First and foremost, I wanna give myself a big 'DUH!' and a slap on the forehead coz I've just learned how to 'print screen' from the iPhone/iPod Touch. Yeah, 'print screen' as similar to the one you do at any PC if you wanna save a picture but cannot really 'right click --> save as' kinda thing. Yes, THAT 'print screen'. I've just learned it by chance when I accidentally hit the on/off button together with the home button on my iPod Touch and suddenly came this 'shutter' sound out of nowhere. And voila... when I checked the Photos folder, I found I've just save an image in it. Brilliant. That means, from now on I can actually do more iPhone apps review without the need of a digicam to capture the image. Just awesome. Oh, fyi, it's my old iPod Touch, the one sans the camera unlike the current gen that comes with dual cam. :)
Anyway, moving on to the review. Now picture this: You are sitting in a board meeting. Suddenly, in the middle of the presentation you start getting bored, and you have no idea what on earth the presenter is talking about. Especially when he started crunching numbers and figures with decimal points outnumbered the populations of China, and the font size 16 that you barely see as if you can use a binocular just to read out from the screen. And you are sitting far, far back there ... where hearing the presenter is also a huge effort to do. Isn't it daunting? Suddenly your mind wandering around, you start having this urge: I wish I could go shopping RIGHT NOW! But you can't coz you are in a board meeting, silly. So what you do? And oh, you have an iPhone too btw... so, what you do?
Don't worry... there's an app for that! (don't you just wanna slap me when i use that phrase again, ahaks!)
Okay. I'm gonna give you some of the app that you can use to shop. The first one is not really an e-shopping app, rather it's an app to help you find bargains out there on the highstreet. It's called: The Fashion Pixie. What it do is basically search for stores that are having discounts either in-store or online, ranging from the departmental stores like Debenhams or Harvey Nicks to the highstreet chains like River Island, Gap and New Look, to even e-shopping sites like Asos and MyBag.
If you touch on any of the list, it'll bring you to another 'page' giving you further details like percentage discounts, validity period of the sale, what you could look for, etc etc. So what you can do after that is to check it in-store yourself right after work or click on the e-shopping websites. Pretty cool.
Another app that I really like is actually originated from it's own website i.e SHOPSTYLE. What I like about ShopStyle is its one-stop shop approach where you can actually find anything which is about everything you wish for coz the site is like an RSS feed that brings together all websites into one, giving you a big time-saving and ease of search. Whether you're looking for a high-end brandname like Gucci and Armani, to the highstreet stores like what i mentioned before - it's all there.
How does the app work?
Right after the first 'cover' page, it'll bring you to the 'departments' like Women, Men, Kids & Baby and Home.
Click on one of them, for instance I click 'Men' - it'll bring into another page with another choices to shop: Accessories, Jeans, etc... etc.
When I click Accessories for example, it'll bring me into another page with the list of either I wanna go for Bag, Belts, Gloves & Scarves...etc.. etc. Now let me try with Bag.
In 'Bag' section, the true list of available bags out there in the market is laid out in the bare. As you can see there are about 1150 items, ranging from rucksacks, holdalls, totes, so on and so forth. Well, you can browse thru all of that or if you're like me, I choose to further refine the search. I went for 'Brand' i.e. Gucci.
And voila... there's only 3 Gucci available. Oh, fyi it doesn't really go to the original store. For instance, for that Gucci all the bags are not really from official Gucci site, rather from other webstores like Yoox, Matches, Farfetch and the likes. That's why the quantity is limited.
Click on one of the bag, it'll further give the details like from where it is sourced at, the price, the size etc.
If I decided to buy, just click the 'Buy' button and it'll forward me to the respective store (like that Gucci, to Matches Fashion website).
Or if I wanna wait for it to go on sale, you know to save budget, I can just click on the 'Alert' button. Nope, it won't give you the fire alarm!
I can also add it into my wish list or 'favorite' if I decided not to buy now. I can even tweet or share it on Facebook too.
- You can also change other settings like to sign in into your account if you have one, and you can also set a new account using the app itself. You can also set the 'Sale Alert', your current location, which twitter account to use for, etc etc.
Overall, it's very interactive, intuitive and easy to use. One thing to make sure, have your credit card ready!
And oh, this app only apply for Japan, US and some European countries. For the previous one, Fashion Pixie, is only valid in the UK. Whoopps..!
Anyway, I just wish these kind of apps would be rolled out to all over the world. Aren't we all love to shop? And no matter where we are - in the board meeting, or on the move or even during holiday by the beach - we can still shop. Why? Coz there's always an app for that! =)
P/S: Just wait for my other iPhone apps reviews...
