Ask Gab Waller, who went from personal shopper to global empire

For the world’s most famous personal shopper – or rather the person required to buy items that are sold out, hard to find or from a previous season – the magic is in the details.

Gab Waller has not only disrupted the luxury fashion space, she’s created an entirely new industry based on fashion sourcing—a role that literally didn’t exist a few years ago when she built her business as a one-man show. woman. Australia, in June 2018. One might refer to Waller’s skills as resource magic – and while she’s proven her skills as the founder of a hugely profitable business empire, this magician is happy to share (most) and her tricks.

Today, Waller’s name is associated with resources, and her brand has become synonymous with ensuring everything – nothing is out of reach. With a list of celebrities such as the Kardashians, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Lilly Aldridge, Jen Atkin, Hailey Bieber and many others, Waller moved from Australia to Los Angeles in 2021 to establish her headquarters. And although she has a celebrity clientele, her brand ethos is about “making everyone feel like a VIP”.

This is a testament to why Waller has not only grown her business from a single operation to a current staff of 10 (and still growing!), but has also secured stories in every fashion and interiors publication, from Vogue Australia AND Harper’s Bazaarto WWD AND of CFDA.

Here’s how her business works: Customers send Gab Waller a DM via Instagram (at @gabwallerdotcom), with an image of the item they’re looking for, as well as details such as size and color. They pay Waller a base fee—and then it’s detective hunting time for Waller and her team to locate the item—or what she refers to as each “part”—usually within 48 hours. It is this kind of attention to detail that has helped Waller achieve the level of global success he has achieved today.

These investigative skills are a key component of her success, because often DM messages include just a picture, without the brand name of the item. Waller has a superhero-like ability to zoom in on every clue and put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

This skill set is one she honed early on in one of her first jobs at the immigration department in her native Australia while working for the government. While it helped sharpen her information tracking skills, she soon realized she was too creative for that career path.

“I was drawn to fashion early on because I lived in a small town – Rockhampton – and I wanted to find ways to stand out,” shares Waller. “I used fashion as a way to be a bit unique, so I always liked finding pieces that no one else was wearing.”

After branching out into fashion (she started out with styling and then moved on to fashion assisting—then more popularly known as personal shopping), Waller struck gold in 2019 when her client, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, posted a Celine coat that Waller had decided on it. Whiteley gave a shout out to Waller and her IG handle in the post’s caption, and the rest is history.

Waller’s business is built on the notion of wanting what is wanted and hard to get. It’s the thrill of the hunt and human nature—and Waller’s business is proof of concept that equestrian culture is real.

There’s also an element of prediction to her business, where Waller has her finger firmly on the pulse of what will be in demand, based on the requests she receives and how well she knows her clientele. Whenever she shares these luxurious, highly-coveted items on her IG stories as part of her now known Immediate Shipment Pieces series, her community goes wild and they sell out instantly. “The only reason we don’t do it regularly is because our DMs blow up!” Waller shares.

Those acquisitions, as well as her now-growing team, are her only expenses—making Waller wildly successful as the founder of an empire, fashion maestro to a global client list, and head of a company, the growth of which is proof that the source is the future. of fashion.

“I’m a firm believer that sourcing is the future of luxury shopping – and I want to continue to pioneer it,” Waller asserts. “We’ve seen how e-commerce and reselling has disrupted and transformed the fashion industry, and it’s now time for assistants to do the same. This is a whole new career within the industry that didn’t exist just a few years ago. I I wholeheartedly believe that resources are the future and the growth in my business has shown that.”

Let’s see this increase, shall we?

– In May 2022, the growth of the company was over 1000%.

-From 2019-2021, her company demonstrated a growth of 830% over two years. In terms of net profit growth from 2019 to 2021, it shows an increase of nearly 10 times, over two years).

Waller continues: “When I started in 2018, this industry didn’t exist. And I think for some customers, time is a big reason for my success. No one has time to go and scour many other stores, looking for items. The luxury consumer simply wants easy, fast and anything to save time.”

The pandemic was also a major turning point for Waller’s business:

“I think that COVID really showed how much success a business model like mine can have. The fact that the world had shut down, but my business was absolutely booming, and I was doing it from my couch, was a testament to the fact that this is the future of shopping. The fact that anyone can DM a personal shopper and have Chanel delivered to their door – there’s nothing else like it.”

Although she made her name thanks to her reputation as a celebrity personal shopping maestro, everything about Waller’s business model is built on the premise of accessibility: from the college student looking for the latest pair of sneakers, to the bride who dreams of a special one. a pair of heels for her special day. With Instagram DM as the main method of communication, there is no barrier to entry in this world – it is not exclusive to celebrities and executives.

Another reason that attention to detail is so essential for Waller and those on her team is the fact that the company deals on a global scale, which means constantly dealing with exchange rates and foreign currencies. (It recently introduced USD as a form of payment, as Waller had always accepted in Australian dollars.) Adding Zelle as a payment method is also something its customer base appreciates.

Everything Waller and her team execute is done with attention to detail, the utmost care and TLC (from the personable nature of customer service on Instagram, to the personal notes Gab writes with her deliveries).

“I think my thought process on this has always been that it’s an Instagram-based business,” Waller explains. “It’s down to my attention to detail – I have the strongest, strictest policy when it comes to my DMs and how we organize it so that a message is never missed.”

Waller has also built her business on the value of relationships and carefully cultivating them, with everyone from her clients to the brand contacts she deals with directly, and with whom she now has on speed dial.

And that’s why Waller wants to give back and not “keep” her secrets of success: mentoring has become a core value for her, and it’s something she does regularly (one way is through the app, Intro, of which allows book users a 15-minute Q&A with Waller to pick her brain on building a brand — the truth is, while she’s considered a fashion guru, her skill set is applicable to any founder aspiring business).

Along with tremendous growth comes the need to expand its team, and Waller continues to do so with another job opening in Los Angeles.

“I never believed that I would be sitting in Los Angeles now, with a global clientele. All I ever wanted to do was just work for myself. That was a big deal. And I thought I had potential with this new company as I’ve always had an entrepreneurial spirit, but I certainly didn’t think it would get here. So yeah, it’s pretty crazy.”

Or some would say, it’s magic.