Interview with Jess Lam, Co-founder of ObviLux

Hello Lovelies! Last week I had the opportunity to talk with Jess Lam, one of the co-founders of ObviLux, a new website I've been digging for the last month or so. Jess is super sweet and has spent a lot of time talking with me. Although this site is already lots of fun and easy to use, Jess and the rest of the ObviLux crew are clearly committed to making people's experience with the website the best it could possibly be. Although I could go on and on about the site, I will let Jess tell you about Obvilux in her own words!

T: What is your role at ObviLux?

J: I am one of three founders of ObviLux. Currently I'm trying to help grow an active ObviLux community while talking with shoppers to figure out how to make the experience better overall. I spend most of my days on the phone with fashion gurus, stylists, and shoppers. It's pretty awesome. 

T: What was the idea and/or motivation behind creating ObviLux?

J: We noticed that our friends were sharing a lot of clothing through Facebook and of course we always shared links through email. There were lots of problems with using FB or email to find and share clothing so we wanted to make the experience fun for ourselves and our friends. 

T: How does ObviLux work?

J: ObviLux is completely fueled by our shopping community. All of the clothing and products are on the site because individuals added them using our Lux It! button. We made it really easy to add clothing so we've seen a high level of participation. Once clothing is on the site people can share it with their followers and create style-sets, which give the price and vision for what an outfit might look like. You can also discover some really amazing items by following other users and stores. Needless to say there's plenty do :)

T: What can ObviLux bring to the table that other websites, such as Pinterest, cannot?

J: We're specifically focused on the shopping experience. People use ObviLux to find and share items they want to buy or dream about buying. This also means that we work with brands to reward the most influential and loyal shoppers. If you're a big fan of urban outfitters, with a little work you can eventually become the store ambassador and potentially earn rewards. We will also recommend clothing and products we think you'd like based on your style, favorite stores, and friends' recommendations.

T: What other benefits might members experience from using ObviLux?

J: Every time I visit ObviLux I'm always so impressed by the range in awesome clothing people have shared. I use a lot of this clothing to create wish lists that I'll send out for birthdays and Christmas. That way my friends and family don't have to guess what to get me. Of course the store ambassador titles are an awesome benefit. Shoppers are always pushing to be the store ambassador for their favorite brands.

T: How have you partnered with stores to reward "store ambassadors?"

J: We have been meeting with many of our shoppers favorite brands to negotiate partnerships. These meetings have been going well and we are learning a ton. We hope to secure these rewards (gift cards, merchandise, coupon codes) in the near future from our most popular online stores.

T: Since ObviLux is still in it's early stage, are there any new features that users have to look forward to?

J: We are going to upgrade the design of all the current features soon. We're obsessed with design. On-top of that we plan to do some really exciting things with the Style-set feature. Outfit creation can be pushed much further. We're also still meeting with many of users to hear what they want most. So feel free to shoot me an email if you dream up a feature you'd like to see and want someone to build it for you (jess@obvilux.com). We only create the things our users want.

Intro to ObviLux (official alpha) from ObviLux on Vimeo.

Thanks to Jess for answering all my questions about ObviLux! Like I said, I've been using it for about a month now, and have had a lot of fun creating style sets and browsing through people's "luxes." If you would like to follow me, you can find my ObviLux profile here. Hope to see you on ObviLux soon!

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