A unique Indonesian eCommerce venture is making money by selling local celebrities cast-offs to starry-eyed fans.
And if the concept works in Indonesia, surely it’s a fit for other Asian markets, like Thailand and Korea, where celebrity-spotting is almost a national obsession.
As TechInAsia.com reports, in an article written by Lina Noviandari. and translated from Indonesian,Bebelian founder Khairiyyah Sari was a former executive fashion and beauty editor at Indonesia’s Femina magazine. It was a role which kept her up to date – and in stock – with everything related to branded apparel and accessories, particularly handbags. Her work in the media also allowed her rare access to the nation’s exclusive pool of models, actresses, and celebrities who were deeply entrenched in the archipelago’s fast-moving fashion world.
Having cultivated relationships with many socialites and famous women, those in Indonesia’s fashion and beauty industry came to endearingly know her by one name; Sari. In mid-2011, however, she resigned from her safe and cushy media job to chase down a daring eCommerce dream. Bebelian was born, with the vision to sell branded, fashionable apparel and accessories that were pre-owned by Indonesian celebrities.
“On eBay, I found Hollywood celebrities putting their goods up to be auctioned. I then thought, Indonesia should have a place that sells items previously owned by celebrities. Because I knew a lot of them, I was sure they had a lot stuff that they rarely used. And certainly, there were many fans out there who wanted a piece of their style, right?”
Realising she couldn’t do it alone, Sari invited her friend Dewi Rezer – an Indonesian model, TV presenter, and actress – to help develop the company. Now a two-woman operation, Bebelian had an even deeper network of celebs it could tap into for secondhand goods. Sari went right to work creating the site and populating it with content, while Rezer helped legitimise the business and build buzz in the right circles.
As a fashion journalist, Sari already knew that people in Indonesia bought branded apparel that was endorsed or pre-owned by celebrities, but that there wasn’t a formal place where people were doing it.
She also knew that there was no website that was specialising in pre-owned celebrity handbags. With this in mind, she decided to focus her site solely on handbags in order to capture an early niche audience.
“Because I was a fashion journalist, the concept of an online store that I made didn’t seem too arbitrary. Each celebrity has to make a profile, so it’s sort of like a magazine. Complete profiles are linked with the celebrity’s own signature style, including handbags. Each bag is photographed in our studio and celebrities share tips on how to wear them.”
Sari claims that apart from the potential earning power of Bebelian, the site also has a mission to provide a means for average consumers to get their hands on designer brands at affordable prices. According to her, buying a pre-owned, branded handbag from a celebrity has a better value proposition than buying a counterfeit one.
However, when you look at the site, it’s plain to see that the prices are somewhere between what they’d be for counterfeit items versus real branded ones. So in that sense, shopping on Bebelian is still a step above buying fake branded items, but still not as expensive as picking something up from the Gucci store.
On Bebelian, users can browse via brands, celebrities, price, or product. According to Sari, around 30 celebrities have signed up, and she says she’s been dividing her time between Bebelian and her own private consultancy. She declined to comment on Bebelian’s traction, including the number of transactions it has facilitated to date. However, Bebelian currently features brand names like Chanel, Gucci, Guess, and Louis Vuitton as well as famous local names such as Astrid Tiar, Sandra Dewi, Jill Gladys, and Edies Adelia.
While Bebelian is a unique business model, it does see indirect competition in local site WokuWoku, an eCommerce firm that sells clothes and apparel from fashion lines owned by celebs. The primary difference is that Bebelian sells designer brands from the personal closets of celebrities, while WokuWoku deals in brands that are part of celebrity-made clothing lines.
However, Sari says she doesn’t need to worry too much about competitors just yet, as Bebelian seems to be performing beyond her expectations.
“The next obstacle we face is that our celebrities don’t have any more items they want to sell,” says Sari. “Because of this, we must always be looking for new celebrity partners to feature on Bebelian.”
