Very interesting analysis and great company reviews Melina! Thanks for this :)
My first thought when considering the Fun/expensive quadrant is how subjective it is. One thing is it’s dependent on what’s considered cool in the sphere you exist in - which I def feel AI can figure out.
But another part is just someone validating your purchase (a sales associate telling you what looks good/bad, a fellow shopper complimenting you, a friend enabling you to splurge). I really question if AI will really be able to provide that validation people seek for fun splurges and if not how these companies will incorporate social into their experience. Will be interesting to see.
Your point about getting validation for your purchase - all the qualitative things that go into a special "splurge" moment, including the social aspects - is so well-taken. I think this is why the luxury space is less penetrated online vs. other categories. I've seen livestreaming being used in community-oriented ways in thrift/resale spaces, but not really in the luxury space yet. To me, this highlights how there is always a place for physical retail, but the economics of these high-rent, gorgeous retail stores just gets tougher as sales move online.
Thank you so much for reading! So true - getting people to start their search process on a new app is a big lift. It really has to be significantly better to meaningfully shift behavior. I'm curious about Daydream's strategy - go deep in one category, like luxury fashion or beauty, or try to capture a wide assortment across categories? My initially thought is that building deep category presence could be a smart move (e.g., shift beauty searches away from Sephora or Google by offering unique AI-driven personalized search features)
Love this deep dive, Melina! Put myself on some of these waitlists as well.
There’s such a big opportunity for brands to leverage AI to improve the shopping experience and we’re clearly in the early days. I think it’s only a matter of time until we all have digital avatars that accurately mirror our bodies so we can confidently online shop for things that we traditionally needed to try on in store, like jeans and bras. There’s obviously a big convenience factor with that but it makes me a little uneasy about how we’ll preserve the experience of going shopping IRL and the impact on interpersonal relationships and cultural practices as a result.
Yes I totally agree! No one has cracked fit tech and I feel like these avatars could in the future. The role of retail is also at a pivot point. I’m excited to explore that further.
Very interesting analysis and great company reviews Melina! Thanks for this :)
My first thought when considering the Fun/expensive quadrant is how subjective it is. One thing is it’s dependent on what’s considered cool in the sphere you exist in - which I def feel AI can figure out.
But another part is just someone validating your purchase (a sales associate telling you what looks good/bad, a fellow shopper complimenting you, a friend enabling you to splurge). I really question if AI will really be able to provide that validation people seek for fun splurges and if not how these companies will incorporate social into their experience. Will be interesting to see.
Thank you for reading. I love this comment!
Your point about getting validation for your purchase - all the qualitative things that go into a special "splurge" moment, including the social aspects - is so well-taken. I think this is why the luxury space is less penetrated online vs. other categories. I've seen livestreaming being used in community-oriented ways in thrift/resale spaces, but not really in the luxury space yet. To me, this highlights how there is always a place for physical retail, but the economics of these high-rent, gorgeous retail stores just gets tougher as sales move online.
Love this! The hard thing about shopping apps - hard to find people to pay for them
Meanwhile Google and Meta have most of the attention but move very slowly
Thank you so much for reading! So true - getting people to start their search process on a new app is a big lift. It really has to be significantly better to meaningfully shift behavior. I'm curious about Daydream's strategy - go deep in one category, like luxury fashion or beauty, or try to capture a wide assortment across categories? My initially thought is that building deep category presence could be a smart move (e.g., shift beauty searches away from Sephora or Google by offering unique AI-driven personalized search features)
Love this deep dive, Melina! Put myself on some of these waitlists as well.
There’s such a big opportunity for brands to leverage AI to improve the shopping experience and we’re clearly in the early days. I think it’s only a matter of time until we all have digital avatars that accurately mirror our bodies so we can confidently online shop for things that we traditionally needed to try on in store, like jeans and bras. There’s obviously a big convenience factor with that but it makes me a little uneasy about how we’ll preserve the experience of going shopping IRL and the impact on interpersonal relationships and cultural practices as a result.
Yes I totally agree! No one has cracked fit tech and I feel like these avatars could in the future. The role of retail is also at a pivot point. I’m excited to explore that further.