written by Joash Ng, posted on 27th May 2013
Lu Shuang Ning, co-founder of FashandStocks
Shuan Ning, a financial journalist from China, is the co-founder of the FashandStocks, a unique blog that specializes in the financial reporting and analysis of the fashion and luxury market. Since its launch, the blog has met quite a reception with its consistent base of followers and has been praised for its unique approach to financial reporting. Shuan Ning co-founded the website whilst living in London and pursuing her post-graduate qualifications. In London, she was able to assemble a diverse and committed team, which ultimately culminated into the launching of FashandStocks, a site they now faithfully edit.
Today, she will be speaking about the blog and its founding with the Asian Entrepreneur.
So how did FashandStocks come about initially?
I met many interesting people whilst pursuing my Master’s degree in London. As part of a project, we had to create an online community and promote it through the internet. It was then my team mates and I decided to create a blog because it would be more casual but yet creative at the same time and we thought it would be something that would bequite interesting to implement.
And what made you decide to focus on Fashion and Luxury?
We had a long discussion about what we wanted to do initially. We thought it would be quite boring if we just created a blog that focused on generic business news or business features in general. As my team was predominantly girls, we wanted to write about something girls would be interested in as well as something that was combined with business and finance. Then we came up with the idea of focusing on investing in the luxury world. So for most people the best way to invest in luxury brands is buying the companies’ shares.
In that case, we hoped to attract female readers who are interested in fashion and luxury but also about the topic of investment which would be appealing to male audiences as well.
Did you realize it was a very niche area?
At that time, we realized it was a very special area. As only a few blogs, journals and online magazines covered it, that was when we really decided to do it.
How was the reception?
The blog has done quite well. We attracted a lot of people I think. A lot of people have contacted us and said it was a very interesting area to cover. While, we believe that the blog does have a lot of potential for growth, I believe the importance would be in staying creative and write more original and interesting stories.
Have you received any notable feedback?
Yes, we got some feedback from the Financial Times early this year, they appreciated our idea and encouraged us to discover more in the future.
What was the set up process for FashandStocks?
We set up our blog immediately. There are so many blogging platforms available on the Internet today. So that was not an issue. We chose to go with tumblr after some consideration. When the technical issues are ironed out, we started to officially launch the blog.
Why did you select Tumblr as opposed to other platforms?
One of the main reasons is that more users are active on tumblr today but the interface itself is also very easy to use. Another important point is that the picture editing functions of tumblr are well established. Due to the speciality of our blog, this is important as fabulous pictures are always essential when we are talking about fashion.
What is the publishing process like?
Basically, our editors and writers write a story every week. They don’t really follow a specific length. But importantly, our blog is updated regularly. In addition, we have an editorial meeting to review what we have covered in previous issues and we discuss about any interesting developments we could cover in the following weeks. We work very hard to try and diversify the contents of our blog to make it fun as well. Besides regular news, we spend a lot of time conducting technical analysis over luxury brand shares. We also spend quite a lot of time creating graphs and videos to illustrate market developments.
Copyright 2013. All rights reserved by VNews Ltd.
And what made you decide to focus on Fashion and Luxury?
We had a long discussion about what we wanted to do initially. We thought it would be quite boring if we just created a blog that focused on generic business news or business features in general. As my team was predominantly girls, we wanted to write about something girls would be interested in as well as something that was combined with business and finance. Then we came up with the idea of focusing on investing in the luxury world. So for most people the best way to invest in luxury brands is buying the companies’ shares.
In that case, we hoped to attract female readers who are interested in fashion and luxury but also about the topic of investment which would be appealing to male audiences as well.
How was the reception?
The blog has done quite well. We attracted a lot of people I think. A lot of people have contacted us and said it was a very interesting area to cover. While, we believe that the blog does have a lot of potential for growth, I believe the importance would be in staying creative and write more original and interesting stories.
Have you received any notable feedback?
Yes, we got some feedback from the Financial Times early this year, they appreciated our idea and encouraged us to discover more in the future.
What was the set up process for FashandStocks?
Could you tell us about the background of your team?
I’m working with quite an international group, there are people from everywhere including China, India, Switzerland and Britain. The biggest benefit our our diversity is that we come up with ideas that are quite global and that’s exactly what we want to focus on and project onto our website. The case for this is easily seen as nowadays the world is definitely very globalized. The experiences of working in such a team is very unique and special. We feed each other ideas. What’s more as Asia is the biggest market for the luxury industry, we chase more stories in the Asia-Pacific region. I’m proud of being an Asian girl, which has allowed me to contribute more when talking about a market I am very familiar with.
What advice would you share with our readers?
Follow your heart, then you’ll know what you really want to do. Once you’ve decided doing something, never give up. I believe there is nothing easy in this world, life is painful but you should always try to find fun in the process and make your life more interesting than it is. Work hard and play hard.
Connect with Shuang Ning and FashandStocks today:
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fashion-Stocks/354797491303161?fref=ts
Website: http://www.fashandstocks.tumblr.com/
