What B4UCIT is:
Welcome to B4UCIT! Our website is an exciting new online storefront for independent designers in fashion, art, and furniture. It’s a place for creative designers to reach the broadest customer base with the least amount of investment. And a place for customers with discerning tastes to find unique pieces. Buy, sell, and network all in one place.
Designers: Are you a designer, struggling to get your ideas into customer’s hands? Have you come up with a great design and don’t know how to sell it or where to post it for people to find? Is having a brick and mortar storefront stealing all your profits? Want to be your own boss?
Customers: Are you a trendsetter? Do you appreciate a unique well constructed garment, talented artists, or custom-made furniture? Is art more than a hobby and more of a lifestyle for you? Do you want something no one else has? Are you tired of being a slave to what someone else thinks is in style, even when it looks horrible? And would you like to have one place to find everything you are looking for?
Its history:
The idea for this site came about when I was interning in London with a hugely talented designer during London Fashion Week. I saw all of his amazing runway samples just sitting in storage after shows and being given away to models. I also saw how much he struggled to raise capital and be discovered by buyers. I thought, “Wow, imagine how much more money he could make if anyone could have access to purchase one of his designs. I’d love to get my hands on one, even if it was already worn on the runway”. When I came back to the States and got together with some friends that were independent designers, we began discussing my interning experience and how tough it is to “break” into the fashion business. It seemed like there were so many amazing designs out there but no way to get them to people…and instantly an idea was born! Make one common storefront for customers with discerning tastes to find specialized independent designers in the design industry. If we all worked together, we could all keep our identities and cross-sell to each other. Fabulous!
We all know that the fashion industry can be a hard, tough place for new or small, and independent designers. Small business designers have a hard time raising capital, obtaining loans and finding the means necessary to promote their products to a broad base of customers. But what if there was a collective one-stop website that cataloged everyone’s merchandise in one place, and customers could find exactly what they wanted without having to search all over the country. That’s exactly what we’re all about!
Where it's going:
For Designers: With this site, designers can promote themselves through their own profiles, communicate directly with their customers, be rated by the public, and offer up single or mass produced items at their will. It will enable designers to build their business and cash flow at their own pace. It will also show potential investors the designer’s ability to manage their business as well as how consumer demand responds to their product (i.e. provide a proven track record for investors to look at).
For Customers: This website will also offer things for not only designers, but customers shopping the site as well. Customers can make their own profiles, email designers directly, blog, rate designers, buy, sell and get fashion trend reports. And designers can post fashion shows for clients to watch and even display samples of their work on their own designer profiles.
Why you (independent designers, fashion-aware public) should be excited:
For Designers: This site is what YOU make of it. You can make this your full-time job and sole source of income, or use the site for your hobby and a little extra income on the side. The site allows designers to show their wares and goods in an inexpensive setting, reaching the greatest amount of potential customers for the least cost to them both. Our site is for networking, buying and selling. Its meant to help designers excel and “make it” in the industry.
Our site hopes to offer as much help to emerging independent designers as possible, through:
- Trend reports
- Select designer profiling monthly
- Designer ratings
- Blogs with technique help
- Resources in any/all areas
- Networking
- Industry help and connections
- Job Postings, etc…
Another unique feature of the site is that a small percentage of the profits will go to a select group of charities, equally. So, buying and selling through the site will be like “giving back” to the community:
- Bestfriends.org
- Cancer research
- Tay-Sachs Research
- Environmental charity
- Designer’s scholarship (which we run)
For Customers: Our site is for customers that want to buy merchandise that is unique and trendsetting. (You don’t want what is available in all the chain stores and what everyone else already has). You want unique varieties of merchandise in a variety of price ranges. You want to shop online either because you don’t have time to shop elsewhere or you don’t want to physically have to shop and compare all across the country.
