What Fashion’s E-Commerce and Tech Professionals Need to Know Today

Discover the most relevant industry news and insights for fashion’s e-commerce and technology professionals, updated each month to enable you to excel in job interviews, promotion conversations or perform better in the workplace by increasing your market awareness and emulating market leaders.

BoF Careers distils business intelligence from across the breadth of our content — editorial briefings, newsletters, case studies, podcasts and events — to deliver key takeaways and learnings tailored to your job function, listed alongside a selection of the most exciting live jobs advertised by BoF Careers partners.

Key articles and need-to-know insights for e-commerce and technology professionals today:

1. AI Is Designing Clothes Now

DALL-E is part of a new crop of AI capable of creating extraordinarily detailed and realistic imagery from a text prompt, making it easy for anyone to use. In fashion, AI is routinely used in business functions like forecasting demand. It seems only a matter of time before it’s put to use in more creative jobs.

Designers may understandably feel a twinge of concern that their jobs could be automated away — a fear graphic designers have expressed because of DALL-E. If AI were to become widespread in fashion design — an outcome that isn’t certain — design jobs might change but that doesn’t guarantee they would disappear. [According to AI design platform Cala’s co-founder and chief executive, Andrew] Wyatt, “The way that I think about it is it’s like putting a calculator in the hands of a mathematician.”

Related Jobs:

Applied Scientist Computer Deep Learning, Zalando — Berlin, Germany

Senior Manager Trend and CAD, Soma — Fort Myers, United States

Lead Frontend Engineer, Vestiaire Collective — Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

2. Should Your Brand Have a Discord?

Fostering community is a vital element of successful NFT projects, and Discord’s appeal is that it offers a space for members to gather and interact with each other and the brand directly. It also has a flexible architecture that allows a brand to set up different channels within a server, or add features like gated access or third-party apps. But when a brand plays host to a community, it also becomes responsible for managing it and keeping it safe.

“You’re creating a new mouth to feed,” said [Ian McMillan, chief growth officer at web3 platform Mojito]. “You’re creating a channel that needs constant management, updating and moderation. You’re creating a new cost for yourself. And unless you really invest, you’re not going to see a return on that investment.”

Related Jobs:

Engineer II, FinTech, Tory Burch — Jersey City, United States

Director Differentiated and Elevated Experiences, Bloomingdale’s — New York, United States

Director Technology PMO, Neiman Marcus — Bal Harbour, United States

3. Why Fashion Loves Roblox

Many brands see Roblox almost like another social media channel, according to Charles Hambro, co-founder and chief executive of Geeiq, a gaming data and strategy firm whose clients include Tommy Hilfiger and Gucci. Users are often there to socialise as much as play games, and they’re doing so in an interactive space, which brings its own advantages.

Selling digital goods is one opportunity for brands, though perhaps not the biggest one. Burberry earned an estimated $40,000 from its July drop after giving Roblox its cut, according to Geeiq. For a company that generated £2.8 billion ($3.5 billion) in its recent fiscal year, it’s not a huge amount. But brands also see a chance to connect with a large, engaged audience on a platform that is arguably the closest approximation we have to a functioning metaverse.

Related Jobs:

Digital Project Manager, Hugo Boss — Stuttgart, Germany

E-Store Management Junior Specialist, Prada Group — Milan, Italy

Content and Social Media Coordinator, Farfetch — Los Angeles, United States

4. Why Amazon’s Latest Beauty Venture Is About More Than Sales

[Amazon-owned] Shopbop debuted beauty [in October] with a range of mostly prestige labels, including Dr. Barbara Sturm, Augustinus Bader, Costa Brazil and Vintner’s Daughter, which sell $300 serums and $100 body creams.

The move is likely not solely about Amazon building a presence in prestige beauty. […] Luca Solca, head of luxury goods research at Bernstein, [said] beauty is most interesting to multi-brand fashion marketplaces and retailers like Shopbop and Farfetch because of the site traffic it generates.

