In some sense, shopping for fashion and apparel has become easier than ever: consumers today can get basically any product they want shipped to them in 2–3 days.

And yet shopping has also become incredibly difficult. There is an overwhelming amount of brands and products, and very little curation and trust. Where can I find a pair of jeans that fit me perfectly? What is the best white t-shirt I can buy? Is the quality of this new and hyped brand actually good? Finding the right product often requires opening an endless amount of browser tabs and returning multiple packages.

Let’s imagine you’re a 30 year old woman buying a new pair of jeans as an example. You know you want a straight leg, high waisted style so you turn to Google for help finding a pair. The results for “best straight leg high waisted jeans” are miserable. The page bombards you with ads without any indication of just which jeans are the best, let alone the best ones for your body type and style. Even the few editorial pages that pop up are generic ones for “straight-leg jeans” jeans or for “high-waisted” jeans, and you have to sort through the recommended lists yourself to see which ones are straight-leg, high waisted jeans. Once you click into these articles, you realize they are often based solely on the subjective opinions of one editor, and full of product links in an effort to earn affiliate marketing fees rather than recommend the absolute best of the best.

More importantly, if you want to search for newer or more trendy categories, there are very few editorial articles you can reference. For example, pleated suit trousers have been THE look lately, as seen on Hailey Bieber who is the ultimate “IT” girl. A search of “pleated trousers” on Google returns, other than thousands of product links which are typically ads, only one editorial article. The article, named “​​The Search for the Perfect Pleated Trouser Is Over”, shows a single editor recommending only one pair of trousers based on her personal experience. There was no discussion of other trousers she tried or how this particular pair compares with others on the market. When you trace the product link, those trousers are already out of stock.

In a nutshell, search engines simply don’t provide good cross-item or cross-brand comparisons, nor provide good inspiration.

Aren’t there reviews out there? You ask. Well, reviews are far from enough.

One problem is simply that it can be hard to find online reviews. I recently conducted a consumer survey about online shopping, and 47% of the consumers say it’s difficult for them to look up reviews of the exact products. A lot of websites actually don’t have a review section, including some of the biggest and hottest brands or retailers like Zara, Mango, Reformation and Net-a-Porter. Fast fashion brands tend not to have it because their products have a short “shelf life”, whereas higher end retailers might think reviews are “beneath” them: none of the luxury fashion brands hosts reviews on their websites. Not Louis Vuitton, not Chanel, not Gucci. Zero. When brand websites themselves don’t allow user reviews, it can be extremely painful to find user reviews on the exact product or pictures of real people wearing the exact product on other platforms. Your best bet is to go to the brand’s Instagram page and under the “tagged” section, but even then you have to scroll and scroll to find the exact product, and most of the time people tagging these products in their everyday pictures are not giving you their product reviews.

Even with the presence of reviews, it can be hard to find high quality reviews you can relate to and trust. In the same survey, 61% report that it’s hard for them to trust online reviews. Who is this person reviewing this product, and why should we trust them? Reviews on retailer or brand websites provide very little information about the person behind the reviews. Even though some websites started to collect info such as reviewer age and body type, it is still hard to picture what this person is like in real life and whether we can relate to them.

The majority of the online reviews can be very low quality. A simple “Love this jacket! The color is gorgeous” does not convey enough information. Is the jacket warm? Is the material high quality? How is the fit? A lot of times if the jacket is sold in multiple colors, we don’t even know which color the review is for.

Additionally, reviews can be easily lost due to structural limitations of website reviews, since reviews posted on brand or retailer’s own site are tied to the exact SKU. When the brand comes out with a new color for the same SKU next year, those reviews for the old color tend to be lost as the webpage gets marked “out of stock”, even though they are practically for the same product, just a different color.

Another crucial problem is that reviews don’t typically enable cross-brand comparisons. From reviews, I can see that most people like this cashmere sweater — but is it the best sweater for this price point? What other brands or products should I consider before making the purchase? Single-product reviews don’t tend to answer these questions.

We have a community problem in shopping.

