Social Shopping Without Hitting the Mall

Posted on by Ashley Laurel

If you’re looking for a shopping buddy who won’t talk your ear off or with whom you have to tire out your poor stiletto clad feet with at the mall, than look no further than StyleFeeder.

StyleFeeder, a social shopping website based in Cambridge, MA, offers users the perfect opportunity to find someone to shop “with” that has a similar taste in style, in the form of a StyleTwin.

Shoppers can be matched with one another based on a whole list of product attributes with people from just about anywhere. In fact, according to VP of Business Development Shergul Arshad, StyleFeeder chooses StyleTwins for other shoppers based 100,000 product attributes.
The site, founded by Philip Jacob in 2005, lets shoppers browse 14 million products all on one page. Today, 2 million shoppers use the site each month, but just two years ago, in 2007, StyleFeeder had a small fraction of that number, says Arshad, who joined StyleFeeder in 2006 with a resume including experience at companies like Armani and eBay. But though 2 million shoppers seems like a high number at first glance, a large part of the population isn’t represented as about 80% of shoppers on the site are women, and most of them are between the ages of 15 and 35.
Though only a small fraction of the population is represented, all brand ranges are represented equally. So someone searching for one particular item, like a headband, will find that a range of products from stores including Saks, JCrew, Amazon, and Etsy, will show up in the product browser. Though the StyleFeeder is focused on personal style, Arshad points out, most people will find more products by larger brand names because these brands simply have more items.
Within just the past month, StyleFeeder was a nominated for the 2009 MITX Awards’ “applied technology” category due to its new product browser and geotargeting technology. This new technology helps shoppers better find relevant items based on their location (in addition to price, brand, color, etc.) – most likely a user in Alaska wouldn’t search for sandals as often as a Floridian would, for example. It’s all about location, location location.

And if sharing your shopping details with others on the site isn’t enough, click on the option to share your new picks with your Facebook friends.
 

 

Side Note: Though I was hoping that my Style Twin would wind up being one of the celebrities that uses the site (like Ashley Olsen), I was excited to learn that she’s still a world away from me, in Malaysia!

ThredUp: A Site to Lose Your Shirt Over

Posted on by Ashley Laurel

Ever have one of those times when you opened your closet and couldn’t find anything to wear? Last fall, this is just what inspired Harvard Business School alum, James Reinhart, to start a company based on helping others with this predicament.

ThredUp, based in Cambridge, MA, is a peer-to-peer online clothing exchange. It’s not like eBay or Craigslist where things are bid on or sold based on looks. On ThredUp, users cannot see pictures of inventory, but only enter specific information into the database about what type of item they’re looking for.

It’s like getting Christmas presents, co-founder Chris Homer says. People generally know what you like, but don’t have a specific list.

At the moment, the site boasts a variety of high-end brand men’s and women’s shirts ready for purchase. Why no other clothing items yet? The focus right now is getting the whole method working to perfection, Homer says, though the next step is to expand the site to kids’ shirts (hopefully during Spring 2010).

For $25, you get three envelopes in which to place the shirts you’re ready to exchange. Have a shirt you hate to iron or a tee you’re just plain tired of? Exchange it for something better. But remember, you get what you give. The FAQ section of the site clearly says to only trade items that are in style, specifying “No MC Hammer pants please.”

If you gets a bad item, or “dead thread”, make sure to fill out a review on the item. If it’s bad quality, or a “dead thread”, the sender gets a mark against them and the receiver is put back into the queue (at or near the beginning) for a chance at another item.

We want people to do “the least amount possible to make the most successful trade”, Homer says.

With more than 4,000 people signed up from across the country- access for people in the states of Alaska and Hawaii are being worked on- ThredUp is quickly growing in popularity, and therefore in inventory.

To start, register on the site , add each item you want to get rid of to your “closet”, set a minimum number of preferences and purchase your first package of envelopes. And then start “ThreddingUp”.

I can’t wait to see what these self-proclaimed knitwits do next.