Nasty Gal

Founder went from broke art school student selling on eBay, to multi-million brand owner and fastest rising fashion brand, to bankrupt in 2017

And now?

Nasty Gal is an American fashion retailer that was founded by Sophia Amoruso in 2006. The company began as an eBay store, where Amoruso would sell vintage clothing and accessories that she sourced from thrift stores.

Idea:

Sophia Amoruso got the idea for Nasty Gal when she was working as a campus safety host at an art school in San Francisco. She had a knack for finding unique and stylish vintage clothing at thrift stores, which she would wear to work and receive compliments on from her coworkers and students.

How it started:

Out of the back of an ‘87 Volvo, she started with a minimal budget and a lot of hard work. She would spend hours every day scouring thrift stores for unique and stylish pieces that she could sell for a profit. She initially named her eBay store “Nasty Gal Vintage” after the album by funk musician Betty Davis, and the brand quickly gained a following among fashion-forward young women. In a few years, they went from $250,000 to $1.1 million to $6.5 million to $100 million in revenue.

Major challenges:

However, despite the brand’s early success, it faced some challenges in the years that followed. In 2016, Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy, and Amoruso stepped down as CEO. The brand was eventually acquired by British retailer Boohoo, which has continued to operate the Nasty Gal website.

Possible reasons for bankruptcy:

According to the LA Times

“Analysts said that Nasty Gal’s rapid growth was fueled by heavy spending in advertising and marketing. It’s a strategy that many start-ups use, but one that only pays off in the long-run if one-time buyers become loyal shoppers.

“You end up spending money via marketing online like banner ads [or paying] influencers,” said Ari Bloom, chief executive of Avametric, a fashion software company in San Francisco, and an investor in fashion start-ups. “If you spend $50 on marketing to get a customer to buy something and they only buy once from you, you are probably not making money.”

In Nasty Gal’s case, the inability to hold on to customers led to what’s called “a leaky bucket” situation, analysts said. Once the company burned through its fundraising capital and slowed down on marketing, sales began falling in 2014 and continued to drop.”

How it’s going today:

Nasty Gal is still in operation as a fashion brand owned by British retailer Boohoo.

After Boohoo acquired Nasty Gal in 2017, the brand went through some changes and faced some challenges, including a controversy over working conditions in its warehouses. However, Boohoo has continued to invest in Nasty Gal, expanding its product lines and marketing efforts.

Nasty Gal remains popular among young women who are looking for trendy and affordable clothing with an edgy, bold style. The brand’s commitment to inclusivity and self-expression has helped it resonate with a diverse range of customers around the world.

In December 2017, Amoruso founded Girlboss Media, a content company aiming to provide female-empowerment through blogs, conferences, and podcasts, and still operates today. Today, She publishes a weekly newsletter, share her thoughts and knowledge on Instagram, and through downloadable E-Books, the Side Hustle Bible. She also features free resources like the Bio Bible and the in-depth online course, Business Class.

Her advice to young women looking to follow in her footsteps:

Amoruso: Try a lot of things and find what resonates and what you’re good at. Especially when you’re young, you cannot fail. You have all the permission to jump around and try different things. Find smart people around you who have been there and done it. Seek out great advice, and stay curious. Use all of the resources you have at your disposal: read books, Google things, watch YouTube videos – whatever you need to answer the questions that you have. Find where you can gain that information and knowledge. A lot of that is on Girlboss – what we’re building with this social network is what I wish I’d had. To be able to connect with tens of thousands of women who have been there and understand what you’re going through more so than a Google search would is so, so powerful. There are ways that you can fast-forward without having to learn those lessons the hard way by connecting with people who have done it.

Top 3 ways she marketed Nasty Gal in the beginning

Mastering eBay SEO

She explains in her book, “Every auction title started with ‘VTG’ for vintage and then the rest was a world-salad mix of search terms and actual descriptions.”

Though she did not specifically call it this, Sophia was becoming better at the early models of search optimization with her eBay listings. She understood what her buyer persona needed and understood the words they used to express those wants.

Social Media Marketing through Myspace and eventually Facebook

Myspace was the social platform to be on in 2006 and Amoruso utilized it to her advantage by communicating with buyers, receiving feedback, and presenting her iconic fashion. “I just went with my instincts and treated my customers like they were my friends,” Amoruso divulges in her book, #GIRLBOSS.

Content Marketing

While selling was the goal, Sophia unknowingly gave an additional value through Nasty Gal that she never saw coming — a free styling service.

Excerpt from her book #GIRLBOSS, she states “I remember perusing a vintage store…when the girl working there confessed to me that to get outfit inspiration…she visited Nasty Gal Vintage…. Because I was styling every piece of clothing I was selling…I was showing girls how to style themselves….What we were really doing was helping girls to look and feel awesome before they left the house.”

That is the impact of great content marketing. By providing readers with daily fashion styles that are not directly meant to sell, but to educate. This allowed her to become a powerhouse in the vintage fashion community.