ModCloth is an online retailer that specializes in vintage , vintage-inspired and indie clothing, accessories and decor. ModCloth was started in Pittsburgh in 2002 by Susan Gregg-Koger and her then-boyfriend, now-husband, Eric Koger. Eric started a web development business in 2000 and used his knowledge to help Susan launch an eCommerce site for the amazing pre-worn vintage items she’d found at vintage sales. The company began in the Kogers’ college house basement at Carnegie Mellon where they employed a student part-time to help with packaging and shipping. It now has, however, 450 full-time employees across offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh. It is one of the fastest-growing fashion and home eCommerce ventures to emerge in the past decade and the company did more than $100 million in sales last year.
ModCloth is extremely popular with fashion bloggers, vintage lovers, and online shoppers in general because there are up to 50 new products a day on the ModCloth website. That fresh content is essential to making browsing the ModCloth site a daily habit. Also, ModCloth’s Be the Buyer program allows customers to vote on which designs are created and sold by ModCloth. Combine all this with ModCloth’s great customer service and it’s no wonder that in 2010, ModCloth was named the #2 Fastest-Growing Private Company in America according to Inc. It was also named to Forbes 30 under 30 list for Technology in 2011 and for Art and Style in 2012. ModCloth also made No. 19 on the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies as well as No. 14 on the Most Innovative Social Media Companies list by Fast Company in 2013.
With the popularity of Pinterest and vintage pins, ModCloth’s growth has increased immensely! An innovative company that has definitely taken advantage of the vintage fashion market.
Vintage is really big right now and they saw the opportunity to take something they love and turn it into a business, but I don’t think they ever expected it to be as big as it is now! Having new styles everyday has probably helped the business a lot by making the old feel new and having the fashion blogging community backing them up it seems very unlikely that ModCloth will be going away anytime soon.