Shopping app changes the way you shop using artificial intelligence

NOT all women enjoy shopping so the founders of a new app decided to use artificial intelligence to make shopping easier.

Kelly Slessor and Emma Sharley, co-founders of Shop You, are using artificial intelligence to make shopping easier.

LET’S just have a moment’s silence for all the hours we’ve lost to trawling the internet for the perfect white t-shirt/black bikini bottoms/midrise jeans that actually fit.

Well, like all the previous problems that came before, there’s an app for that. Enter: Shop You, the free app which uses artificial intelligence and personal shopping data to customise and propose clothing options.

You simply input your preferred brands, your fashion style and body shape, and the app will find suggestions. Seriously.

As a digital and mobile marketing strategist, co-founder Kelly Slessor spent a lot of time researching what women want from an online shopping experience.

She saw that an overwhelming choice (coupled with the fact that 80 per cent of women don’t like shopping) that there was an opportunity to simplify the process and save time.

“If you Google ‘what to wear to a wedding’ you get 21 million results. We found 40 per cent of women have turned down invitations or felt anxious about going to an event because they didn’t have the right thing to wear.”

Based on analysis of 40,000 app reviews and a 1000 women’s responses, they also discovered 60 per cent of women believe their personal style doesn’t accurately represent who they are and 80 per cent believe their personal style is directly linked to their professional and personal goals.

Numerous studies have shown clothes affect how we feel, our confidence levels and how we behave but they have to be right for us, which is why personalisation is becoming more and more important. Finding those that suit us though is time consuming and returning them a long and painful process.

“It’s overwhelming. Most women have five to eight go-to brands in their wardrobe, so to shop with those brands online it means going to five different websites. Many online fashion stores have poor search functionality and don’t provide the ability to search by occasion, yet 70 per cent of us shop for a specific event,” explains Mrs Slessor.

And the brands they have got on board read like our bookmarked sites with Cotton On, Witchery, Spell, ASOS and Lorna Jane all involved. There are 44 brands in total, with Forever New and French Connection most recently added.

The top brands selected by their users are Witchery, Country Road, ASOS, Cotton On and Decjuba, with this Witchery item the most popular product.

Still find shopping overwhelming? Here, Mrs Slessor’s top advice.

• Know and understand your body shape: Different clothes flatter different body shapes. The main mistake women make is wearing the wrong styles for their shape.

• Go through your wardrobe and work out your brands: Find the brands that work for you. Identify the outfits you feel most confident in, or received the most compliments for when wearing them. Most brands have a particular style or are cut a particular way.

• Have a game plan: If you are heading to the shopping mall, wishlist your items and be clear on what you need to compliment your wardrobe or that particular event.

This article originally appeared on Whimn and has been reproduced with permission