People don’t just shop for things; they shop for fun. An astounding 96% of adults and 95% of teens admit to participating in “retail therapy”, and about 41.9% of U.S. adults (76.9 million people) cite apparel shopping as one of their hobbies.

Shopping can be an incredibly fun, creative and emotional experience — the moment you find out the coat you’ve been eyeing has gone on sale, the moment you discover a new brand that has styles you loved, and the moment you finally find a pair of jeans that fit you perfectly…

People build communities around things they do for fun. Gamers use Discord to talk and hang out. Techies tend to quibble on Twitter and Blind. However, there is no dedicated online platform for fashion and shopping. There is no place for connecting with people who have similar fashion tastes, asking people’s opinions on which dress fits you better, or figuring out which brand carries the style of jeans you wanted.

What about the likes of Instagram, TikTok and YouTube? Aren’t there plenty of influencers and fashion content?

You can argue that they are not true communities because they are influencer-led platforms where the vast majority of users are passive. For most users on Instagram, when you find a pair of jeans you love and want to share it with people who can understand your joy, you don’t post about it: your followers are most likely all family and friends, and it simply feels weird to post about jeans all of the sudden. You also don’t post on TikTok or YouTube, because for most people taking a video is a ton of work. As a result, you have mostly influencers posting polished content, and you rarely see try-ons and reviews from real people.

An influencer-led platform doesn’t in itself prevent the creation of a true community, because usually only a very small percent of the people actually post, no matter what platform you are on. A bigger issue is that these platforms today don’t have a culture of conversations. Influencers often post about their outfits or favorite products without discussing why they choose this outfit or why they like this product: on Instagram you see a lot of posts with vague or irrelevant captions, and on TikTok most of the fashion videos are simply people trying on clothes. What makes them like this particular pair of jeans compared to others they tried on? Are the jeans rigid or stretchy? Do the jeans lose their shape over time? Are they worth the price? That is the information that would really help viewers make a better purchase decision, but it’s missing from the majority of fashion content today.

We actually see true fashion and shopping-focused communities pop up on a lot of corners of the internet, such as Facebook Groups, Reddit and web 1.0 era forums. On Facebook, some fashion-focused groups have emerged, such as Chanel Buy/Sell/Trade. This group has attracted almost 100k highly engaged users. While the group was started as a forum for people to buy, sell and trade their Chanel bags, users are also using this platform to ask each other’s advice on which bags to buy, exchanging the latest gossip on the new bags coming out next season, and complaining about the recent price hikes. On Reddit, r/malefashionadvice has 5.1 million members exchanging tips on men’s fashion. On web 1.0 forums such as Purseforum, 700k users exchange tips and share experiences on all things related to designer handbags and shoes.

None of these existing platforms are purposely built or modernized for fashion and shopping. There is little to no personalization built in, it’s hard to search the content, the picture and video functionalities don’t feel native, and there’s no concept of building a personal fashion-focused profile so it’s hard to relate to the users on a personal level let alone seek out users with similar body type and taste.

All that is to say, fashion enthusiasts are in need of a place that allows them to bond with each other over their shared passions, but the platforms that allow them to do that are quite old and outdated, and the newer and more advanced platforms weren’t built to foster organic communities.

Answer: a fashion and shopping-focused social network

A fashion and shopping-focused social network could solve both the community and discovery problems at once: As people shop, they will naturally share their reviews, exchange tips and ask questions on the network. If we can aggregate that information in a useful way, it can not only inspire shoppers, but also increase their purchase confidence.

Imagine a shopper who recently found a pair of bootcut jeans from Frame that looks great on her pear-shaped body. They fit well, are very comfortable to wear, and wash really well. She loves jeans but always finds it hard to find a pair that fits her perfectly, so she shared her review of the jeans on the network, together with a few pictures of how she styles these jeans, and pictures of her trying on similar jeans from other brands. After reading this review, those who are looking for a pair of high quality bootcut jeans decided to check out Frame. Those who are considering buying jeans from Frame now know that their jeans are very high quality, and they want them even more now that they have more ideas on how to style them. Those who have no idea what to buy but have a pear-shaped body just realized that they, too, need a pair of bootcut jeans in their lives, and they now know where to find them.

