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Fashion Cloud is a B2B marketplace that handles the full wholesale workflow between fashion brands and retailers – from catalog sharing and ERP integration to ordering.
ENTRY ANGLES
Embed marketplace functionality directly into workflow automation rather than as a separate discovery layer · Target established B2B markets with significant friction in current analog workflows · Leverage operational lock-in through workflow integration to build network effects
VERTICALS
CAPABILITIES
Workflow automation and integration expertise, Understanding of enterprise procurement processes, Platform network effects and operational lock-in design
Fashion Cloud sits between fashion brands and the retailers who carry their products – a B2B marketplace that handles the full wholesale workflow rather than just listing products for discovery.
The platform's first layer is a product data hub. Brands upload catalogs – photos, specs, seasonal lookbooks, campaign videos, co-op marketing materials – and control exactly which retail buyers can access what. Retailers get pre-built integration modules to pull selected product specs directly into their inventory systems, e-commerce platforms, and ERP tools.
The ordering workflow sits on top of that data foundation. Retail buyers can build purchase plans in a visual format (image grid or budget table, sliced by brand or category) and place pre-orders and restock orders directly on the platform – whether from the office or via tablet in a brand showroom. When an order is placed, the product data and marketing assets flow automatically into the buyer's systems.
There's also a stockout loop that flips the typical marketplace dynamic. Retailers can check live brand inventory from the sales floor – if a customer wants an item that's sold out at the store but still available from the brand, a sales associate can reorder it on the spot and the transaction propagates through both companies' systems automatically.
Brands, meanwhile, can monitor sell-through rates on the retailer's shelf – for their own products only – and push targeted restocking recommendations with promotional pricing attached.
Fashion Cloud was founded in 2015 and raised modestly for several years. The current €25M round reflects growing international demand and a push toward global expansion. The platform already connects 500 brands and 17,000 retailers, with the majority currently in Europe.
Wholesale represents a meaningful share of most large markets. In European fashion alone, the €500B sector splits roughly 40/60 between wholesale and retail. That scale makes the B2B digitization gap striking: consumer marketplaces have captured the majority of retail e-commerce, while B2B transactions in most industries still run on email, spreadsheets, and phone calls.
The reason is structural. B2C marketplace mechanics – browse, compare, click, buy – map cleanly onto simple transactions. B2B procurement involves budgets, relationships, seasonal planning cycles, multi-brand coordination, and integration with back-office systems. A marketplace that strips all of that context away isn't useful enough.
The platforms gaining traction are the ones that recognize this distinction. Three examples illustrate the pattern.
VendorPM ([related review](/review/im-stali-nuzhny-tehnologii)) connects commercial real estate managers with facilities services providers. The core product is a contract and scheduling management system for building maintenance; the marketplace for comparing vendors is embedded inside that workflow, not the other way around.
Ghost ([covered previously](/review/pomozhem-im-jeto-prodat)) helps brands and large retailers liquidate excess inventory wholesale. Its key integration is with warehouse management systems – an AI layer monitors sell-through velocity and flags items that would generate better returns sold in bulk than held to slow retail clearance.
Nash ([covered here](/review/marketplejs-kak-chjornyj-jashhik)) is a last-mile logistics marketplace connecting online stores with local delivery operators. The marketplace exists, but no one uses it manually – an AI engine automatically routes new orders to the optimal carrier in real time.
Across all three, the pattern is consistent: the marketplace is a component inside a business process automation platform, not a standalone product. The automation is the value; the marketplace is the mechanism that makes each optimized decision possible.
B2B marketplace adoption is running well behind B2C – and that gap is closing now. The timing is less a coincidence than a consequence: enterprise buyers who grew up on consumer platforms are now in procurement roles, and their tolerance for analog workflows is lower than their predecessors'.
The most defensible entry point is to pick an established B2B market – one large enough to support a platform business – and identify a workflow that currently generates significant friction. The marketplace function should be built inside that workflow automation, not bolted on as a discovery layer. Vendors who get this right win network effects through operational lock-in rather than just catalog breadth.
The wholesale fashion vertical is large enough to support multiple platforms, and Fashion Cloud's model is available as a reference. The more interesting question is which adjacent sectors have equivalent inefficiencies and enough digital maturity to support a platform transition – and what business processes inside those sectors are the right place to embed the marketplace.