Founded 12 years ago in London, Lyst is the world’s biggest and most intelligent shopping platform. Instead of browsing different stores one by one, the customer can see and shop all of fashion, all at once. Their 200 million members span the globe and are a mix of deep fashion insiders, plus a much broader group of highly committed, curious fashion shoppers who shop often and are always open to inspiration. They partner with their customers’ favorite fashion stores to offer over 12,000 brands, including everything from High Street to High-End Luxury.
We got to sit down for a Q&A with Lyst’s Director of Partner Growth, Karla Stevens, and here’s what she told us.
Q. Please describe a typical day in your office.
A. A typical day starts with the team catching up at our desks, we always have lots to discuss in fashion news and culture. Then we start meetings with partners to talk about new opportunities or with internal teams to catch up on the latest projects and progress. We like to go out for a team lunch whenever we have something to celebrate. Recently we’ve had lots of birthdays, promotions and new joiners. If it’s a Thursday then we’ll have the full company meeting and then enjoy drinks, nibbles and music before heading home.
Q. What types of programs is your team looking to partner with?
A. Our mission is to offer the most comprehensive assortment of products that fashion lovers want and while evaluating new partners, we look at the level of demand that we see for the brand from our customers. We look at historical sales through their resellers, displayed links, page views and search activity by our customer.
Q. Can you share a success highlight from your partnership with Partnerize that really stands out to you?
A. For me, it’s the whole package of working with Partnerize and their team, right from the setup with a smooth onboarding with new partners to optimizing ongoing campaigns with dynamic CPA or media opportunities. I always look forward to Partnerize’s Partnership Day, catching up with the brands and stores we love working with in person and the account management team, too. We always have the most insightful conversations when we have everyone together for that kind of event.
Q. What Partnerize technology innovation has had the greatest impact on your team?
A. Giving partners the ability to commission dynamically has a great impact on our partnerships. As a team we love to stay ahead of the latest trends as fashion lovers but also seeing the data, in real time, reflects this as well as highlight new insights and that’s always exciting. Having the ability to recommend dynamic rates means we can utilize our wealth of fashion data to improve a partner’s campaign performance.
Q. What sets your company apart from others or makes it unique?
A. Our scale and technology allows us to expose our partner brands to bigger, better new audiences. But we also use our insights to make sure you connect with them in rich, deep, real ways with our suite of ad + storytelling opportunities. We map our global audience not just on what they’re buying, but also on their depth of knowledge and interest in fashion. We are best known for our industry leading insights and account management;from The Lyst Index report, our quarterly ranking of fashion’s hottest brands and products, to the bespoke reporting our account management team provides partners to support their business growth.
Q. What do you attribute your company’s success to with Partnerize?
A. As a company, we love to try new things, to test and learn. I think that is very aligned with what Partnerize has done in the affiliate space. It means we can be agile and create new opportunities whilst at the same time delivering huge results and growth for our partners.
Q. What is one thing people should know about your company?
A. I always tell people how lucky I am to work with so many intelligent people across our different teams. Almost half of the company are engineers which is pretty unique for a company in the fashion space. I get to be a part of really exciting projects and conversations from AI development to catalog infrastructure.
Q. What’s on the roadmap for your company?
A. We’ve been working on our 1st Partner Trend Insights for the October release and are already planning the next edition. We’d like to make this a more regular addition for our partners. There is a huge amount of fashion intelligence we can share, so stay tuned for more on this.
On top of that we’ve been working with some of the most exciting and renowned brands on bespoke content creation. This is through our content studio which is made up of a multi-disciplinary team of editors, creatives, designers, developers and data analysts. We have a unique position in the publishing space, and a distinct approach to content creation. We are looking forward to building on this!
Q. Three words that best describe your company…go!
A. Intelligent, Energetic, Creative
Learn more about Lyst by registering for their Partner Perspective webinar on Tuesday, October 31st, 11am GMT (4pm EST) right here.
