Spring, David Tisch’s Latest Venture, Is Instagram For Shopping

For the past year, investor and serial entrepreneur David Tisch has been working with his brother Alan to build an enjoyable way to shop on mobile. Today, that fruits of that labor springs onto the scene.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold Spring, the most advanced effort at fashion-focused mobile shopping yet.

For all intents and purposes, you could absolutely call spring an Instagram for shopping.

But it goes beyond just that to incorporate pieces of a few other favorite apps, including Uber and Tinder.

When first signing on to the app, it looks like Instagram dressed up in white. You’re given the opportunity to “follow” brands that you like, and simply scroll through the feed to love items or to buy.

When you find an item you want, you can scroll through multiple images Tinder-style, with a description and a price all displayed on the main feed. If you’re still interested, you simply click the buy button and choose your size.

Upon your first purchase, Spring will ask for your address and credit card info, and from that moment your payment details are saved within the app.

For that purchase and every purchase after that, it takes one simple motion to complete the purchase, a swipe. Interestingly enough, Amazon has a patent on single-click buying, so the swipe gets around that in a way that lets form follow the function of the app.

I myself have slid that little buy bar back and forth a few times before fully committing to a purchase, which seems like relatively standard behavior while shopping.

Folks have been talking about building a universal shopping cart for a long time, but big fashion and retail brands want to control every part of their own experience.

Spring actually delivers on that promise of a universal shopping cart by offering a platform for brands, without forcing multiple competing vendors to dress up in the same uniform and ultimately lose a piece of their brand.

 

 

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Fashion brands can upload their own looks the same way that other brands control their social media presences on sites like Facebook and Twitter. Those items are displayed chronologically and in real-time on the feed, and only the brands that each user follow gets a spot on the home stream.

However, there are a couple other tabs that hep users find items and brands outside their usual tastes. Discover offers up categorized content that is compiled by various brands or influencers. Browse, on the other hand, gives you the option the shop by clothes type or popularity.

There is no social component or public profiles, but rather a one-to-many dialogue between brands and their followers on mobile.

Spring is launching with almost 100 brands on the platform, ranging from high end designers like Carolina Herrera to less expensive brands like Warby Parker and Greats Brand.

More than 50 other brands are set to join the platform soon, with more being added every week once the platform is up and running.

Vendors handle all pieces of order fulfillment, shipping, and customer service. And in return for complete control over the experience, brands will pay an transaction fee for every purchase made.

Spring recently raised a $7.5 million Series A round to make this possible. If you want to check out the app, you can download it here.