Survey Analysis

The objective of this survey is to examine the strengths and weaknesses of current
alternatives of Polyvore (a now-defunct style organization platform) so as to shape the
direction of our client’s product and distinguish it from the current available offerings.

The survey was mainly distributed via Reddit and gathered 18 survey respondents in
total. Out of the 18 respondents, 16 (88.9%) reported to be registered users of a style
organization platform — specifically, either Shoplook.io, Fashmates, or URSTYLE. The
remaining 2 respondents stated other platforms as their preferred choice, namely
trendMe.net and ChicVore. trendMe seems to be a more rudimentary version of
URSTYLE, whereas ChicVore is yet to have launched its services. For simplicity’s sake,
then, we will not discuss trendMe and ChicVore, and we will discuss the 3 platforms
mentioned earlier instead.

Shoplook.io
Users of this platform cited it as being one of the more visible brands — soon after
Polyvore was shut, Shoplook quickly positioned itself as an alternative for ex-Polyvore
users.

Out of the 16 users, 3 (18.8%) users reported to prefer Shoplook as their preferred
platform. These users primarily cited having an iOS app as being the most attractive
feature, as well as its close resemblance to Polyvore. They also cited their most expected
improvement to be for the platform to fix existing bugs — for instance, users have
apparently lost some drafts of uncompleted sets while trying to save them.

Fashmates
Out of the 16 users, 6 (37.5%) users reported to prefer Fashmates as their preferred
platform. In the survey, users reported a mix of positive and negative feedback — some
stated that the platform is the ‘closest thing to Polyvore’, while others complained that
it’s ‘lacklustre’.

URSTYLE
Out of the 3 platforms, URSTYLE has gathered a relatively loyal and large following. 7 out
of 16 (43.8%) users reported to prefer URSTYLE as their preferred platform. A user
commented that a prominent ex-Polyvore user, ames-ym, has decided to use URSTYLE as
her Polyvore alternative. This led to quite a number of users who made the same choice.
While the platform does have bugs and limitations, as of now, most users are resigned to
using URSTYLE as a platform of their choice.

In conclusion, the 3 platforms seem to have very similar direction and positioning, with
their primary difference being the website UI and aesthetics. Furthermore, the platforms
seem to be at very similar stages of development, with each platform trying to outpace
the other two by gradually implementing new features and fixing existing bugs.

From the survey, we have identified most of the features which users think are necessary
for any style organization platforms to have. These features include:
• Creating sets and publishing sets
• Saving sets as draft
• Searching for items in the database
• Uploading users’ own product images
• Sharing their sets with other users, or on social media
• Liking and sharing other users’ sets
• Including beauty, home, and art-related items in the database

In addition, we have also identified some optional features, which may be good to
implement but will not be our primary goal at the moment:
• Creating collections of sets
• Clipping (saving an online image found during browsing)
• Removing background of images
• Tagging a set according to its category

We will use these findings to determine our next immediate steps.

An interesting observation is that most users who prefer one platform to the others seem
to be quite subjective with regard to their reasons — as some of the reasons cited are not
necessarily unique to the platform they chose. For instance, there are users who
reported having a mobile app as being a most attractive feature for Shoplook.io.
However, Fashmates also offer mobile apps for its users, and while we expect this to
render Shoplook’s position less unique in the market, users seem to be quite adamant
about sticking to their stated choices. We surmise that this is due to each user’s
preference to a platform’s UI — but we will have to conduct further surveys to confirm this
hypothesis.