WWD published this really long, really in-depth piece about magazine publishers trying to find new ways to make money. With the announcement that one of the best fashion websites in the game, Style Dot Com, would be pivoted into an ecommerce site, it seems apt to investigate the matter. Without getting into ethics and all the squabbles that come along with editors recommending products as impartially as possible (considering the publication needs to make those sweet greenbacks), we also got a quick peak at what the new Style Dot Com is going to look like.
It's going to be...interesting. The site won't be transformed into an online shop in the most common form. Instead, as WWD puts it: "Style.com will be a marketplace in which brands will provide information on their products. Style.com will handle the transactions, and the fulfillment will be done by the brands. Customers will not be directed to the brands’ sites, and Style.com will not charge the brands to appear on the site...but the publisher will take a commission on the transactions."
So you will be able shop on the site, but the site itself will not hold any inventory. Instead, it will basically act as a recommendation engine and take a small cut of every purchase made through the site. It's sort of like an Instagram blogger referring a product to their followers and getting a cut of any resulting purchase without getting the fat check to make the recommendation in the first place. The site will reportedly make the transition in September, so we'll still have our coveted runway shots from NYFW: Men's before having to switch over to Voguerunway.com, which will hopefully keep our menswear thirst relatively quenched.
