Wooplr – Recommendations Made Easy!

How many times have you looked at a menu in a restaurant and wished that you could order their most popular dish? The one that others who have visited the restaurant loved the most? Yes, you could ask the maitre d’ to recommend one but would it really be the most “popular” one?

You walk into a mall and are hit by the number of apparel stores vying for your attention and business, but you are looking for that one particular little black dress that someone you met at a cocktail party last night had worn and told you that it’s available in the mall you are currently at. Unfortunately, before she could tell you the store’s name, she was whisked away by her friends to dance to the latest Bollywood number. How do you find that elusive LBD that you want to don at your next do?

Well, Wooplr is the answer!

What is Wooplr?

If I had to put it in a nutshell Wooplr would be a little bit of Facebook and a little bit of Twitter thrown in together. It is one of the newest mobile apps to hit smartphones that lets you discover what is trending in your neighborhood, be it the best place for roadside chaat or those six inch heels that you gave been saving up for since the last 3 months. It helps you find the perfect gift for your Tin Tin crazy friend or take your date to a restaurant that serves the best Lasagna in town. Wooplr is an app that has recommendations from other Wooplr users across categories like Clothing, Accessories, Handbags, Shoes, Home & Living, Food & Drink, Beauty and Collectibles.

How does Wooplr work?

Signing into the Wooplr app requires you to either have a Facebook or Google account. This makes it fairly simple to get started rather than choosing a separate username and password. It also ensures that the users are genuine and that you are getting recommendations from “real” people. Once you have signed in, you are presented with two tabs – “Trending” and “Latest”. The “Trending” tab has recommendations or posts that are being talked about, shared and “loved” the most. The “Love This” option is similar to the “Like” option in Facebook.

By default the location is set to “Everywhere”, so you get to see recommendations from other cities too. This is a bit confusing as the first time I logged in, I was shown recommendations from cities like Mumbai and Kolkata while I am based in Bangalore. The app could do with a brief tour or initial setup at the time of the first login so that users are familiarized with how it works. The “Nearby” option allows you to get recommendations that are close to you. The next version of the app is likely to have your location set based on the current GPS location. That would surely make the app a lot more simpler and user-friendly that it already is. Another feature that I loved was the “Search” one that can be used to look for a particular store or product and see what people are talking about it. Being a die-hard Calvin and Hobbes fan, I typed in “Calvin” which brought up a store in Shantinagar, Bangalore that sells Calvin and Hobbes trays. Nice! Like in Twitter, the Wooplr app allows you to follow other users and view their recommendations. It took me a while though to figure out that to view the people I am following, the recommendations that I love and other users who are following me, I had to click on my profile picture. This should have been a little more intuitive.

How do I recommend something?

Recommending something is a breeze. You just use the camera icon on the screen to take a picture of the dish, accessory or piece of clothing that you like, type in a few lines about it and let others know where you got it from. That’s it!

What more?

Wooplr is not just about recommendations, it goes even further. Now that you know in which store stocks those 6 inch heels you have been dreaming about, you can click on the “Get This” option which sends an alert to the store owner saying that you are interested in buying them. This works great for store owners too who get to know what people like in their stores and can accordingly stock up on those products. The app also allows them to get in touch with potential customers. Truly a win-win situation for both. It is just a matter of time before store owners and brands wake up to the idea of Wooplr and make their presence felt on this nifty app.

Platforms supported: Android, iPhone and Windows