Moxsie is an online retailer that sells fashion items made by independent designers. The site features clothing, accessories, and footwear from new, up-and-coming fashion start-ups and freelancers. Every designer showcased on Moxsie is handpicked by the Moxsie team, and must promote a worthy cause, such as sustainability or eliminating sweatshop labor. Moxsie donates a portion of its sales revenue to charity. During the checkout process on its site, users can pick the charity that they’d like Moxsie to donate a portion of the proceeds from their purchase to. Charities range from the American Red Cross to Soles4Souls, which is a charity that donates shoes to children and adults in need.
One thing that’s a challenge for a company like Moxsie, which launched in 2009, is to gain visibility and customers. To that end, in early 2011 Moxsie entered into a partnership with Beyond the Rack, a “private” shopping site with 3 million members that sells fashion items via flash sales. Flash sales, popularized by online retailers like Gilt Groupe and Groupon, are sales that occur for a limited time, like one day or 36 hours. Through its partnership with Beyond the Rack, each month several of Beyond the Rack’s flash sales will feature apparel designed by Moxsie designers. This approach is a potential big plus for Moxsie. It will get its name in front of Beyond the Rack’s 3 million members, many of whom are fashion-savvy shoppers. The hope is that a portion of these people will not only start shopping on Moxsie’s site, but will encourage others to do so as well.
Moxsie is utilizing another unique approach to partnering to gain visibility for its site. It is essentially partnering with its users to figure out which items to offer for sale. It does this via two approaches. First, when meeting with independent fashion designers, Moxsie personnel take photos of the pieces the designers are pitching, post the photos on the firm’s Twitter site, and ask followers for feedback on which fabrics, colors, and designs they like or dislike. This approach helps Moxsie determine which items to offer for sale, and the feedback can be invaluable to the designers.
Second, sometimes Moxsie broadcasts the meeting themselves on Ustream. Ustream is a service that allows any business or individual to stream an event live over the Internet. Anyone can view the Moxsie meetings and provide feedback to the designers. The most insightful contributors earn Moxsie discounts, points, and virtual badges. Offering badges as a reward may sound a little lame, but Foursquare and others have made it work. At Moxsie, if you view one of the Ustream buyer meetings, you automatically earn your first badge. From that point forward, the quality and quantity of your feedback earns you badges with higher distinction, such as “Head Buyer” and “Celebrity Buyer.” As you earn additional badges, you earn more Moxsie discounts, an internship, or even a paid position with Moxsie.
The upshot of both of these approaches is that Moxsie has greatly expanded the number of people who follow it on Twitter, engage in helping it select fashion items, and actually shop on its site. In early 2010, for example, Moxsie had 800 Twitter followers. It now has over 148,000.

Questions for Critical Thinking
1. What are the pluses and minuses to Moxsie’s partnership with Beyond the Rack? The companies have not disclosed the financial arrangement between the two of them. What do you think Beyond the Rack receives from Moxsie as a result of featuring Moxsie designers in a portion of its flash sales?
2. Do you think Moxsie is over-relying on social media to gain visibility for its site, or do you think its social media approach is appropriate? What is it that you like and don’t like about Moxsie’s social media strategy?
3. Do you think Moxsie’s approach to awarding virtual badges to people who provide feedback on its merchandizing sessions will prove to be an effective approach in terms of engaging users and obtaining valuable feedback?
4. Gap is a fashion retailer that sells both online and through brick-and-mortar stores. Study the way that Gap uses social media to increase its visibility and gain customers, and briefly describe Gap’s approach.
Is there anything that Gap is doing that Moxsie could learn from?