Introducing SmartCustomer, The Brand Discovery Platform
When I co-founded Sitejabber 18 years ago, I was proud to start building a company that helps people make smart shopping decisions. Our goal was to help folks avoid scams and feel confident when they spent their money.
Now, not only are shoppers trying to avoid scams, they’re also trying to find quality brands that actually provide what they’re looking for.
People often turn to search engines for help, but sponsored content often dominates the results, and trust in Google has waned. Google itself recognizes that searchers prefer Reddit and other community-based content and ranks it better than ever before.
A key part of the shopping process now causes a ton of friction: brand discovery.
We realized if we could collect a bunch of information about hundreds of brands and allow people to filter through those brands based on specific criteria, we could save people hours of research and significant amounts of annoyance.
So that’s what we did. We built SmartCustomer.
How We’re Facilitating Brand Discovery
We are piloting SmartCustomer in the fashion space, with 500+ clothing brands ranging from household names to trendy boutiques.
Users can select from 17 filters — including size, style, target age group, fit, and more — and get a list of brands that meet their specific wants and needs.
For example, if you’re a 38-year-old plus-sized woman who likes USA-made clothing and wants to start exploring earth-conscious fashion, you can use these filters:
- Gender: Women
- Age Group: 26-45
- Body Fit: Plus Size
- Sustainability Score: It’s a Start, Good, Great
- Where Clothing is Made: USA
And get these results!
Then you can click on a brand to view its full page, which contains even more information like shipping costs, the typical return window, the payment options they accept, and more.
Being able to search so intentionally means shoppers can spend more time browsing actual products on sites that meet their individual criteria.
Starting in the Fashion Space
The Fashion industry is where we saw the greatest need for a brand discovery solution.
Sponsored listicles flood search engine results, and influencers thrive on Instagram and TikTok recommending brands that pay them. The world wants to know which clothing brands they should buy, and everyone is racing to give them an answer.
That’s why most of the true value has been in organic conversations happening on Reddit, many of which are about which clothing brands meet certain price, size, and style criteria. But crowdsourcing can only get you so far in your research, especially when you want very specific suggestions.
If our research and instincts are correct, and our users find SmartCustomer valuable, then we plan to expand into other subcategories of fashion, including shoes, bathing suits, wedding attire, and more.
Your Feedback is Invaluable
At Sitejabber, our goal is to help people shop confidently. If you have feedback on SmartCustomer and how it can better assist you, we’d love to hear it. Simply email us here.
If you like what we’re doing, the best thing you can do is share the tool with your friends. The more validation we get that this is the right direction, the more discovery tools we’ll be able to build!