At GlamCorner's warehouse in Sydney, a very fashionable scene is unfolding.
A model poses. A camera flashes. It’s onto the next outfit change.
On the other side of the room, workers diligently pack designer dresses into GlamCorner-branded boxes, ready to ship to customers across the country.
But the dresses in question aren’t for sale - they're for hire.
Like the American website Rent the Runway, a pioneer in fashion rentals, GlamCorner allows Aussie women to borrow outfits for events like weddings and cocktail parties, for a fraction of what it would cost to buy them outright.
It aims to make fashion both more accessible and more sustainable.
"The average Australian woman only wears about a third of what’s in her wardrobe," says Dean Jones, one of GlamCorner's co-founders.
"The other two thirds is a stockpile of once-only items that they purchased for a one-off event and then never wore again.”
"We realised we could have a huge impact on diverting waste from landfill by having one of the biggest wardrobes in the country where our customers could borrow whenever they like."
Dean, along with his wife Audrey Khaing-Jones, launched GlamCorner in 2012.
The couple bought their first batch of stock with the earnings from their wedding wishing-well.
As the business grew, Dean eventually quit his investment banking job and joined the startup full time.
GlamCorner now employs more than 50 people, shipping thousands of dresses each month.
In the past 12 months, their customers have rented $20 million worth of clothes.
Logistics puzzle
Managing so much circulating stock has been, until recently, a logistical nightmare.
"When we first started, we didn't realise how complicated this business was going to be," Audrey laughs.
"Unlike regular e-commerce, where you send items out once, many of our items are constantly coming back, and being booked out back-to-back," Dean adds.
"We had to build a really powerful search engine into our platform to be able to know in advance how much time to [allocate for] booking availability.”
In between each wear, GlamCorner's dresses are cleaned, checked for damage, and, if necessary, fixed by the onsite tailor.
Generally, they have a lifespan of 20-30 rentals, after which they're sold off.
Meanwhile, a steady stream of new designs are photographed and listed online.
"We're a very data-driven business," Audrey says.
"We can look at real-time data which helps the merchandise team to really [see] what’s in demand. For example, it’s racing season, so bright, bold colours are on trend."
Fashion forward
GlamCorner is now aiming to scale up even further.
They've raised $5.5 million to date, from investors including Marshall Investments, which is the company behind traditional retailers like SABA and Sportscraft.
But as they've grown, so has the competition.
Companies like Her Wardrobe, Style Theory, and Your Closet are clamouring for market share.
"It’s actually a really good thing for the industry, because when we started the market was really quiet," Audrey says.
"Competition is intense, but in a good way - that shows there’s a demand for this service."
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