Lyst wants to reimagine how shoppers discover fashion online and has a new owner that supports the prospect.
“The most exciting thing about the acquisition is that they’re going to accelerate our plans and our vision,” Emma McFerran, chief executive officer of Lyst, the London-based fashion shopping platform, told WWD.
Lyst is a 15-year-old global online fashion platform that lists 27,000 luxury and premium brands, from Gucci and Prada to Tory Burch and Coach, and multibrand retailers such as Mytheresa. According to the company, it has 160 million shoppers annually, carries no inventory, is data and AI-driven, and recorded revenue of $64 million in the year ended March 31, 2024, the most recent figure available.
The quarterly “Lyst Index” ranks the hottest brands and products based on shopper searches, views and sales and is widely considered an industry “seal of approval” for many brands.
Recently, “quiet luxury”; the return of maximalism; Y2K’s final chapter; layering; military jackets; ice blue and ties, and Coach, Rick Owens, Golden Goose and Saint Laurent, as well as some smaller local brands like BlankNYC and Who Decides War have been popular searches on Lyst.
Last April, Lyst was acquired by Zozo, a major fashion e-commerce platform, for $154 million. Zozo operates the ZozoTown fashion e-commerce platform in Japan and has extensive technology with proprietary measurement and body scanning tools and an outfit-sharing app.
McFerran, a lawyer, joined Lyst 10 years ago as chief people officer and general counsel. She rose to chief operating officer, and became CEO in July 2022.
In the following Q&A — McFerran’s first interview since the acquisition — she discusses her vision for Lyst and how the company is being impacted by its new owner.
Emma McFerran
Courtesy photo
WWD: What motivated the acquisition by Zozo?
Emma McFerran: We quickly realized we shared a strategic vision to make fashion shopping online better around the world. We can share a lot of different technology and technology expertise that will be mutually beneficial. Lyst is very hot on personalization. We’ve been developing our personalization algorithms for over 10 years. Zozo is very good at user experience. They’ve really thought about how customers come to and shop their sites.
We are the cornerstone of Zozo’s international expansion. Zozo previously focused on the Japanese market, but about a third of our business is in the U.S., a third Europe, and a third the rest of world. The U.K., unsurprisingly, is our largest European market. Germany would be the second.
For us, Japan is a small market, but with Zozo it’s going to be much easier for us to grow there.
WWD: What is your vision for Lyst?
E.M.: We want to re-imagine that multibrand online store. We think it can be totally changed through technology and amazing curation. We have done extensive research on how users are shopping today, what they’re finding exciting, what’s delighting them about shopping online, and how they’re using large language models like ChatGPT to talk about fashion discovery. We are looking at how new technology can make shopping online really fun and exciting.
Think of a beautiful department store. It’s not just the items for sale around the rails that makes you feel good and want to purchase. It’s the atmosphere, the branding and the curation. We want to build that online, and technology is helping us do that. We’re doing extensive research on customers and hearing they’re using new technologies to think about fashion, but in a way that’s very fragmented and unsatisfying. Think about single features cropping up, like virtual try-on, image search, or conversational natural language, asking the chat bot in natural language terms to help find something. None of which alone is enough to (create) that feeling of a beautiful store. But we’ve got the largest data set in fashion and we’re building on that data by weaving in amazing AI-powered features throughout the experience, to re-imagine how fashion shoppers feel shopping fashion online.
WWD: Specifically, what tech innovations are you working on?
E.M.: We’re working on a number of AI features which layered together will start to create that feeling I described. For example, currently ChatGPT isn’t doing enough for users because it’s very flat and words-based, whereas we’re in a very visual industry. We’re experimenting with visual search. So you could take a photograph of this sweater I’m wearing, upload it to Lyst and get visually similar results. The (tech) model can look at images as well as text…so you’ll get a much richer search result. We have built search from a product. It is available to staff users, but will be rolled out very soon.
WWD: Can Lyst and Zozo share brands?
E.M.: There are definitely opportunities to share partnerships and learnings. They have a more contemporary price point. We partner with most of the world’s luxury brands for more of a luxury positioning.
WWD: With the acquisition and accelerated growth plans, are you growing the team?
E.M.: We are, but in in line with the strategic plans that we have. Two-thirds of our team work in technology, data science and product. We’ll be growing in those areas, growing our machine learning capabilities, growing our (staff of) data engineers, but also on the other side of the equation, continuing to bolster our editorial and styling capabilities. Those skillsets need to blend into what we’re doing as well. We have a staff of 140 at the moment.
WWD: What makes the Lyst shopping distinctive?
E.M.: Shopping for fashion, particularly online, can be frustrating. We have 10 million in-stock products, and if it was just a case of scrolling through them, it would be overwhelming and exhausting. So we help users find better fashion choices without being overwhelmed. Through data, machine learning and human curation expertise, we provide a deeply personalized experience once we get to know you. It’s more fun, satisfying and less overwhelming on Lyst.
WWD: Not carrying any inventory does make you different than some other websites. Would you ever consider wholesaling?
E.M:. No. We like to be considered as an alternative to the wholesale model. It gives us agility. If we see a trend rising on the platform, we can lean into that demand and help customers find those things quicker. Not investing in inventory does give us a freedom we can take advantage of.
WWD: You are a lawyer. What led you to Lyst?
E.M.: I just passionately believed in the mission. I joined Lyst when it was really small, about 10 people in a very small office. And the founder of Lyst, (Chris Morton) he was very kind, referred to me as a cofounder. I took on the people role because I didn’t think that Lyst was doing the best job we could with talent, how we found talent, and how we developed talent. I just wanted to solve that problem. That was exciting for me… Then I morphed into chief operating officer, because a lot of what I was doing was looking at what we were trying to achieve. What was blocking us from getting there and how can I help the organization to deliver those big programs of change as a disruptor as a relatively small company for a lot of that time. And then I was super close to the founder, and when he stepped back about three years ago, we had talked a lot about this natural progression where I would step into the CEO role.
WWD: Where does the name Lyst come from?
E.M.: It’s sort of an anagram of style (minus the e), and has some Nordic ethnological roots based on the word for lust or love, or have to have.
WWD: Do you think you will learn Japanese now?
E.M.: I’d like to. We are going to set up something for the team, as an option. A lot of people are interested. You can always try to understand other cultures better if you have some understanding of the language.
