The Business of Fashion Podcast - Ross Bailey on Building a Business From Humble Beginnings

Ross Bailey on Building a Business From Humble Beginnings

07/15/22 • 54 min

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The founder and CEO of retail pop-up marketplace Appear Here shares his entrepreneurial journey and advice for young founders looking to break through.

Background:

Ross Bailey’s love of entrepreneurship didn’t start in business school or a corporate job, but at the hair salon his parents owned in London.

“I watched my parents take this little shop and it became their livelihood,” he says to BoF’s founder and editor in chief, Imran Amed, describing himself as a “busybody” who rearranged furniture and conducted customer satisfaction surveys from a young age. “To me, entrepreneurship was a game. It was about ‘how do I get people involved and have a bit of fun?’”

That mindset eventually led him to found Appear Here, “the Airbnb of retail,” in 2014. “The story of the world ... was that the high street is dead, nobody wants it. And we had a contrarian view on that. When you have small high street stores and streets, people want to be on them ... our data has always backed it up.”

By 2019, Appear Here was a global business with 250,000 entrepreneurs signed up to the platform and 30,000 stores launched. The company has facilitated pop-ups for fashion giants like Louis Vuitton, Loewe and Supreme, a bookstore for Michelle Obama’s autobiography, as well as Harry’s House for pop superstar Harry Styles.

Then the pandemic hit. Appear Here went from having its best year ever and closing a funding round with a nine-figure valuation, to losing 95 percent of revenue with just months’ worth of cash left.

On this week’s episode of The BoF Podcast, Bailey shares his lessons and advice from the early days of founding a business and the role leaders play in leading employees and stakeholders through challenging times.

Key Insights:

The traditional world of commercial real estate and retail is inaccessible and opaque, creating systemic barriers for entrepreneurs from marginalised backgrounds. But small independent stores are also the backbone of entrepreneurship for immigrants and other communities. “Whether it's the local takeaway restaurant, whether it's the local shop, all of those places... were people who were entrepreneurial, who were doing something, who were trying to build a livelihood.”
Despite Covid’s impact on retail, Bailey doubled down on Appear Here’s mission. Seeing people returning to streets, even when non-essential retail was curbed, and queuing for coffees highlighted the human desire for in-person community. “I just felt that this wasn't the time to pivot, this wasn't the time to relax on our idea or rein it in. Actually, Appear Here would make more sense coming out of this than ever before.”
The future of retail is hyper-local, says Bailey, citing examples of global brands playing into cultural niches, like Adidas and Gucci’s takeover of a working men’s social club in Peckham. “It's no longer about Fifth Avenue and Regent Street or the Champs-Élysées, it's about neighbourhoods and interesting places.”

Additional Resources:

How Temporary Pop-Ups Became a Permanent Strategy

What Happens When the E-Commerce Boom Ends

How to Open a Store in 2022 | BoF

To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The founder and CEO of retail pop-up marketplace Appear Here shares his entrepreneurial journey and advice for young founders looking to break through.

Background:

Ross Bailey’s love of entrepreneurship didn’t start in business school or a corporate job, but at the hair salon his parents owned in London.

Key Insights:

The traditional world of commercial real estate and retail is inaccessible and opaque, creating systemic barriers for entrepreneurs from marginalised backgrounds. But small independent stores are also the backbone of entrepreneurship for immigrants and other communities. “Whether it's the local takeaway restaurant, whether it's the local shop, all of those places... were people who were entrepreneurial, who were doing something, who were trying to build a livelihood.”
Despite Covid’s impact on retail, Bailey doubled down on Appear Here’s mission. Seeing people returning to streets, even when non-essential retail was curbed, and queuing for coffees highlighted the human desire for in-person community. “I just felt that this wasn't the time to pivot, this wasn't the time to relax on our idea or rein it in. Actually, Appear Here would make more sense coming out of this than ever before.”
The future of retail is hyper-local, says Bailey, citing examples of global brands playing into cultural niches, like Adidas and Gucci’s takeover of a working men’s social club in Peckham. “It's no longer about Fifth Avenue and Regent Street or the Champs-Élysées, it's about neighbourhoods and interesting places.”

