Shopping on mobile is a nightmare! How do you browse multiple shops on such a small screen? How do you find the pair of jeans that you're looking for when the store has over 300 in stock? Mallzee brings together over 100 stores into one simple app and uses 'Tinder style' interactions to build a personal style profile for ever user to then find clothes which suit them. Mallzee wants to be the go to fashion shopping destination on mobile.

5) are all items in the feed those that you receive commission for? All items in the feed are ones which we receive a commission for. We don’t put any emphasis on the commission level in how products are shown in the feed. We currently have an extra 50 companies in the US which we’re working to add to the app and a further 25 in the UK, adding to over 100+ in the app already.

@frumpy 1) we’ve seen a bunch of these tinder for shopping apps - how are you differently from competitors and why will you succeed when they haven’t? We stand out from others in three major ways - 1. Style Feeds - We believe that the places and styles you shop depend on what event/part of our your life you’re buying for. That’s why we’ve built Style Feeds into Mallzee which allow shoppers to make multiple profiles tailored to different parts of their lives which get smarter the more they use them. Style Feeds also let us build up even more data about shoppers preferences than a single recommendation engine. 2. Target demographic - Whilst some apps have focused just on one gender and group we’ve taken a conscious decision to also include male users, who now account for around 35% of our user base. 3. Social and content - While other apps have just left you with sharing to Facebook/Twitter, we’ve integrated sharing to WhatsApp and iMessage to enable shoppers to have conversations with friends before they buy instead of just posting to random social platforms. We’ve also integrated content designed to provide inspiration on the front page of the app to help people discover new brands and styles they might not have considered before. Through this we’re able to create a shopping experience which makes shopping on mobile quick, engaging and simple. This combined with other areas that we’re working on will allow us to build the go-to shopping destination on mobile!

2) how do you acquire users? We’ve utilised a range of different techniques. PR - As a starting point we’ve used our knowledge in PR to secure features in People Magazine, The Daily Mail, InStyle, TechCrunch, Fashionista and a range of other media. This has led to us being featured by Apple in 6 app stores around Europe in the past 6 weeks. Bloggers - As part of our PR strategy we’ve also put a heavy emphasis on bloggers and are currently running a competition which is on course to see over 100 pieces written about Mallzee in less than 2 weeks. Offline - Advocacy is a big part of our strategy and this is one of the reasons that we’ve recruited 35 brand ambassadors on campuses across the country, who have been tasked with promoting Mallzee over the next year. They’ve been running on-campus promotion and are tasked with local PR. Paid - We’ve also tested paid routes and seen a CPA which will fit with our business model as we advance over the next 18 months. As part of this we’re also improving our user-get-user growth strategy currently and have just introduced new product sharing as part of this. Partnerships - At the same time we’re currently working on a deal with a large handset manufacturer which will see them promote Mallzee as their retail app of choice in the UK.

3) what % users are purchasing items? with what frequency? Around 20% of our users hit the buy button in any month. Overall conversion is around 2% though due to the transaction being on partner retailers websites. We’ll be launching our own checkout with certain retailers before Christmas to increase this and also increase frequency. Our targeted notifications, personal ‘price drop’ alerts and the fact that we’re creating an engaged community of customers across our social platforms are also part of our strategy to increase frequency, all of which are generating positive results already.

4) what range of commissions do you receive? Our commission range is between 6 and 20%. The Mallzee model has now moved past this though and we’re in the process of converting some brands with lower conversion to PPC. Alongside this we’re now partnering with brands to offer them increased exposure within the app and our other channels. In the past month we’ve worked with a 5 large retailers in the UK on this, generating significant income. We're also now under NDA with a few brands for discussions in relation to how we could use the data that we're generating.

To date the app has only featured UK retailers and UK pricing but we're about to launch an international version which will allow us to scale into other markets quickly with the correct currency and retailers. This will begin later this month in the US. Our no stock model allows us to reach new markets without having to hold inventory.