Invest in an Innovative Concept: Classy Socks Delivered to Your Door

Opportunity Snapshot

  • Country: United Kingdom United Kingdom
  • Industry: Internet, eBusiness
  • Stage: Initial growth (first revenues)
  • Years in operations: 1, Employees: 5
  • Investment size: $100,000 / min. $50,000
  • Type of investment: Equity
Invest in an Innovative Concept: Classy Socks Delivered to Your Door We currently focus on testing our model with high-quality business socks for men at competitive price, and our plan is to expand into other fashion consumables. Image Courtesy: TheAmelia1982, 2012, Flickr CC.

Investment Opportunity

We offer subscription and single delivery of high-quality business socks through our digital storefront. We save time & effort for our users by focusing on a simple UI.

We launched our website in September 2014 to carve out a niche in simplified, needs-based e-commerce for “fashion consumables” by offering fast & easy discovery and purchasing processes, bundled with a subscription-based delivery. We see “fashion consumables” as all type of brand-agnostic items that are consumed daily and replaced monthly or bi-monthly. We currently focus on testing our model with high-quality business socks for men at competitive price, and our plan is to expand into other fashion consumables such as hair bands, women hosiery, and others.

For men’s business socks sold online, our total addressable market for Europe is estimated at 4bn EUR with at 227 mn people (online shoppers), buying (or receiving as gift) an average of 15 pairs of socks per year. There is no dominating brand or retailer in this market with most purchases happening impulsively at Brick and Mortar stores, mostly in combination with the purchase of other products.

We believe we can capture a portion of the fast-growing online segment of the market for socks through delivering better UX, efficient supply chain, better pricing, brand positioning, and digital marketing. We have designed, tested, and optimized our luxury look-and feel from purchase to wearing experience for that purpose and are prepared to go ahead.

After successfully testing the initial hypothesis and model and executing a viral pre-launch campaign, we are now raising money to scale and expand online marketing, drive sales and test new products. We are looking to raise a seed round of 96 000 EUR (deck attached).

Competitive Advantage

Product
- Designed the models from scratch with custom fabric mixes, features, size and knit to achieve highest quality
- Innovative, ingenious, luxury-feeling packaging that is just the right size to fit your mailbox
- Subscription focused

Technology/Website
- Test driven development and marketing spent (Extensive A/B Unique, need-based product discovery with a single, best of the line product per category
- Innovative, technology-driven promotion and brand-building approach
- Effortless-choice UI

Team
- Diverse team experiences across digital business, finance, marketing and engineering
- Customer service-oriented

Business side
- Lower cost basis (production and HQ)
- Optimized admin, supply chain, distribution (most services are outsourced)
- Access to global networks

Rationale for the deal

Here is the problem we found:
1. Socks are not a product most men think about until they get into an embarrassing situation:
- However, everyone experiences the same problems with not having a constant and consistent inventory of quality socks to wear (e.g. wear and tear, tightness, loss of color and shape)
2. Socks are a consumable product, but we don’t treat them as such:
- Buying behavior is auxiliary to other purchases, and men often forget to replenish their socks drawer until its too late.
3. It is difficult to find the same quality and design, even when shopping in the same place:
- Consistency was a frequently mentioned problem during our market study amongst 200 males from Europe.
4. Searching for socks doesn’t match the way they are sold:
- Most consumers cannot differentiate between different materials and their properties and consider how the socks feel and their product discovery is relatively random.
5. Branded socks are very expensive:
- High-street brand socks (Boss, Falke, and etc.) carry a huge brand premium for being an essential consumable product.

Here is our solution:
1. We offer subscription and single delivery of high-quality business socks through our digital storefront:
- Our ReSock program offers regular delivery of the models the customer wants at an interval of his choice.
2. We save time and effort for our users by focusing on a simple, needs-driven UI:
- With only the best choices per category as opposed to a large catalogue.
3. We are building a brand for business socks:
- Focused on efficiency, quality, effortless choice, design and customer service.
4. Our prices are below established brands:
- Our socks match or exceed the highest quality on the market.
5. We are online, globally accessible, and ship worldwide:
- All shipments in EU and UK are free. All shipments above 30EUR are free

We've identified the following trends:
- More shoppers buy online than ever
- Consumables shopping migrating to subscription models (Dollar Shave Club, Manpacks)
- Socks still predominantly bought offline (>80%)

We also found that:
- Design and brand focus for “consumable” products (Harry’s, Warby Parker)
- Major decision point for buying socks is the price to quality ratio(surveys)
- Majority online sales in Europe occur in UK, France and Germany (61%)

Based on research and market studies we assess the market size in Europe alone to be c. 227 mn e-shoppers, out of which c. 20% buy men's socks online. The average customer purchases 15 pairs per year at an average price of 6 EUR. This values our market in Europe to c. 4bn EUR.

Our business model currently is:
- Single purchases to try out the product leading to a sock subscription with regular deliveries to the door
- Subscription purchase for clients who already identify the need

We are also in close negotiations with three airports and a premium shoes shop chain to offer our socks at a standalone stand.

We are also featured on the long-haul business class entertainment system of Turkish Airlines.

Use of financing

Marketing/Branding: 50 000 EUR (50%)
- Online: PPC, blog reviews, affiliates, product listings, referrals – 80%
- Offline: sample pairs, shop-in-shop stand, airport stand – 20%

Operations: 30 000 EUR (30%)
- Salaries - 80%
- Travel - 10%
- Accounting, legal, office, tools - 10%

Product: 10 000 EUR (10%)
- Working capital (incl. transport, packaging, reorders) – 60%
- Expand existing product line with winter models – 30%
- Iterate packaging and samples – 5%
- Women hosiery (product research and testing) – 5%

Website development: 5 000 EUR (5%)
- Mobile version - 50%
- Ongoing A/B testing – 30%
- Design – 20%

Opportunity for the investor

We are currently looking for a seed round financing from either an angel investor or an early stage VC. We offer between 10-20% in the company for the needed amount of 50 000 - 100 000 EUR.

Here is an overview of the company assets:
- Acquired domains: .com, .co.uk, .eu, .nl, es, de, .se, au
- Google Page Rank: 3 and increasing
- Backlinks: 68+
- Blog: 1000 + readers per month, 20% of which convert to our site
- Game: memory game to engage with customers on social channels
- Product: 4000 pairs in inventory + 4000 pairs available for promotion
- Mail list: over 13,000 mail list subscribers

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