Mobile shopping app Flit mirrors in-store shopping

Not a discovery app, not a comparison app, Flit combines both to mirror in-store shopping

Being an indecisive shopper, I’ve been known to spend hours clicking back and forth from one site to another to compare the same damn dress.  It’s true.  My indecisiveness is legendary.

So naturally, there’s an app for that.  Flit, a mobile shopping app for the iPad, allows shoppers to comparison shop without the need for multiple browsers.  The app integrates thousands of commerce sites into one menu, allowing users to compare their favorite items across several different sites at once.

“In my work at [business consulting firm] Frog Design, I had exposure to both physical and online retail and saw that in the transition to online, key parts of the shopping experience had been lost,” said CEO Adrian Lall.  “Flit is about putting those aspects back—the ease and diversity of shops plus the importance of shopping friends.”

The app, which is geared specifically toward female shoppers, allows users to search for an item, such as a handbag, compare prices and styles in a side-by-side format of up to three items at one time, and then purchase instantly within the app.  The app also includes a “Cute” feature, which allows users to save an item from their search results to return to later or share with friends, as well as alerts for notifying users when their favorite stores have new items on sale.

Lall explains that Flit isn’t aggregating stores, but rather integrating them.

“Flit acts as an adjunct to all your favorite sites.  It makes it easier and more fun for you to explore them, save and compare things, and get feedback from friends.  By allowing you to cleanly separate discovery from comparison, we also have the effect of streamlining shopping and making it more pleasurable.”

Users can customize their shopping experience by “favoriting” a store, and additionally, Flit learns your brand and site preferences based on your interactions.

Flit makes money by working with retailers through affiliate and other programs, Lall tells me.

It’s an interesting departure for a mobile shopping app, as it isn’t strictly a comparison shopping app, so it’s not geared exclusively toward finding the best deal.  The vast majority of mobile shopping apps aim to bridge online and offline shopping by using barcode scanning to find the best deal, whether it’s online or at a nearby store.  To see how Flit works, check out the demo video below.