Welcome to Haute Shop
Pakistan is an exciting new market when it comes to fashion, films, music and entertainment; it’s all linked to economic growth and development, which is why – at some point six months ago – we decided it was time for Something Haute to grow into something even bigger than what it had become. We had the content, thanks to twenty years of experience in the field, and the following, thanks to the hundreds of thousands of readers who appreciated Something Haute for the credibility of that content. That something bigger had to be commerce, but how to do that without knowing anything about e-commerce was the challenge. I’m someone who loves words and cannot handle numbers; at this point I partnered on Something Haute with Hassan Choudary, now Managing Editor Something Haute and someone who understands words and numbers with equal ease.
Then something bigger happened.
My brother, Kamran Shaukat – who has worked at some of the biggest retail companies on the planet (including Walmart, McDonald’s and Shell) decided to bring a huge e-commerce platform, called ‘ezbuy’, to Pakistan. With technology developed in Shanghai, ezbuy at that time was successfully operational in China, USA, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. My brother and Xue Bin Vincent, the CSO of ezbuy were introduced by a common friend at Alibaba in Singapore and worked their way towards the Pakistan retail market and its growth prospects along (OBOR) One belt One Road, of which CPEC is a key part. A year later, on August 1, pk.ezbuy.com launched in Pakistan. ezbuy assessed the Pakistan market and came to the conclusion that Pakistan was under served in lifestyle solutions products, meaning unavailable products which are high in demand and that would lead to people’s happiness at a fraction of the cost. The website launched in Pakistan with the largest range of over 3 million unique products and access to over a billion products via two dozen large retailers and 10,000 direct suppliers.
Zaha by Khadija Shah, one of the hottest new high street brands, is also available on the Haute Shop
In order to truly bring Pakistan to the global stage as well as play to Pakistan’s strengths, a natural extension of Something Haute was to have a Haute Shop. Something Haute was already putting out the best of Pakistan’s fashion and entertainment content to the world; Haute Shop would offer the best of Pakistan’s products globally, with of course the same ‘Haute’ filter. I can already sense that Haute Shop has the capacity to be a destination and one stop shop solution to one’s fashion needs. Why? It is powered by ezbuy; which is a 350-million dollar enterprise and Haute Shop products and content are local… so a win win.
This Kalma Ring — available on Haute Shop — has been designed by Uzma Durani, a graduate of the Royal College of Art London
Haute Shop, as our vision saw it, is a house of Pakistani brands that we could put our support behind and eventually export to the world. We launched Haute Shop in mid-August with a conservative number of brands but the dream is to bring every credible fashion and lifestyle brand onboard that has the strength to sell within and export beyond Pakistan. We don’t just want the giants; we also want to identify smaller craftsmen and designers who have skill but don’t know how to market and sell. We want to help change lives and brand a better Pakistan to the world, at least in the regions where ezbuy operates. Our dream is taking a Pakistani brand from obscurity and for it to be available in Xintiandi Shanghai, Gangnam Seoul or Singapore.
It’s a dream, a vision, but one that has the potential to be a game changer. Click here to enter a new world of fashion and lifestyle.
