In our Challenge 6 Survey we found to our surprise that our respondents were almost perfectly split between dressing for style or for comfort. Despite this, the majority had a strong preference for buying clothes that were cheap or on sale. Most of our respondents also reported having felt bored whilst going through the sale section of an online fashion store.
Using these insights, we initially thought we could create an app that delivered personalized recommendations from the sale sections of various online fashion stores. However, we pivoted away from this idea in favor of an idea related to thrift shopping and reselling of used clothing, inspired by a company called TagPop, which sells mystery used items at thrift store prices.
We thought we could improve on the TagPop concept by incorporating an element of personalization through the development of a personal prefence profile. To create this personal preference profile, our app, Funky Finds, uses a swiping screen and a preference algorithm which collects data related to the characteristics of which clothes you liked and which you didn’t. This allows us to match the buyer with clothes that are still a mystery, but are more likely to be an item that the buyer would like.
We are primarily targeting Funky Finds at males who don’t consider themselves particularly fashionable but might want to try and step up their game, they’re the men who are near the border of dressing for style over comfort on our survey. Fit isn’t going to ruin an item for these men, so they won’t face too many issues with poor sizing, so long as they know their basic sizing information.
Every day, the user receive ten items of clothing to swipe on in the app, similar to the idea of Discover Weekly on Spotify. They are strategically selected and personalized to develop an accurate idea of what your preference is for various different styles of clothing. Once you have swiped, you are able to shop in the app, purchasing from one of the mystery brackets of clothing, T Shirts, Sweaters, Shorts etc. In addition to this, there will be Mystery Seasonal Packs available for purchase, which will combine a number of items, all personalized using your personal preference profile, to match the upcoming season. For example, if you purchased a Seasonal Pack in May you would receive the Summer Pack of a Hawaiian Shirt, Tank Top, T Shirt and Swim Shorts.
