CityFashion for Business

In 2006, two entrepreneurs from Hasselt, Belgium, Wim Houben and Christophe Van Durme, identified a challenge for local, offline retailers in the burgeoning age of e-commerce. Their solution was CityFashion, a digital marketplace designed to bring the inventory of brick-and-mortar fashion stores into the online world. The concept was straightforward: provide a platform for physical shops to reach a wider audience without needing to build their own extensive online presence. The company secured an undisclosed amount of funding from a single investor to fuel its operations and build out its marketplace technology. This investment represented a critical juncture, allowing CityFashion to execute its vision of creating a unified online storefront for disparate local businesses. The platform aimed to give consumers the ability to browse and purchase from multiple local retailers in one central location. Despite its innovative approach to bridging the gap between physical and digital retail, the journey for CityFashion ultimately came to an end. The company, which had set out to empower local retailers through a collective online marketplace, eventually ceased operations. Its story serves as a case study in the complexities of aggregating and scaling a marketplace for independent offline businesses.