Additional Resources:

How Temporary Pop-Ups Became a Permanent Strategy

What Happens When the E-Commerce Boom Ends

How to Open a Store in 2022 | BoF

To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Ian Rogers on the Inevitability of Virtual Fashion

Ian Rogers moved from Silicon Valley to Paris in 2015 when he was appointed chief digital officer of LVMH. There, Rogers, a veteran of Apple Music and Beats, was tasked with building out the luxury conglomerate’s e-commerce and data strategy and serving as a digital whisperer to executives.

Background:

Now, he’s chief experience officer of Ledger, a security system that provides protection for digital currencies. Given his experience at the cutting edge of both tech and fashion, he is uniquely positioned to speak to the opportunities being created as crypto technologies, gaming and fashion converge. In his mind, one day, virtual fashion will be ubiquitous.

His insights were originally featured in the fourth episode of The BoF Show, “Dematerialisation: Why the Metaverse Is Fashion’s Next Goldmine,” streaming on Bloomberg Quicktake.

Key Insights

Rogers’ background in the music industry has helped inform the way he perceives’ luxury’s need to take control of digital channels. Record labels lost out big on recorded music because they were in denial of consumers' desire to listen to music online.
Having goods that are both digital and physical, or, “phygital” is the gateway to the existence of purely virtual goods. In order for virtual goods to have real value and meaning, there need to be marketplaces and venues for using them.
People have a desire to collect things. With the rise of NFTs, there’s a way to create scarcity digitally — which gives fashion brands an opportunity to create virtual goods based on the principles and hype and rarity that drive the industry today.
The biggest misconceptions people have is that there’s a distinction between the physical and digital worlds, according to Rogers. The blurring of realities in the metaverse will ultimately change our perceptions of what’s real — and valuable.
Most technology surrounding digital goods, NFTs, crypto and the metaverse is still nascent, and storytelling about its potential has been ahead of reality.

Additional Resources

Dematerialisation: Why the Metaverse Is Fashion’s Next Goldmine. Physical and digital worlds merge in the Metaverse. Can the luxury world dematerialise into the virtual space fast enough to attract eager customers — and their avatars?
What the NFT Gold Rush Means for Fashion. The market for digital collectibles is booming. Opportunity or passing fad?
Why Streetwear and NFTs Are a Perfect Match. Both trade in heavily hyped, limited-edition products that offer a sense of community. Fashion brands aiming to tap digital art take note.

To subscribe to the BoF Podcast, please follow this link.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

The Debrief: Why Chanel Is Opening Private Boutiques

BoF’s luxury editor Robert Williams offers insight into the surprising news that the mega-label plans to open stores dedicated to serving top customers.

Background:

As traffic to stores soars, Chanel’s chief financial officer Philippe Blondiaux said the brand plans to open dedicated boutiques for top-spending clients starting in key Asian cities. It's a strategy that emphasises the importance of big-spenders to the in-demand French luxury brand’s future amid whispers of an impending recession — but one that risks alienating first time and occasional shoppers who are still dropping upwards of $10,000 for bags.

“Brands like Chanel, they’ve lived through lots of cycles of boom and bust in the economy... When there’s an economic crisis, they need to be ready to have a real focus on repeat business,” said BoF’s luxury editor Robert Williams.

Key Insights:

Chanel sells many items in-store only, and limits locations to the most luxurious places in the world’s most luxury cities — operating just around 250 stores compared with Louis Vuitton’s over 400 doors.
Chanel is not the first brand to open special stores for private clients; Brunello Cucinelli deployed a similar concept last December. Other brands like Zegna have dedicated spaces in-store for special items.
In 2021, the company’s profits have tripled and revenue jumped 50 percent year over year.
The brand’s growth in fashion, watches and jewellery last year was driven by its decision to raise prices and a flood of new clients and first-time buyers to luxury.
In addition to focusing on its physical footprint, Chanel is pushing its beauty business, which has been historically driven by department stores and beauty retailers like Sephora and Marionnaud, toward majority direct-to-consumer.

Additional Resources:

Follow The Debrief wherever you listen to podcasts.

Join BoF Professional today with our exclusive podcast listener discount of 25% off an annual membership, follow the link here and enter the coupon code ‘debrief’ at checkout.

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