Name of your website?Fashion Central
Your name?
Shoaeb Shams
Your Location (city, etc)
Lahore
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Fashion central is directed to be the home of fashion for Pakistani designers and community on the internet. We provide exposure to all the designers, highlight the upcoming talents and cover all the events. International fashion and lifestyle news & events are blendid with local to ensure a complete 360 degree view for our visitors/ readers. In addition we provide for a shopping cart section that show cases the collection of our designers, which is available to be purchased The Gift section is targeted towards the Pakistani market so that people can purchase and get it delivered to their loved ones even when they are not in the country.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I have been involved with various portals previously. Their is no comparable portal for the fashion and lifestyle industry in Pakistan. The available websites are a combination of many things, are non-serious and do not act as a bridge between the designer and the world wide consumer. I saw the opportunity and combined my resources to launch www.fashioncentral.pk. You can call it passion, opportunity but for me it is a solid combination of both.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
I launched my first website I guess it must be 1997, started a small ISP with a friend of mine and probably that was the first serious website I was involved in.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
I had to make it specific and I guess it does not get specific than www.fashioncentral.pk the .pk domain was chosen primarily because of our focus on Pakistan.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
I guess the answer to this question I have already mentioned in one my earlier responses. But just to summarize again, the competitor websites are not serious, they have limited vision, and are generally being operated from abroad with little or no objective information from the designers or consumers with in Pakistan.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
We want to maintain it and ensure that it becomes one of the mainstay of Fashion in Pakistan and is quoted as the premeier online fashion & Lifestyle magazine.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
Well if you are successful then the investment of time and money seems logical and very balancing but the issue is if you are unsuccessfull and that we are not planning to be.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
I guess we would have started with a skeleton and offered is for use on internet much earlier. But if you have the larger vision it is very difficult to cut corners. The revisions that we did before launch would have been inevitable even if we had moved forward with a skeleton offering. Obviously that would have meant that we would not be that attractive in the beginning. Which definitely could be a bad thing.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Absolutely, we structured the site as well as the processes to ensure scalability. We have the partnerships in place as well as processes to manage any such demand.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
No of revisions, redesigns and enhancements just added to the cost and headaches. One just comes up with so many ideas during development that seem absoulutely necessary which initally were not concieved. Some of these features & functionalities have a strong impact on the design as well as architecture etc. Which means fixing and the unexpected costs.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Retention of my best development staff probably was the biggest challenge. We were able to manage this amicably but I know for a fact that many big organisations were chasing our best developers.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
SEO techniques and targeted email marketing has been very successful for us
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
Not at all, as I mentioned already I have been in this business for a while so the expectations were very realistic but I must admit I did not see such a large scope of the finished product as I see now almost 6 months after launch.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
Well it has been about 6 months since the site is live, we have just aggressively started marketing it. And we are here for the duration!
what is the main problem area your website is solving?
www.fashioncentral.pk provides previously unavailable information about the fashion and lifestyle industry with in Pakistan. It provides the fashion icons exposure. It provides them a bridge for marketing their products to a worldwide audience, a facility which was not available to them before. And our readers both inside and outside Pakistan will be able to send branded gifts to their loved ones on special occasions, shipped from within Pakistan
What is your website address?
Fashion Central
