Snap Fashion – Digital business revolutionising the way we shop

Snap Fashion is changing the way we shop for clothes in-store and online – Could revolutionise how we look for anything we want.

Jenny Griffiths, founder of Snap Fashion, created a visual search engine that allows consumers to look for and buy fashion items from more than 16,000 brands using photos they have found online or taken on their smartphones.

The digital-fashion business is now developing Snap Fashion InStore with the help of a £1 million contract awarded under Innovate UK’s ‘re-imagining the High Street’ SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) programme.

It aims to take the visual search concept into the changing rooms of High Street stores – Turning the fitting room into another shop window for the retailer.

Her innovative idea saw her awarded an MBE last year, at the age of 27, for her contribution to digital innovation in the fashion industry.

Founder and chief executive Jenny Griffiths says: “Once you’ve tried on an item, we’ll ask you whether you liked it or not. If you didn’t like it, our software will try to help you out.

“We ask you a series of questions and, depending on your answers, we’ll tap into different parts of our algorithm to show you visually similar things we think you might like.”

Snap Fashion InStore is currently being trialled and shoppers would start seeing it appearing in High Street changing rooms from August 2017.

From The Beginning

Jenny had the idea for Snap Fashion when she was studying for a masters degree in computer science in 2008.

It wasn’t until 2011 when she won the support of an Innovate UK grant that she was able to focus full time on developing and marketing it.

Since then, Snap Fashion has grown, winning hundreds of thousands of pounds in support from private investors and landing $200,000 investment from Cisco British Innovation Gateway (BIG) award.

Snap Fashion partnered with Time Inc, last year, to integrate its visual search engine with the publisher’s editorial content across its magazine portfolios.

Readers can click and search for things that are similar to those on the page, finding items in stock on UK high streets in real time.

Future plans for the business includes improving the search engine data and diversifying into other areas.

She said: “We’ll be improving the fashion search algorithms and then moving into other areas. My dream is that anything you can see in the world around you, take a photo of it and we’ll be able to find it for you online.”