Related Jobs:

Data Steward, Burberry — Leeds, United Kingdom

CRM Coordinator, SMCP — New York, United States

Chief Enterprise Architect and Data Analytics, Tiffany & Co. — Parsippany, United States

5. Why Digital Brands Are Lukewarm on Social Commerce

Instagram’s reversal [of its e-commerce ambitions] is the latest setback for social commerce, the idea that consumers will shop in the same place they spend the bulk of their time online. Though popular in Asia, the concept has struggled to take off in the US, to the frustration of digital brands that must acquire customers on one platform and sell to them on another.

In the absence of a so-called super app that combines product discovery and transactions, brands are using social commerce tools to drive up engagement on their posts in the hopes it will translate to higher traffic on their sites, where the bulk of their transactions still take place. [So while Instagram] may not live up to the idea of an all in one e-commerce tool, it can be useful as part of a broader toolbox.

Related Jobs:

VP Technology, E-Commerce and Marketing, PVH — Amsterdam, Netherlands

Product Designer, Vivrelle — New York, United States

Manager Digital Commerce, Chico’s — Fort Myers, United States

6. Can Tech Save Poshmark?

Poshmark’s decision to sell to Naver, a South Korean tech giant, for $1.2 billion likely left some in the industry scratching their heads. The deal values Poshmark at less than half the $3 billion valuation the company bagged when it went public in January 2021. Tech stocks across the board have slumped this year, but rather than try to ride out the downturn and fetch a higher price later, Poshmark opted for an exit.

Poshmark stands to benefit [from the deal]. Just as the acquisition gives Naver a foothold in the US resale market, it provides Poshmark — a social-shopping app that lets users buy and sell pre-owned fashion to one another — the opportunity to expand its presence in Asia, where buying goods in social media-like environments is second nature for consumers. It also gets access to technology that promises to help it solve one of its most pressing issues: converting more of its 80 million registered users into active buyers.

Related Jobs:

CXO Program Manager, Calvin Klein — Amsterdam, Netherlands

UX Designer, Acne Studios — Stockholm, Sweden

E-Commerce Marketing Manager, Aeyde — Berlin, Germany

7. Shein’s New Rival, Explained

Temu is a US app created by Pinduoduo, a digital shopping behemoth in China. Alongside its chief rivals, JD.com and Alibaba, Pinduoduo sells a mixed bag of goods at steep discounts. The company, which went public on the Nasdaq exchange in 2018, generated nearly $5 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter ending in June. Pinduoduo counted more than 700 million monthly active users in 2021.

To earn a permanent place in the US market, Temu has to build a loyal following among cost-conscious shoppers, who are being squeezed by high inflation and at the same time are quick to abandon a platform if their needs aren’t met.

Related Jobs:

E-Commerce Manager, Olivia von Halle — London, United Kingdom

E-Commerce Merchandising Specialist, Amiri — Los Angeles, United States

E-Store Manager, Tommy Hilfiger — Shanghai, China

8. Why Bio-Fabricated Leather Is Always Just Around the Corner

Unlike most materials marketed as “vegan” leather, which are made with plastic derived from fossil fuels, Bio-Tex is mostly made from plant protein. The material’s foundation is a bio-based polyurethane plastic coated in [startup company] Modern Meadow’s “Bio-Alloy,” an innovation also made from plant proteins and bio-based polymers that helps mix unlike proteins to create particular characteristics; in the case of the Everlane bag — durability, smoothness, colour, breathability, warmth and weight.

About a year ago, the company announced it would join forces with Italian textile mill Limonta to form Bio-Tex’s producer, BioFabbrica. The tie-up with a manufacturer has helped streamline production and commerciality, speeding up the process to get materials from lab to market.

Related Jobs:

CSR and Sustainability Technologist, Fred Perry — London, United Kingdom

Senior Business Analytics Engineer, Ralph Lauren — Bangalore, India

Senior Frontend Software Engineer, Figs — Santa Monica, United States