‘Normal people’ paid to try on clothes

A new app hires people to try on clothes, allowing them to earn money and helping retailers to cut down on returns

Spotted: Most people do not look like models. This is the idea behind start-up Sozie, an app that pays people to try on clothes and report back on their fit to retailers, who use the information to help online shoppers. The idea behind the app is based on early 20^th Century European boutiques, who hired shop-associates to try on clothes, so clients would not have to. These shop-associates were called Sozies — the French word for doppelgänger.

Women can sign up through the app to be a “model” by uploading their measurements. Whenever a retailer needs someone with those measurements to try on a garment, the app alerts lookalikes near to a store selling that item. The lookalike tries on the piece in question in-store, then uploads pictures of herself in the garment and answers some questions about how she felt about the product. 

Sozie’s platform edits the photos to remove store backgrounds and sends them to the retailer’s website. Online shoppers with similar measurements can then use this information to judge whether the clothing will fit before they order. Sozie pays the lookalikes through PayPal and charges the retailers for each ‘fitting’.

Founder, Tahreem Arshad, explains Sozie’s value as solving a problem for online retailers: “I think it’s true for everyone that no one likes to try on clothes, and in the online space, there’s a big discrepancy [between what you see and reality] for some people. The convenience of shopping online is great, but the inconvenience of not knowing exactly what you are buying and how it will set you up is very frustrating.”

At Springwise, we have seen an explosion in new ways to make online and digital shopping more efficient. Recent innovations range from live-streaming to sending tailors to deliver orders and make changes on the spot.