Along with the many benefits that come from having an in-house team of domain experts, the Lily AI team also happens to be constructed with empowered individuals who possess a broad understanding of trend cycles, and who also happen to know where to find out about the latest and greatest directions in fashion, home, and beauty. In this article we’ll dig into what trend identification is, and how it can play a critical role in promoting positive customer relationships.
What is Trend Identification?
Trend identification is an examination and analysis of predictions, impacted by numerous factors. The most critical of them are heavily influenced by fashion designers, runway shows and the current zeitgeist. Trend forecasters can predict anything from color, fabric, materials and textiles, thus churning out digestible information for the everyday user – and merchandiser – to understand and adopt.
In order to enhance and grow customer relationships, Lily AI’s team of domain experts was formed to provide an additional layer of expertise when it comes to buying opportunities in their respective markets. Through first-hand research conducted by our team, we’ve found that by understanding what is going to be accepted by buyers in the future, we can then provide an opportunity to enhance product attribution taxonomy head-on, and therefore minimize any missed opportunities on our retailer partners’ sites.
One recent example of how this plays out: our team discovered through research that psychedelic prints were going to continue to be trendy in women’s fashion. They then presented that to the company to gain alignment across our internal team. This resulted in updating styling definitions and rules to better tag when psychedelic print products come up with our retailer partners, so that we can deliver consistent and relevant data to these retailers and their customers.
The Domain Experts Team at Work
It’s important to note that the trend research team is not only staffed by individuals uniquely powered with fashion expertise, but also with those who have distinct backgrounds in beauty, home styling, and sales. In our beauty and home divisions, closely following trends in those industries during the research and development phase provides an opportunity to expand our product attribution taxonomy, thus enticing a whole new market of retailers. By showing current and prospective customers an extension of knowledge and a passion for trend research also shows that we care about the depth of our business, while naturally providing major a top-line revenue impact to their business.
Another example that our team focused on during a recent customer presentation is the children’s wear “craft” trend. Through meticulously examining this trend, we ensured that we had an extensive taxonomy list to cover the wide array of embellishments and colors seen in this new trend for both girls’ and boys’ apparel. We were then able to look internally at our tag library to align with what retailers may be expecting and looking for in the future.
What the Trends Determine
Our domain experts are examining their taxonomies and current trends to determine key considerations like, “Do we have the correct/accurate dressing styles to describe this trend?” and “Do we have the extensive list of embellishments to correctly attribute if we see items like this from current or potential customers?” By understanding the elements of any given up and coming trend, the domain and engineering teams can collaborate to ensure that we have that extensive taxonomy. This allows us to present to future clients to ensure they feel more confident in our ability to offer a wide variety of attributes.
Not only has the addition of Lily AI’s trend research team furthered and deepened our current customer relationships, it now provides prospective customers with an additional input that further enhances customer-centric personalization and drives much stronger on-site search results.
