iPhone Apps

Top Brands Tap iPhone as Personal Shopper

Marketing Vox, 23rd October 2009

Sportswear icon Nike, Inc. is one of a growing number of high-profile consumer fashion brands creating mobile applications that promote the ease and social benefits of personal shopping. The company recently launched a new iPhone application that enables users to design their own customized sneakers and order them straight from the app.

The move is the latest by a major fashion brand to provide consumers with personalized shopping experiences that extend beyond websites and onto mobile devices and social networking platforms.

The free app, called NIKEid, is a mobile extension of the NIKEiD website, which lets consumers customize a pair of Nike shoes and order them directly from the manufacturer.

The iPhone app also includes a variety of new features, including the ability to browse through the a user’s photo gallery, select an image, and then choose two colors present in the image to include in their customized shoe design. Additionally, users can choose colors from a color picker available in the app, and can filter search results to find the type of shoe they want – for example, men’s athletic shoes or unisex running shoes – and save their favorite designs as well as access those they created on the website.

Once users are content with their design, they have the option of shaking their iPhone to shuffle the colors they selected. They can also personalize their sneakers further by adding their name or a customized logo before ordering their sneakers and sharing their designs via e-mail or Facebook.

Rugby iPhone App

In a similar move toward customizable shopping via mobile, last month the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation launched a Rugby iPhone application, which enables users to customize 19 products, including shirts, sweaters, and sweatshirts, and purchase their designs on their iPhone or iPod Touch.

The application, intended for the Rugby brand’s 18-25 year-old target demographic, lets users download a picture of themselves wearing the customized shirt and order it directly from their mobile device.

Taking this customization to another level, the app lets users personalize the shirts with patches that include numbers and letters, and - similar to the Nike app - lets them share their creations with friends via e-mail and Facebook.

Users can also rate and purchase each other’s designs. The highest rated design is featured as the application’s “look of the day.”

StyleCaster Gets Personal

Rugby is also the inaugural sponsor for a new iPhone and iTouch application from StyleCaster, an online fashion-lifestyle website.
That application includes a “Daily Looks” feature that provides fashion recommendations based on a user's style preferences, their location and the weather conditions in their area.

If a user likes the suggested look, he or she can access information about the products used in the featured outfits and where to purchase them.

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NikeID

This application allows you to choose swatch colours from photos and apply them to your own style of sneaker, then order it from the application itself. Easy if you're bored, but wouldn't you prefer to try it on? It would be alright if you had the pair already and just wanted a different colour. A nice application, but I wonder how many will buy from it and how many will just play around, especially since it's free.

Rugby Ralph Lauren

You can take a photo of yourself and stick it on top of the body of a rugby player, then edit the t-shirt to suit you, then buy it. A nice way of personal shopping, but again if you're sticking it to someone else's body instead of your own, how will you know what it will look like before you try it? It would be even better if you were able to add in your measurements and it would create an automatic model of your body, then shape the t-shirt to suit you. Then again, Rubgy shirts aren't intended to be flattering and figure hugging.

StyleCaster

Only one rating on this application and it was 1 and a half stars. It's nice to combine what the weather is like with what to wear, but if you have a rainy day, find an outfit then buy it, sod's law says that the rest of the year will be sunny and you've lost the use of your outfit. It doesn't necessarily let you buy from the application either. The news is typical of what you can find on the internet anyway, so there's nothing special about that.