Web 2.0 offers opportunity to new business models

Consumers live nowadays in a very comfortable and convenient world and much of that was provided by internet tools. Considering this new scenario, start up companies are blossoming everywhere, offering consumers a new solution to ease their daily lives. The challenge is to be showcased in the market. The key ingredient for success seems to be simple: to offer a solution that would  effectively easy a consumer´s life.

American website "Trunk Club" apparently found this key. Betting on a simple presumption that men don´t like to shop (sad, but true), Trunk Club offers a service that goes beyond shopping assistance: they actually select and buy pieces of garments for their consumers and "surprise" them with a package containing around 8 - 10 different garments. To choose the pieces, Trunk Club professionals take into account the consumers profile, previously uploaded on the website.

The cool thing is consumers can take up to 30 days to analyze and consider the garments they received and return the pieces they did not like. And all for free, including the costs for delivery and devolution transport. The website expects that with experience, consultants would achieve a better knowledge of their consumers what would reducing the average amount of return items.

Trunk Club works currently with a 3 thousand customers base and they accept around 50-60% of items in the boxes they receive. The website maintains a high profitability because they purchase with wholesale prices. The average price of a garment sold by Trunk Club is 70 dollars.

Aware of their customers´ lack of time, the company offers different points of contacts such as phone, email, Skype and a store where consumers can try on and immediately take away the garments they like. This new business model seems to be working well as the company saw the annual revenue growing from US$ 1 million in 2010 to US$ 5 million in 2011.

The video below showcases the way Trunk Club works: