Interview: UPPFIRST Co-Founders on Revolutionizing E-Commerce

It’s easy to forget that e-commerce is still a relatively new concept. Since its inception in the 90s, e-commerce has exploded, allowing local brands to expand globally. Technology has come a long way since then, so what’s the next step for e-commerce? UPPFIRST may have the answer.

UPPFIRST describes itself as a “social sales engine for creators.” The company has simplified the online sales process while its technology is poised to meet overwhelming demand.

Making selling online as easy as assigning images and a bunch of words, UPPFIRST is ready – and has started – democratizing the world of online selling. Think Squarespace, but for e-commerce, not editorial.

Ed Diner and Arnaud Touret, two of the four co-founders of the pioneering retail platform, told TheIndustry.fashion about their plans to revolutionize the world of e-commerce, starting with fashion and then expanding to an endless range of categories.

What is your professional background and what inspired you to start UPPFIRST with the other founders?

ON: UPPFIRST is my second startup. But my specialty and experience is technology, which is the underlying theme of everything I do. I am fascinated by technology and I am fascinated by using it to reduce inefficiencies and improve the market. My previous business was a medical technology company.

One of our three co-founders, Payam Mirtorabi, came up with the idea for UPPFIRST a little over two years ago. He called me every day, telling me about his idea, and eventually convinced me to close the company and start something completely new from scratch. In retrospect, it was the right decision.

ED: My background is very boring – think finance and hedge funds. I did that for a while and enjoyed it, but it was never my passion. I was always focused on consumer markets and technology. So I invested in companies that were at the intersection of those two things.

Payam, who I’ve been friends with for 20 years, came to me with the idea. It really was in my sweet spot and I felt like I had something valuable to contribute. I always wanted to create something of my own that would make me feel like I was doing something meaningful.

How would you sum up the UPPFIRST concept?

ANNOUNCEMENT: It’s really about democratizing sales. There are many marketplaces out there right now, but they can be complicated, expensive, and disconnected from the community. That’s where we come in – UPPFIRST is a sales engine where we effectively give sellers the technology and tools to sell or pre-sell their products directly to their customers or consumers.

ED: Take you for example. Yes, it could be anyone. You have a full-time job, but you have an idea and you’ve always wanted to sell something. The barriers to doing that are pretty complex these days. It takes time and it takes money. It often requires some coding, right? Well, we give you the tools, just like you would post a picture on Instagram or another social media platform to start selling a product.

So when a user comes to our site to build their page, it’s similar to building a social media page. But instead, it’s a transactional sales page that they can use to interact with their community.

UPPFIRST is as intuitive to use as social media, yet as powerful and scalable as the largest online trading platforms. How did you make it scalable?

ON: Yes, it should be as intuitive as social media, but as powerful as the largest marketplaces. We put scalability to the test with Nicki Minaj and LOCI. Nicki has 300 million followers, and some of them were going to come to our site to pre-order. So we had to be prepared for that. It forced us to look at our technology and infrastructure to make sure everything was solid. Ultimately, everything worked out fine, without any glitches. Consumers were able to shop seamlessly, and we were able to prove that this technology could scale to very, very large numbers very quickly.

What is social commerce and what makes it different?Do you see the industry as a whole adapting to this?

ED: There are many technology solutions that you pay high fees for, even up to 30%. This is because established companies like Amazon bring you buyers. But in the world of social media, everyone has an audience, whether it’s 10 followers or 10 million followers. So why pay such a glaring fee?

We are not a sales driver in this regard, but our fees are low and single digit, depending on how many transactions you make (the amount of the sale determines the percentage UPPFIRST takes). We charge a fee per transaction, not a subscription fee. So the cost is competitive and very transparent.

Does low cost and simplicity set UPPFIRST apart from other platforms?

ED: Yes. Simplicity, ease of use and power!

ON: We also have features that are designed to engage the community. For example, when you buy or sell an item, you can get a reward. This could be a brand that gives the customer 20% of the purchase back to spend next time. By rewarding your customers, they are more likely to come back and spend money with you again. These features build community.

UPPFIRST recently streamlined its sales process for Nicki Minaj’s collaboration with sustainable sneaker brand LOCI. How did you prepare the platform to handle the overwhelming demand?

ON: As part of the partnership, we sold through a pre-sale method. Our first launch was about a year ago with HEAT, where we sold their mystery boxes. That allowed us to test and scale the pre-sale feature. It went very well, which was a great moment for us. It was a validation of the year of work and ideas we had put in.

Fashion is not everything we want to achieve, but it’s a good place to start. By working with HEAT, we found a way to pre-sell. All the luxury fashion brands like Roksanda, Diwali, Chet Lo, who are using our technology, are doing fashion shows. They spend a lot of money on amazing shows and viral moments, but people who are watching the show don’t have the opportunity to buy the clothes. They have to wait for six months to buy them. Using our technology, some of these brands like Roksanda can print QR codes around their shows, which allows people to pre-order the outfits they see. This is great for two reasons: cash flow and data collection. Let’s say I’m Roksanda and I make the same dress in two different colors and I see people pre-ordering it, which could either cause me to produce less of the less popular color or boost my marketing around it.

Historically, brands have always looked to the past to predict the future. For example, last season I sold 10 black shirts, so this season I’ll do 20. But that’s not efficient. Pre-sales are almost like looking in a mirror, where you can see what’s going to happen and then use that to inform your wider collection and strategy.

We also focus on emerging designers and emerging brands who have an idea and amazing craftsmanship, but don’t necessarily have the time, money or resources to build a website. We call this a “creative testing ground” where they can take a crazy idea, create a sample and easily add it to the site without having to pay a fee until it sells.

Can you tell us more about the UPPFIRST pre-sale feature and how it promotes responsible trading?

ON: In today’s fashion, everyone always thinks that the problem of overconsumption is with the consumer. But it’s not. The problem starts earlier. Wholesalers and retailers want to stock every shade of every design, for example, otherwise the customer would simply shop elsewhere. Historically, wholesalers and retailers have always overordered, fully knowing that they won’t be able to sell everything, and that ends up being a sale. Then a lot of those items that were on sale end up in landfills. That’s where our pre-order solution comes in. Manufacturers can produce products after they’ve sold them, so they don’t over-produce. No one is going to go 100% pre-order, but we believe our technology can improve the situation.

So the goal is to democratize fashion retail. Are there any other big plans for the future?

ON: We started with fashion because it’s something that people spend a lot of money on, especially online. Another reason we started with fashion was to find a solution to the overproduction that ends up in landfill. We want to show, through features like pre-sales, that there’s a new, better, more sustainable way of doing things. The idea is to then expand into different verticals, like events and ticketing. Again, it’s about democratizing data. Right now, the ticket masters and the artists of this world don’t get as much at the end of the ticket sale. So it’s about trying to shake up that dynamic and do things in a better way.

ED: Whether it’s a fashion brand that has to go through a wholesaler to their customer, or an artist, DJ, or anyone that has to go to a bar promoter or a ticketed event organizer, we think we can eliminate the middleman. It goes back to that aspect of social commerce – that you connect directly with that person, regardless of what you do or what you sell.

We don’t dictate anything behind the scenes – we just create tools that users can specify. Right now, we’re more focused on attracting these waves of new merchants or scaling in terms of numbers than which big brand is going to use it.

If we started with a few college graduates, some designers might turn their noses up at UPPFIRST. Now we have luxury fashion brands using our technology, we want to attract masses from the bottom. That’s our drive. I think that’s the biggest problem in the industry and that’s where we can make a difference. Now that we’ve perfected the technology, we want to scale.

ON: I also think that’s how the new generation wants to engage. Gen Z wants authentic experiences where they feel close to the brand and almost part of the production process. For example, TikTok Shop brings the buyer and the seller closer together. In the same way, we’re connecting the consumer and the retail experience. For example, Chet Lo, in addition to offering items from his collection, might offer a Zoom call or a tour of his factory. It’s about adding experiences to products and making e-commerce a little more authentic and a little less boring.