Disaster Strikes

So over summer after contacting 6 app agencies it seems that 'browse' isn't going to be a possibility. I'm super sad about this and I'm feeling slightly disheartened about the whole thing as it really was something I was passionate about and thought would work! 


This responses below from 2 of the app development agencies pretty much sums up all the reply's that I got

THE APP DEVELOPERS

Interesting one this, our main issue is where would we get this information from? For example if I want to buy a "yellow dress" there would need to be a database in place which holds this information. You would need every fashion retailer to buy into the App idea… or you would to create your own search engine to rival that of Google..this is looking pretty huge. These a lot of algorithm search coding required and whilst a very good idea, I can't even begin to put a price on how much it would cost to develop it. We're talking of a £6 figure some i'm afraid.
The thought process that goes into developing an app which looks & works beautifully, when we take into account the above mentioned UI, design, features, testing, webservers, user management/ friend lists, features & functions; app development costs more than what you may think, we are not a cheap get the App's in, get them out oversea based agency, but we are not an expensive London based App development agency either! We will come forward with all our creativity & talent and it depends on how much work you require us to do. I.e fashion designer buy in to categorise the clothes, whether you could provide us with pictures of each (unlikely?!)…thats before we get down to creating the bare bones of the App! 
This is simply huge! A lot of back ground work needs to be done to make the App work, the App has to go and get this information from somewhere…i'm afraid this particular idea, at this present time is a bit of a non-starter. :(
All the best,

Jack

Jack Sheehan
I Organise Things


THE APP DEVELOPERS
MOBILE APPLICATION & GAME DEVELOPMENT  

GEEK HQ  01234 834 822  
jack@the-app-developers.co.uk  |  www.the-app-developers.co.uk
The Innovation Centre, Priory Business Park, Stannard Way, Bedford, MK44 3RZ


On 31 May 2013, at 09:31, Sarah Jones <s.lou.jones@btinternet.com> wrote:
Hey Jack,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, been a bit hectic with work.
Perfect, I can't talk on the phone right now as I'm at work but basically it's an app to simplify the process of online shopping through launching a dedicated personalised app to browse your favorite selected brands; an easier, bespoke way to shop the brands you love on your mobile.
 
My idea is to launch a new app called 'browse' to ease shopping online. Everyone has their favourite 'go to brands' whose web pages/apps they visit regularly or daily in my case. Typing in each web address, going to each app and searching for a specific style item ie 'yellow dress' on each site can be laborious and time consuming. Browse is a dedicated app which you personalise to search all your favourite brands for you. Want to check the new in of your top brands; browse will pull all the items into one page for you, creating your own unique online high street. You can then click through to purchase from the brands web page. The plan is for it to also feature your personal online wardrobe remembering everything you have purchased online so you can plan outfits, upload pictures, tag the brand and up load them to your social media pages.
I'm thinking the app could be free as there are a few similar concepts and mainly they are free or like £0.99. 
I've attached the signed NDA for you.
Thanks!
Sarah

THE CONNECTED SET

It's a nice idea Sarah - although probably quite a tough one to make any money from.
One of the issues that immediately springs to mind is the information about each item - so for example when I search on topshop's website I can use filters to say I'm looking for, let's say a pair of trainers that are new this season, yellow, size 11 and under £50.  All of this information (called 'metadata') is stored by the retailer in their own website but isn't openly available to external companies/apps/etc.  What you would have to do to make this a success is speak to the individual retailers and let them access their metadata - this would be really time consuming.  There are ways you could cheat it, for example 'screen-scraping' where your app tries to figure out what's new/yellow/under £50 etc by automatically searching retailers website (like google searches webpages) but this would be expensive and possibly unreliable.
I think generally something like this could be very expensive just because of the huge amount of information that needs to be collected from retailers.  Also - the referral fees you'd likely get would be low.  I used to work with the Telegraph Fashion pages who link to retailers through their 'handpicked' section and the affiliate fees retailers would pay for referrals was so tiny it was hardly worth it - and that's a huge brand like The Telegraph!
I don't want to put you off your idea as it's good but probably not one you'd earn anything from - but I could be completely wrong!

Good luck with it,
Jason

Jason Mitchell
Creative Director, The Connected Set
mobile: 07747 035149
office: 020 8617 1744
address: UGLI Campus, 56 Wood Lane, London W12 7SB
twitter: @theconnectedset | @jasemitch
web: http://theconnectedset.com

On 28 May 2013 16:25, Sarah Jones <s.lou.jones@btinternet.com> wrote:
Hey Jason,

Perfect, I can't talk on the phone right now as I'm at work but basically it's an app to simplify the process of online shopping through launching a dedicated personalised app to browse your favorite selected brands; an easier, bespoke way to shop the brands you love on your mobile.
 
My idea is to launch a new app called 'browse' to ease shopping online. Everyone has their favourite 'go to brands' whose web pages/apps they visit regularly or daily in my case. Typing in each web address, going to each app and searching for a specific style item ie 'yellow dress' on each site can be laborious and time consuming. Browse is a dedicated app which you personalise to search all your favourite brands for you. Want to check the new in of your top brands; browse will pull all the items into one page for you, creating your own unique online high street. You can then click through to purchase from the brands web page. The plan is for it to also feature your personal online wardrobe remembering everything you have purchased online so you can plan outfits, upload pictures, tag the brand and up load them to your social media pages.
I'm thinking the app could be free as there are a few similar concepts and mainly they are free or like £0.99.

Thoughts?
Thanks
Sarah

So looks like it's back to the drawing board for now!