Slyce Takes a Bite out of Christmas Shopping

Twenty years ago Christmas shopping was done by frustrated wives, and occasionally their husbands, who navigated gas guzzling cars over ice and snow covered roads on the way to the shopping mall, only to find no parking spaces available near any of the doors to the cornerstone store in the mall on technologyreview.com. Once inside and bombarded with Christmas music, the shopper searched through masses of unsold items from Christmases past. Once a suitable gift was located and a size determined, there was only the waiting in line to finalize the purchase. Is there any wonder why ecommerce has replaced this Christmas shopping misery. Now at the touch of a screen you are able to buy gifts for everyone on your lists, have the items delivered to your home, and you only have to wrap them or put them in Christmas bags which are becoming the new, effort-less, packaging for Christmas.

But not everything is copacetic in ecommerce land. Many times the person viewing items for purchase does not, immediately, make a purchase. This haste, this delay in purchasing, has some application wizards concerned; they want to increase the percentage of online purchases, they are a bit like the owners of brick and mortar stores who don’t want people, just, looking in their stores.

There is a new smartphone application available, which not only finds what you are looking for, but if that item is not available in the correct size or color, it locates similar items for purchase.
Slyce is a smartphone application, and if you have it on your purse, you’ll be ready to purchase anything you can take a photo of, and buy it without taking another step. For example, you are on vacation in Milan and you see a handbag that looks perfect, you take a photo, and instantly Slyce finds the item from their extensive database and offers you, either, the exact same item or others nearly identical. The price is listed along with other information and with the push of the screen on your phone, you have made it yours. What’s not to like about Slyce. This is fantastic! Brick and mortars are trembling in their designer boots.

Slyce, Inc. was founded in 2012 by Cameron Chell and Erika Racicot in Canada. By 2014 Slyce had garnered over $10 million in funding and was well on its way to achieving business success. It went public that year and would be a good opportunity for any investors.