These conversations can have 2 layers of feedback loops:

1. Those who share their shopping experience inspire readers to buy, and these readers can in turn become posters themselves;
2. Those who share their shopping experience inspire other people to join the conversation, and those post comments elevate the conversations and create a sense of community, which in turn inspire the original posters and other readers to continue to buy and share.

And such, this network can take on a life of its own, much like other social networks today.

Key ingredients of this network

To truly enable easier discovery and better community-building in the world of fashion and shopping, these things need to be true for a good network:

1. The conversations need to be nuanced and authentic. You are not just there to show off a good picture or promote a certain product; you actually want to help people make a good purchase. You discuss all the considerations — good and bad — that go into buying a specific product or trying a new brand.

2. There is an inviting and friendly community atmosphere. Everyone feels encouraged to post, not just influencers. People have a camaraderie built around shopping and want to help each other out.

3. Users can build a profile that indicates their interests and tastes. This helps users get to know each other and build trust. Plus, when there’s a subtle status competition, users tend to be more incentivized to post.

4. The content is personalized. The app knows what topics and brands users are interested in and can provide relevant recommendations, and can do a good job of matching like-minded shoppers by inferring from their interest graphs.

5. The content is easily searchable. Users can easily search all existing conversations about a specific brand, product or category of products.

6. The content is aggregated such that users do not have to sort through a ton of posts and comments to figure out which brand or product is the best. This is a very hard problem, as there are many SKUs in fashion & apparel, they don’t have consistent names, and products rotate quickly. However, most brands do tend to have a few “flagship” products; they just may come in different colors and materials each year. Aggregating reviews at the product level across different colors and seasons, comparing different brands of products with the same style, and aggregating information at the brand level about the brand’s quality, sizing, and flagship products — all of these will be hugely valuable to the end consumers.

In a nutshell, the strategy of this network would be to create an environment where people can bond over fashion and shopping, and then to aggregate this user-generated content (UGC), essentially creating a crowd-sourced, AI-powered shopping guide.

What would this network look like? A few ideas

The homepage of this app could be an algorithmic feed consisting of users’ posts. These posts could be reviews of products, shopping journals, questions, or simple information sharing like sales announcements. The content would be more and more personalized over time as users spend more time on the app. Most people who love shopping need inspiration first and foremost, so it’s important that they can easily scroll on the feed after they open the app.

For researching brands there will be a “Yelp for fashion brands” tab, where all the posts related to a specific brand can be found in one place. Additionally, a summary of the brand’s reviews would be front and center so that users can get a quick sense of the brand’s quality, pricing and sizing, and what the best-selling products are. We can also leverage the network’s interest graph to showcase other brands people also like.

Aggregating content by product is harder, as there are almost an infinite number of product categories (“black silk slip dress”, “black cotton summer dress”, “black velvet gowns”, etc.), and product SKUs are always changing. One thing we could start off doing is to optimize for search results relevance by creating an algorithm that scores poster credibility and their fashion sense. If a user has posted a lot of helpful reviews that are rated highly by the community, they are essentially “shopping experts” and therefore their posts will be ranked higher. If we layer on the ability to filter search results by poster body type, brands, etc. — this would be a first step towards surfacing more curated recommendations for consumers interested in a particular category.

Generative AI can also help solve the aggregation problem, as it is very good at text summarization. If you ask Bing AI today to recommend a few high-waisted, straight leg jeans based on online reviews, it can already provide a pretty decent answer. Imagine how much better and more relevant the answer can be once the AI is able to synthesize reviews based on body types, lifestyles, tastes, reviewer credibility and brand relevance.

None of these steps is easy. It’s notoriously difficult to jumpstart a social network, and none of the online platforms today has really nailed how to aggregate online conversations and create interest graphs. But if we do these two things right, we can create a social network that captures network effects and rapidly grows.