An App to Dote On

I’ve always been a fan of malls in theory— what could be better than all your favorite stores in one air conditioned space, complete with a Wetzel's Pretzels?

Dote, a mobile shopping app designed by Lauren Farleigh, attempts to bring the ease of mall shopping into your pocket-- or rather your smartphone. It combines around 100 stores, such as Urban Outfitters, Topshop, and Sephora, into one shopping interface, allowing you to checkout with items from multiple stores all at once. This is a great idea, because no one likes going through multiple checkout processes for each item they wish to buy, and I haven’t seen anything like it for retail so far.

In creating your Dote account, you can select your favorite stores to appear at the top of your homepage, which will allow you to easily see how many new items each retailer has.

The actual process of shopping on the app, however, still has room for improvement. Although you can refine your shopping search based on type of clothing item and store, Dote still lacks the variety of filters that other online platforms such as Nordstroms and Bloomingdales have. So, for example, if you’re looking for a formal black dress, you can narrow your search to cocktail dresses, but you can’t select specific colors, unfortunately meaning you still have to wade through options you are not interested in.

One section of the app that really stands out is their deals section, which allows you to see all the currently marked down items from the stores you’ve chosen as your favorites. This makes it really easy to see great sale options, but again, these searches cannot  be narrowed down to specific items. If you’re looking for cheap jeans, you still have to sift through home goods as well.

Also, since the app is relatively new, some of the stores included are lesser known and come with a warning when you add them to your cart that shipping may take over two weeks, which is less than ideal. I found a few great items that I wanted soon, but because of that disclaimer I didn’t think it was worth the wait.

I decided to buy a couple cute spring tops, because I knew that Evanston weather meant I would be unable to wear them for a couple weeks. I chose a store called Shein, and they were very affordable at around $8 a piece. They took about two weeks to arrive, which is definitely more than I’m used to, but I was pleasantly surprised by their quality and I’m definitely excited about them as additions to my spring wardrobe.

Overall, the app is a great concept, and I think that with improvements it may be many consumers go-to mobile online shopping option. For now, it’s best used for browsing for better deals, rather than shopping for upcoming events for which you need a specific type of item. I think that mobile online shopping is definitely the wave of the future, and that Farleigh has gotten in early on this corner of the market, with a well-designed, trendy app that draws millennials in.