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Fast fashion is a growing presence in the payments and retail industries. It may tives might be tailored solutions that
take the form of cheap products, low interchange rates or shoes that are worn address a business owner's physical
twice and thrown away. At best, it's a race to the bottom, a way to devalue and and digital environments and target
commoditize the products and services we sell. Whether merchants embrace audience and economic conditions.
fast fashion or oppose it by offering quality alternatives, MLSs can provide pur- While websites and chatbots can
pose-built tools and resources to help them dominate their chosen categories. sell fast fashion, tailored solutions
require a human, consultative ap-
In our world, fast fashion might mean placing a cheap terminal on a counter- proach.
top or shaving a few basis points off a processing agreement. Quality alterna-
Part art, part science

Brand Innovators held a Women in
Brand Marketing Summit in New
York City in October 2018. In addi-
tion to panel discussions and fire-
side chats, the event honored the top
100 women and "women to watch"
in brand marketing, including pay-
ments and financial services execu-
tives.

In a fireside chat, Angelica Mun-
son, chief digital officer at Shiseido,
told marketers to think big, build
your network, go to events and get
to know people across categories.
"Beauty and fashion are part art and
part science," she said. "[They are]
customer-centric, driven by data, but
you can't have it without the brand
DNA that makes you unique, such
as the way someone speaks to you in
a store," she said. "How do you use
data to drive the acceleration of that
art?"

London-based Bouncepad, with U.S.
headquarters in Boston, designs
tablet accessories. These hardware
platforms sit behind and underneath
POS tablets and could be considered
commodities. And yet, when I think
of Bouncepad, I think of an inno-
vative company with great design
ideas and an entertaining, informa-
tive blog.

What is the first thing you'd like
merchants to think about when they
think about your brand?

Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The
Green Sheet and managing director at DSL
Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist
and content provider. She can be reached
at dale@dsldirectllc.com and on Twitter at
@DSLdirect.

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