Mi Tiendecita de Moda: Selling Fashion Through Facebook in Peru

Description

A young Peruvian MBA graduate, who previously had worked in international marketing firms, founded an online fashion store and has been selling North American fashion products through Facebook, personal sales events and pop-up stores. The business has been growing profitably with an increasing customer base, overcoming initial supply side issues. Three years after the launch, however, the personal approach to satisfy each customer, a stronghold of the founder’s business philosophy, is making expansion difficult. The business has grown to a point where it is barely manageable personally. Is expansion the right decision and if so, which type? Can the fashion store founder scale the business and still enjoy the lifestyle benefits of independence and flexible working hours?

Learning Objective

·How to assess an online store opportunity. ·Risk minimization with minimum viable products. ·How to orchestrate a nascent online venture with international product flows. ·Scalability of person-centric business models. ·How to evaluate different expansion options on a spectrum from lifestyle business to venture capital investment.

Keywords

Marketing minimum viable product New venture expansion social network retailing