email, and you can then hurry on over to the store and get the deal before it’s gone. Due to its relationship with the brands Marshalls can’t advertise brands. So for the alerts to work people who shop the stores will have to go online and post what they’re seeing in the stores. Otherwise quasi-shoppers like me won’t get any alerts.
Two that have potential, but need work:
1. Blogs from buyers about what they’re seeing at shows and on their buying trips. Done right, these insights into what’s coming could be really fun to read. Who doesn’t want to be an trends insider? The Marshalls folks should think about more descriptive names of the blogs and profiles of the people behind the blogs. The two buyer blogs are currently titled like “MoJr15’s Blog” or MelSki17’s Blog.” Ugh. Turns out one blog is by Melissa who buys Ladies Activewear, and another is a nameless junior sportswear buyer. (Melissa, tell us more about the yoga clothing trend!).2. Forum section, where people can post comments on different topics like “trends of the season.” This section has potential as so many of us are looking for advice and ideas from other women like us. What’s not working is that the Forum categories seem forced, like they were written by advertising copywriters vs. real shoppers for real shoppers. It may be me but Forums named, A Price Tag To Remember, Designer Dish and Star Style sound phony. Again, I think this could be easily fixed
Overkill?
I’m not sure the Fashion Finds, Member Blogs and Photo Albums add value. They seem either redundant with other parts of the community or just unnecessary. I’m a pretty savvy Web user but I have to admit the navigation around “what’s in” lost me. There’s just too much going on. For the hard launch of this community I’d like to see just three great things:
1. Alerts (send and get)
2. Forums (sharing fashion finds, advice mong members)
3. Buyer blogs ( sharing insider views of what’s happening by Marshalls buyers)
Time to get back to work — unless of course I get an alert from the local Marshalls that a new shipment of Theory is in.
