E-tailer Zady Is Radically Transparent About Products

By Kara Murphy, contributing writer, Integrated Solutions For Retailers

Site focuses on storytelling, content, keeping customers engaged longer

The Internet has given consumers so much more control over their buying choices, and they are becoming more and more socially conscious about the items they purchase.

Zady, an ecommerce site that features high quality clothes, home goods, and office supplies, has tapped into that consciousness by being radically transparent about its products, telling its customers where they were made and the background stories about the company and people who produce them. All the items it carries are ethically sourced and manufactured, and nearly all of its products are made in the U.S.

The company typically highlights items from smaller, lesser-known brands such as Karmo Studio, a Detroit-based company that produces fine leather goods, and imogene + willie, a Nashville-based denim brand. It also carries more well-known lines, however, such as Steven Alan, a New York-based clothier.

The company’s commitment to transparency recently earned it a spot on Fast Company’s 10 most innovative companies of 2014.

It isn’t just the transparency of its product backgrounds that has garnered the site positive interest from its customers. That’s because the site doesn’t just tell consumers where the products originated. Instead, the company focuses on creating an emotional connection through storytelling on its interactive website, even hiring journalists to produce content related to brands and lifestyle choices. The interesting content gives consumers a reason to stay on the site longer.

Why you should make customer engagement a priority

“Content is key and a very important part of what we’re building,” Zady co-founder Maxie Bédat says in a TechCrunch interview. “There are stories for every single product that we’re creating. There’s additional content that Soraya is focused on that really speaks to our reader and to the general conscious consumption lifestyle.”

The company, whose website went live in August 2013, was created by Bédat, of the Bootstrap Project, and Foodspotting co-founder Soraya Darabi. The two have been friends since high school. The company raised $1.35 million in seed money to launch the site.

Zady’s content-commerce model is not the first of its kind. The Grommet and AHAlife also tell stories and the backgrounds about the lesser-known brands they carry, and Nike has exposed its product supply chains through online interactive maps.

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