http://www.digitalgravel.com/There is probably hardly anybody out there that does not know or has not heard of Digital Gravel. Just in case to refresh your minds, its the premier online store for streetwear. How have they gotten their? Well, the answer is pretty easy. Digital Gravel was not only the first one bringing streetwear online, but they also kept promoting young strong labels and gave them a word out to the world. They work very close with their brands and only take people into their shop that they feel have something special to show. Most brands insist on being displayed in a store and only along with that, to be sold online. Digital is probably the only site, that has so much trust and in streetwear to get brands exclusively online! So much to the business side. But who is behind Digital Gravel? I had a talk with Nima, one of the founders of the site, that now already exists quite a few years. We talked about how Digital Gravel became what it is today, the newly launched Diggers Society and new business ventures and ideas that are being checked out in the Digital Gravel camp!
Whats up Nima, its good to finnaly meet you. Please start by letting the people know who you are ! Hey Rico… first off, thanks for this opportunity, you’ve always been showing us love and we appreciate the support. Ok, let’s see… my name is Nima, I started a website 8 years ago and now I spend my days working with my friends and doing something I love. Contrary to some rumors that may be circulating, I am not cool.
So, you have been running Digital Gravel now since 1999. Tell me how the idea came about for launching Digital Gravel ?I guess it was all pretty simple. It’s the type of thing where you’re just a young guy thats into hip hop and all that, and you’re always dreaming up crazy schemes on how you’re gonna do something in the game. Well, when I was 18 I was pretty sure I wanted to open up a physical streetwear store. I started getting cracking on it, and pretty soon I was emersed in the industry, meeting people and getting to know how everything worked. I was scoping out locations, going to trade shows and just generally pretending to know what the hell i was doing. The crazy thing was that I never realized how much of ‘streetwear’ is actually just big business with an urban face plate on it. The deeper I got into it, the more I realized that the bigger, mainstream lines were pretty much corporate outfits that really didn’t give a rat’s ass about ‘the culture’ and all these little elements that the young devout kids were obsessing over.So I kept digging deeper and deeper until I found these tiny streetwear lines that were generally run by a couple real young creative people, who pretty much knew very little about the big leagues of fashion. They were pretty much just some cool people doing some cool shit. These brands didn’t have any real good distribution, cuz if you didn’t have some sort of mass appeal, you wouldnt be able to get into many stores.It was pretty much at that point that I changed course and decided to focus on these important but small brands that noone was paying attention to. They needed great distribution and with the growth of the internet in the late 90’s, it just seemed like perfect timing for a site like Digital Gravel, that would expose these brands to all the right people without overexposing it to a mainstream crowd.
You are one of the few or the only store that is only online and still manages to get hold of all the gully brands. How did you pull that one off ? Usually brands want to work with physical stores, mainly for prestige reasons !That’s a good question. You have to keep in mind that we have been doing this for over 8 years now, and have always been a hub for all of these lines to expose their goods. We have consistently introduced new lines to our huge base of customers and even many retailers look at our site to get ideas of what brands are doing well and which ones they too should carry. For these reasons, we are alot less of an online store and alot more of a center for a creative community. Once a brand gets put on Digital Gravel, they instantly have the eyes of 50,000 customers and the entire industry in general, so they want to make sure that they have a strong presence on the site. On top of that, brands know that we are committed to growing all of our brands. Unlike most retailers that just want whats hot, we stay committed to our brands and have put alot of our own promotional budget into creating goods and campaigns that will further their development. Without trying to sound boastful, I think brands come to us because they know we can put alot of stuff into action for them and because they know we don’t have some greedy corporate agenda.
Now you also started the Diggers Society. Tell me what that’s all about , how the idea come about?The Diggers Society is our new ‘t-shirt of the month’ club. We realized that people were paying more and more to get exclusive t-shirts from their favorite brands, so we came up with an idea that we thought people would dig. Basically, customers buy a year long membership for $250, which gets them 12 t-shirts from some of the dopest brands on DG. Since registration for the membership is only open 3 days a month and these designs are exclusively designed and distributed for this project, the shirts are still extremely limited. However, since people essentially buy the shirts ahead of time, our costs drop dramatically, so everyone saves on the pricing. Its just a way to get our customers the best, most exclusive designs without them breaking the bank.
Now tell me something about yourself. Which clothing lines are you feeling at the right now and who do you see being also very strong in the future ?Let’s see…Foreign Family are good friends and show a huge amount of potential to be the next hot line in the game. Everything is hand drawn and very different from whats out in the market now, so keep an eye out for the fam. The Hundreds is huge, and getting huger. These guys ushered in a new era of the game by using the internet to expose the lifestyle we live to our customers. They’re smart guys, and people are really watching them. Scifen is about to change everything for the big boys. Seriously, mark my words. Their Fall06 collection is no joke. We love all the lines on the site though and don’t really mess with anyone we don’t think has a strong future. They are all family and I wear everyone’s stuff.
What are your plans for the future ?
Stress out and relax. We have some really cool plans for the growth of DG, so we’re all putting in a lot of work in and trying to have fun while doing it. I just found a cricket walking on my desk too, so my immediate plans are to take care of that.Thanks Nima for the Interview and keep up the good work. It was great meeting you and getting some insight on how you built up Digital Gravel !!Thanks Rico! i appreciate this and my apologies for being so late with it ! I’d like to take this chance to thank all of our customers, brands and the true believers… we’re nothing without you.
