本季時(shí)尚界流行什么？大數(shù)據(jù)

????2000年代初，當(dāng)時(shí)還在澳大利亞從事時(shí)裝設(shè)計(jì)工作的茱利亞?法勒發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個(gè)惱人的問題：手頭上的信息源太少了，沒法幫她及時(shí)了解和響應(yīng)最新的流行趨勢(shì)。

????“我們掌握著前一季產(chǎn)品業(yè)績(jī)的內(nèi)部數(shù)據(jù)，也可以訪問一些能夠給人啟發(fā)的時(shí)尚網(wǎng)站，但是沒法知道我們錯(cuò)過了哪些機(jī)會(huì)，也沒有具體數(shù)據(jù)告訴我們?cè)鯓硬拍芨倪M(jìn)我們的產(chǎn)品搭配。”她回憶道。

????由于不知道向誰求助，法勒干脆決定自己開發(fā)一套解決方案。她挑選的時(shí)機(jī)再恰當(dāng)不過。當(dāng)時(shí)。一系列被合稱為“大數(shù)據(jù)”的方法和技術(shù)剛剛開始席卷整個(gè)科技行業(yè)。

????沒過多久，法勒的頭銜就變成了Editd公司聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人。另一名負(fù)責(zé)技術(shù)的聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人吉夫?瓦茨目前擔(dān)任這家公司的CEO。他們的目標(biāo)是幫助全球服裝零售商、品牌和供應(yīng)商在正確的時(shí)間、以正確的價(jià)格交付正確的產(chǎn)品。

????法勒表示：“每次你看到一個(gè)產(chǎn)品打折，那都是由于錯(cuò)誤的決策導(dǎo)致的。它導(dǎo)致這個(gè)行業(yè)出現(xiàn)了大量損耗，我希望解決這個(gè)問題。”

????Editd公司號(hào)稱擁有目前全世界最大的服裝數(shù)據(jù)庫。憑借120臺(tái)服務(wù)器和幾百兆兆字節(jié)的數(shù)據(jù)，該公司不僅向客戶提供各類服裝數(shù)據(jù)，還提供實(shí)時(shí)分析與各種其它工具。總部設(shè)在倫敦的Editd公司目前擁有27名員工和600萬美元的資本，快時(shí)尚品牌Gap和塔吉特百貨(Target)等大公司都是它的客戶。瓦茨聲稱，Editd公司目前已經(jīng)盈利，不過他拒絕透露該公司的具體收入。

????530億個(gè)數(shù)據(jù)點(diǎn)

????Editd的成功秘訣之一是，它匯總了來自全球各種來源的流行時(shí)尚數(shù)據(jù)和銷售信息——從零售網(wǎng)站、社交媒體，到設(shè)計(jì)師的T臺(tái)走秀報(bào)告，再到流行博客——然后設(shè)法實(shí)時(shí)獲取這些數(shù)據(jù)。該公司的數(shù)據(jù)庫包含了至少530億個(gè)來自時(shí)尚行業(yè)的數(shù)據(jù)點(diǎn)，有些信息可以追溯到四年前。它還涵蓋了全球1000多個(gè)零售商，同時(shí)擁有1500多萬張高清圖片。它的“社交監(jiān)控”功能監(jiān)控著全球80多萬名有影響力的時(shí)尚潮人和專家的社交活動(dòng)。

????為了隨時(shí)讀取這些數(shù)據(jù)，Editd公司把大部分?jǐn)?shù)據(jù)儲(chǔ)存在內(nèi)存而不是硬盤里，對(duì)此瓦茨解釋道：“這是非常重要的。我們需要以任何可能的方式讀取和查詢所有數(shù)據(jù)，它必須具有超強(qiáng)的響應(yīng)力。”

????另外，它必須足夠簡(jiǎn)單易懂，讓外行也能知道數(shù)據(jù)的意義。瓦茨表示：“用戶不必非得是一名數(shù)據(jù)學(xué)家才能理解這些數(shù)據(jù)的含義。”

????借助于Editd提供的服務(wù)，從事新品規(guī)劃、采購、貿(mào)易和戰(zhàn)略規(guī)劃等工作的服裝業(yè)從業(yè)者幾乎可以在任何設(shè)備上設(shè)置他們自己的“社交監(jiān)控器”。Editd的服務(wù)涵蓋男裝、女裝、童裝、配飾和美容等多個(gè)領(lǐng)域。由于輸出端的信息是可以定制的，所以一家高端服裝店負(fù)責(zé)牛仔服的業(yè)務(wù)員所看到的數(shù)據(jù)，與一家平價(jià)服裝連鎖店的女款針織衫采購員所看到的數(shù)據(jù)是截然不同的。

????When Julia Fowler was working as a fashion designer in Australia back in the early 2000s, she found herself frustrated by the lack of information available to help her understand and respond to the latest trends.

????“We had internal data on the performance of previous seasons’ products and access to inspirational trend sites,” she recalls, “but no way to understand opportunities we’d missed or concrete data on how we could improve our product assortment.”

????With nowhere to turn, Fowler decided to take it upon herself to develop a solution to the problem. Her timing was just right: A methodology and series of technologies collectively called “big data” was beginning to swell in the technology industry.

????Fowler has since swapped her title of designer for that of co-founder at Editd (pronounced “edited” and stylized in all caps), a company she launched five years ago with technical co-founder Geoff Watts, who now serves as the company’s CEO. Their mission: to help the world’s apparel retailers, brands, and suppliers deliver the right products at the right price and the right time.

????“Every time you see a product on discount, it’s because the wrong decisions were made,” Fowler says. “This leads to a lot of wastage in the industry. I wanted to fix that problem.”

????Editd says it now has the biggest apparel data warehouse in the world. It offers that data up to customers along with real-time analytics and an assortment of other tools, powered by 120 servers and hundreds of terabytes of data. The London-based company, which has 27 employees and $6 million in investment, counts Gap and Target among its customers. It’s also profitable, Watts says, though he declined to disclose the company’s revenues.

????53 billion data points

????Part of Editd’s secret sauce is the way it aggregates fashion trend and sales information from a wide variety of sources around the globe—from retail sites, social media, designer runway reports, and blogs covering trends—and then makes it accessible in real time. The company’s dataset includes no fewer than 53 billion data points on the fashion industry dating back more than four years. It covers more than 1,000 retailers around the globe and boasts 15 million high-resolution images. Its Social Monitor feature, an aggregated dashboard of social activity by fashion influencers and experts, includes more than 800,000 people.

????To keep its data readily accessible, Editd stores most of it in memory, not on disk. “That’s really important,” Watts explains. “We need to access all of that and query that in any possible way. It needs to be super-responsive.”

????It also needs to be easy for a layperson to grasp. “People shouldn’t have to be data scientists to understand the insights,” Watts adds.

????With Editd’s service, apparel professionals in merchandising, buying, trading, and strategy can set up and tailor their own dashboards and monitor whatever they choose from virtually any device. The service spans menswear, womenswear, children’s apparel, accessories, and beauty. Because the output can be customized, a denim merchandiser at a premium retailer, for instance, would see a very different set of data than a women’s knitwear buyer at a mass-market chain store.