Shopping has transformed in the last decade. Retail outlets are slowly fading away, and online shopping is consistently growing at a rapid rate. Stores are becoming showrooms, where people look but don’t buy. And of course, going to the mall has gone from a popular pastime to a tedious chore.
Enter film producer and graphic designer turned entrepreneur, Michelle Solomon, who realized the gaping hole in the online shopping industry when it comes to social shopping. The mall is a place that groups of friends can go to and provide input on items and looks. Despite it no longer being a choice destination for shoppers, there is no platform for users to have such an experience online. Until now.
Solomon is the founder of the mobile app Adoorn, the first of its kind that effortlessly brings the mall experience to users. Adoorn is the one place where users can preview what friends are purchasing before buying, easily search for clothes through many filters, and upload outfits that automatically link to a retailer. Meanwhile, Adoorn tracks what you’ve liked and other users you are following to suggest personalized fashion choices. In addition, users can mark unwanted clothes for sale and even trade or share outfits. Ultimately, Adoorn is the mall in the palm of your hand.
“Our goal for Adoorn is to make shopping a unique, fun, social mobile experience,” said Solomon. “Adoorn rides the waves of online shopping but brings it one step further by allowing you to see what your friends are buying. Once a user clicks on something they like, they are linked to the retailer with the best deals and can immediately make a purchase. At the mall, assembling outfits can be difficult if you’re trying to remember what clothes you have at home. Adoorn allows users to upload what they already own and access them when building outfits.”
But what makes Adoorn different from online retailers that carry different brands, such as Amazon? It focuses on the social aspect of shopping.
“So many of our fashion choices are influenced by friends, family, and strangers we admire, like bloggers or Instagramers. With Adoorn, you can see what your influencers are buying, purchase their items or outfits, sell or trade old clothes, and group message friends for their opinions on an outfit before purchasing,” said Solomon.
With years of experience in graphic design, Solomon is hands-on in the process of building the Adoorn brand. She previously worked with Ace Building Materials to market their brand, and helped to more than double their revenue in a two-year time period. Now, she works with a team of young female entrepreneurs to not only break through online shopping barriers, but to push the limits for women in tech.
“I love Adoorn because it is a product of the new digital age of business. In addition to understanding the technical side of mobile apps, the innovation comes from collaboration and leading a team of skilled personnel,” she said. “The biggest challenge is coding and then the re-coding of designs in the development phase. There always seems to be a better way to execute a feature! However, only through trial and error, do we get to receive feedback. Patience is a necessary tool when facing criticism, as it only makes Adoorn better.”
Internet pioneer Jeff Pulver sits on the Board of Advisors for Adoorn, and calls Solomon’s app “revolutionary.” Pulver is the founder and chief executive of pulver.com and co-founder of Free World Dialup, Vonage, and the Zula app. He has been called a Voice over Internet Protocol pioneer, and was profiled by The Wall Street Journal in 2006, named as "a leading thought-leader on the Real-Time Web.”
“It is quite apparent that Michelle is a designing prodigy and that is reflected in the app. The user interface is beautiful and flawlessly thought out and it’s really a pleasurable experience for the user all around,” said Pulver.
“Michelle created all designs, grabbed media attention, partnered with the Ritz Carlton and Marriott Hotels, and IBM. She was asked to showcase Adoorn at Collision Tech Conference in New Orleans, as well as LA Tech Day and LA Tech Week. This product will really strike a chord with a very impressive number of consumers. As an advisor to Michelle, I feel like I have learned just as much if not more than I have been able to give her,” he concluded.
Adoorn is set to launch this year. You can subscribe to their website here.