As Gretchen Weiners once said, “You wouldn’t buy a skirt without asking your friends first if it looks good on you.”#meangirls
Constantly frustrated with all those open windows, copy and pasting links to get your friends stamp of approval on your newest fashion must haves? (After all, everyone knows that asking all 1,000 of your Facebook friends at once if you should buy a new Alexander Wang purse is kind of tacky.) I know I sure am, and all that copy and pasting gets soooooo confusing… “Wait which link? Third from the bottom or 1st one? Black or the color pictured?”… “I like the second from the top the most” “Wait, the second from the top? From which list of links I sent? The 1st or 2nd list?” – UGH its exhausting!!!
We’ve all been there: wading through your favorite sites desperately trying to find that one special piece and then sharing a plethora of links with your pals to get their opinions on your finds. Truth be told, it can be a big pain – until now.
Close those chats and endless open windows girls, because with the introduction of Whisp (Launched March 2014), a new social shopping platform with private message technology, there is now an effective medium to talk about your fashion choices.
Whisp, is a shopping experience that hopes to change the fashion conversation for the better. It aggregates great fashion content on the web into a single place built around the conversations people want to have about their fashion choices. Whisp is a platform dedicated to merging online shopping and fashion conversation into one seamless, private experience on both the web at Whisp.com and on a tablet.
Whisp allows users to browse thousands of products from over 5,000 brands—ranging from fast fashion to high-end luxury items from Rag & Bone, Tom Ford, Urban Outfitters, Givenchy, Acne, Hermes, Topshop and more. Retailers onboard include Lane Crawford, Avenue 32, Farfetch, Gilt, Mytheresa, Nordstrom, Portero, Nasty Gal and Yoox.
Just drag and drop images of your selected items into Facebook or into private chats (called “Whisps”) to get your friends opinions. The website and app has a native messaging feature built in, but also allows users to connected via Facebook with their friends for those who aren’t on Whisp. “The idea behind it is to capture that intimacy of conversation that we already have online and make it really seamless,” co-founder Karoon Monfared tells us.
What’s unique about Whisp is how you use it, the Whisping, so to speak. “The site is set up similarly to Pinterest and only features fashion content. From brands as varied as Rag & Bone to Topshop to Mary Katrantzou, you can browse items by gender, by store, by products, by brand, etc. (they even have brand profile pages with lookbooks).”
“When you see something you like you can either save it or “Whisp” it to a friend – drag and drop it into a private chat that works both on Whisp and on Facebook – no hyperlinks necessary.” What’s more, is that every product featured on the site is shoppable! And unlike many aggregators the links are constantly kept up to date so that you are never directed to sold out items.
My only potential issue with the website is that the load time is sluggish. However, the website is still in beta and I found that the app for smart phones loads images more quickly. There is also a new newsfeed feature which is slated to roll out in the coming months, which should be interesting to see how that impacts the Whisp interface.
The benefits from Whisp are crystal clear: With no more tabs and no more broken links, Whisp alleviates the online shopping clutter and allows users to do what they really want: chat and shop in a fun, easy-to-use way.” (They’ve even got their own fashion emojis!)
So the next time you’re stewing over those strenuous “make or break” fashion decisions, I highly suggest that you give Whisp a try.
The Whole Enchilada | 