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How Clinch is making online shopping a cinch

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Although mobile shopping has evolved to become part of our everyday lives, the current system just does not work.

Bookmarking is not all that practical, opening loads of tabs to compare things was frustrating, and taking screenshots to quickly reference something means more work than anything.

Clinch, a web application thought up by co-founders Sharon Clark and Charles Young, has a uniquely solution to the online shopping conundrum. Clinch helps you collect, compare, create, shuffle and share shopping ideas like never before.

Features of Clinch:

  • Collect pieces you like while browsing online. Clinch from the web, take a picture or import your own. Pieces are stored in your Library for easy reference. No more screenshots!
  • Compare pieces from multiple websites of your choice all on one page No more switching between tabs to see how things measure up.
  • Create a Canvas for inspiration; piece together your perfect outfit, event or decorate your home. All links are taken along for the journey creating a collage of bookmarks.
  • Shuffle and scroll through your library to coordinate your own collections. Create endless combinations quickly and easily while having some fun.
  • Share your pieces, canvases and collections with family and friends.

“The magic here is that Clinch was designed by myself to address the obstacles we all face while ‘shopping around’ online,” Clark commented in a recent press release.

“By providing an engaging browsing experience we believe Clinch will also greatly benefit advertisers with potential to increase conversion rates of our more than 2000 affiliate partners worldwide.”

Beyond its obvious benefits though, Clinch has a lot to offer the online (and real-world) retailer, too.

Clinch helps online stores, too

While the benefits of Clinch for shoppers are clear, Clinch co-founder Charles Young recently told Anthill Online in an exclusive interview the app also enhances the user experience (UX) for online stores.

“We believe that Clinch will actually enhance the UX of many online stores,” said Young. “For example, items that are Clinched from the store remain prominent in the users library, canvases and shuffles, the user will keep seeing the items they liked enough to Clinch and this continued exposure may push them over the line to make the buying decision.”

“This we think is much better than the item being on a tab (that may well get closed) or stored as a screenshot on a phone which is likely to get buried.”

Online stores which also have brick-and-mortar will also benefit. Recent research suggests up to $1 trillion (USD) can be attributed to researching online – a digital assistant, if you will. Clinch does not care if you buy online or in a store, we just want to be the tool people use to do their digital window shopping with.

Attractive data

Young also said that Clinch’s data is potentially valuable in its own right.

“The potential value of the data we can collect is a key value for us (presuming we get enough users to get enough of it),” he continued.

“We will be able to know what consumers chose not to buy in a purchasing decision which will be really valuable, we will also be able to know how buyers (or browsers) of one type of item feel about semi-related items, so we could build an Amazon-like “if you liked this you might like that engine. That data would also be valuable for brands.”

Young was also quick to stave off concerns that Clinch might become too intrusive on the users’ end.

“Please let it be known that Clinch it a tool first, a browser and we don’t plan on turning it into a spam engine – almost all advertising will be opt-in but it will be highly targeted. We will have some example canvases, bookmarks, etc. but that’s it,” he added.

For more deets on Clinch, check out the official website.