There’s the convenience of e-commerce and the immediacy of retail — and entering into the void between is Instamall.
The AI-heavy shopping app is launching Monday in Miami, but has plans for a rapid nationwide rollout.
If founder and chief executive officer Elliot Aboud is able to follow through on his plans, something new and potentially very important is coming to retail and fast.
“Essentially what Uber Eats did for food five years ago, we’re doing for fashion,” Aboud claimed.
The app, which is currently free for retailers to use, let’s people in the Miami area shop live inventory from the local stores of 80 contemporary and luxury fashion brands, including Louis Vuitton, Prada, Balmain, Bottega Veneta, Coach, Diesel, Reformation, Aritzia, Cult Gaia, Ganni and more.
A sales associate in the store confirms the order and drops off the item at one of the Instamall checkpoints established in area malls. The company has an exclusive partnership with what Aboud described as “one of the largest last mile delivery companies in the world,” which he declined to name, and the order will arrive within 60 or 90 minutes.
Instamall plans to keep adding brands, but it is already hooked into the inventory systems of its existing partners, so expanding the service to new cities could be as easy as flicking a switch. Almost.
“In about two to three months we’ll be all over Florida,” Aboud said. “And then we’re going to be launching in New York, L.A. and Texas right after. We’re going to be expanding probably all over the United States, I would say in about six to seven months.”
Right now, as Instamall looks to build some buzz, the service and delivery will be free, but the company plans to open up various revenue streams when the time is right.
“We’re going to charge delivery fee, convenience fee,” the CEO said. “Retailers are going to be able to pay for advertisements just like you see on Google Ads, Instagram ads. Alo’s going to be wanting to be on top of Lululemon. Lululemon’s going to want to be on top of Vuori, etc.
“We are the marketplace for local fashion retail,” he said. “We connect directly with the in-stock inventory of the local stores. We don’t hold any inventory.”
The app also offers an AI-powered stylist and virtual try-on that, down the line, customers will need a subscription to use.
While Instamall is establishing itself at that tricky juncture where retailer meets consumer, it’s not trying to own the relationship.
“When a customer purchases on Instamall, that data goes to the retailer,” Aboud said. “It goes under that customer’s account.” Down the line, rewards plans will be linked in as well.
Instamall is an idea that has drawn the backing of some well connected players, including the family of Stéphane Bianchi, LVMH group managing director, and mall group Cenomi Centers in Saudi Arabia, Aboud said.
The business grew out of Aboud’s experience with his family’s business, which owns the Aroma360 and Hotel Collection scent brands, and is part of a new wave of companies starting out with AI at their core.
“We like to keep it mean and lean,” the CEO said. “That’s what we believe is going to make or break the companies today. All these major companies that started before the AI days, they’re all laying off these employees. We’re not going to get into that.
“We have about seven to eight people, developers on the team full-time, including my chief technology officer and cofounder,” he said. “And then we have marketing, we have PR, we have paid user acquisition and social media, etc.”
Timing, he said, is everything.
“Five years ago, I do not think that there was technology or there were the capabilities to do what we’re doing today. And we’re very blessed, I would say, with the timing that we got involved, which was a year and a half ago, which was essentially the boom of AI, boom of ChatGPT, boom of Claude. And that really helped us get to where we are.”