Crowdsourcing Fashion Buying - A Win-win-win Situation?

http://www.modcloth.com/shop/be-the-buyer

Seems they couldnt get enough of involving their community! Three years ago ModCloth introduced their "Be the Buyer" programme asking their customers to vote for design samples that then get produced and sold.

Does that sound familiar to you? Yes, Threadless was the first to base their entire business idea on their community producing designs and choosing what gets produced. These two companies are surely not doing this out of social-mindedness. Those $ 7,120,00 that have been awarded to winning artists over the last years are only a fraction of what Threadless is turning over. And there are many more reasons than just high profits. By crowdsourcing idea generation, marketing and sales forecasting...

*Win no. 1* ...less specialised staff is needed, therefore reducing fixed costs.
*Win no. 2* ...innovation failure rates are low (or even non-existent), as the buyers design and choose the garments they want.
*Win no. 3* ...there is a significant reduction in unsold stock, so no clearance is needed.

There can be many more wins in this constellation, which makes it pretty obvious why more and more companies try to jump on the crowdsourcing wagon, doesn't it?

The question that remains here, what's in it for the crowds? Is it money, too? Given the numbers above are true, a quick calculation (7,120,000 ÷ 1,570) shows that the creator of each winning design got an average of $ 4,535,03. Not bad at all, yet probably not the only reason. I will look further into this...