Fashion Nova was founded in 2006 by CEO Richard Saghian. Fourteen years later, the brand's affordable pricing strategy and internet notoriety established the company as a worldwide leader in Women's fashion. When shopping at Fashion Nova, customers can expect low costs and quick product turnaround. These strategies are crucial in making the company so successful and ensuring their impact on the fashion industry for years to come.
Fashion Nova's Pricing
According to Richard Saghian, his brand is "trying to make the fashion industry play by the rules." He noted that fashion competitors tend to mark up a price as much as 500%, but in his opinion, it isn't "fair for a brand to sell an item for $100 that they made for $20." All Fashion Nova clothes are reasonably priced. For example, dresses are as low as $28 and no more than $40. Customers can expect to pay $30 for a pair of ankle boots or heels and $55 for a pair of thigh-high boots.
With prices as low as these, it is no surprise that the brand is one of the most searched Women's fashion companies on Google. This buzz is especially generated around their denim,
which affordably retail for around $35. Stars like Cardi B praise Fashion Nova as one of the only companies that can make denim catered to women with curves. Megan thee Stallion has even followed in similar footsteps with announcing her new denim line for tall women with curves, aka fellow "stallions." This path to prosperity inspires former endorsers to take their shot at knocking Fashion Nova off of their pedestal. Celebrities such as Khloe Kardashian and LaLa Anthony, for both created their own stretch denim that retail between $90 and $150. Clearly, this pricing is far fetched from $35 a pair. Despite using a similar angle with body diversity, Fashion Nova's affordable denim stays competitive thanks to their brand recognition.
he Meaning of Affordability and Accessibility
Fashion Nova CEO Richard Saghian is proud of his brand for turning "fast fashion into ultra-fast fashion." According to a study by EDITED, 95% of the company's products available online are priced between $0-$50. Their competitors Forever 21 and Boohoo also use a similar pricing structure, but Fashion Nova is cumulatively cheaper for jeans and crop tops (11% of available product). Fashion Nova also has the lowest discount rate among their fast-fashion competitors. Their discount rate is 38%, whereas competitors Boohoo and Forever 21 had discount rates at 81% and 51% respectively.
On top of Fashion Nova's affordable pricing strategy, Fashion Nova also makes their clothes as easily accessible as possible. The brand ships globally and offers two-day shipping on all domestic orders. For shoppers who live within a 40-mile radius of Los Angeles, it is even simpler. If a Los Angeles customer orders via Fashion Nova by 1 p.m., they are guaranteed to receive this order via Postmates on the same day.
The Impact of Earned-Media Value
As reported by InfluencerDB, an influencer-marketing platform, Fashion Nova was Instagram's top-performing brand based on earned-media value (EMV) through the first five months of 2018. The metric is generated by calculating all of the mentions, likes, and comments from a brand's fanbase. Their EMV of about $125 million measures the equivalent cost of what a brand pays in traditional advertising to generate the same level of publicity. Clearly, Fashion Nova's fanbase is at the core of their brand. The brand's profile has 10.7 million followers on Instagram and reaches out to millions more through their network of over 3,000 influencers. Influencers are also encouraged to share promotion codes to keep Fashion Nova's prices even more competitive.
Fashion Nova led their competitors, traditional brands such as Zara, and H&M, by a long-shot. When further interpreting what this report (an analysis of 600,000 Instagram posts) truly means for Fashion Nova, it can be adequately claimed that Fashion Nova led their competitors, as Zara and H&M, in online word of mouth on one of the world's leading social media platforms. We can therefore expect that Fashion Nova will continue to rely on influencer marketing to get the word out for their low-priced products with minimal changes to their pricing strategy.
Influencer marketing and earned-media value also helps the brand with their supply through new collaborations, i.e. clothing lines with Cardi B and the recently announced Megan thee Stallion denim collection. When celebrities post where they are and what they're doing, their followers pay attention. For example, both Cardi B x Fashion Nova collections were introduced at star-studded launch parties with attendees such as Lil Nas X, Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner, Christina Millian, Iggy Azalea, and Amber Rose. This has allowed each Cardi B collection in their own entity to generate Instagram buzz, which expands the brand's outreach. By continuing to expand their customer base through their earned-media value, Fashion Nova keeps demand for their affordable styles high.
