Fashion apps go beyond shopping with auctions, communities and more

Ably pilots 'speed auction' feature

Zigzag expands community services

Platforms race to boost app engagement

A speed auction on Ably on Monday, with items changing every 10 seconds. [Ably app]

Fashion platforms are evolving beyond simple sales channels into everyday destinations, offering a growing range of content — from auctions to community features. The push is aimed at keeping users in the app longer, building loyalty and sharpening their ability to surface products that match individual tastes.

Style commerce platform Ably has been piloting a "speed auction" service since Sept. 14, according to industry sources. The feature introduces products across various categories through a live broadcast and immediately puts them up for auction. "It's an opportunity for users to buy the products they want at a more reasonable price," an Ably official said.

A speed auction held Monday evening sold 100 clothing and accessory items — including T-shirts, knitwear and stockings. Items changed every 10 seconds, giving the broadcast a pace reminiscent of a Chinese influencer's live shopping stream. Bidding started at 1,000 won, with most items selling in the 1,000–3,000 won range. When an Isabel Marant T-shirt listed at 170,000 won came up, competition intensified and the winning bid shot up to nearly 30,000 won in seconds.

Bidding was straightforward: users who registered their card details in advance could place a bid with a single tap. The host reminded viewers that all items were new products available on Ably and that free delivery applied even on 1,000-won wins, while also fielding questions from a live chat. Participants used the chat to exchange opinions with one another.

Ably has been adding services on multiple fronts, including community features, fortune-telling, AI chat, and webtoons and web novels. In July, it launched Ably Place, an offline experience booking service covering workshops, classes, leisure passes and exhibition tickets.

Zigzag, operated by Kakao Style, is expanding its community offerings. The platform runs "e pick," a photo-sharing service where users exchange style inspiration, and "Talk Lounge," a space for user-to-user conversation. E pick functions much like Instagram, while Talk Lounge operates as a community-style social network covering everything from fashion to relationship advice.

A review-focused feature was relaunched in April as "Recommended Review Items," curating only posts with ratings of 4.5 stars or above that include photos or videos, drawn from reviews written in the past 90 days by Zigzag's top 3,000 reviewers. Page views in the three months after the relaunch — April through June — rose 25 percent compared with the previous three months. The purchase conversion rate among visitors to the section was 2.7 times higher than that of general users, and the time to purchase was 34 percent faster.

The race to roll out new features appears to be a strategy to extend app session times and deepen user loyalty. The spread of "digging" culture — in which consumers actively explore and uncover niche interests — has also made in-app content more important as a way to keep users engaged.

"Young consumers often don't search for a specific product and buy it — they browse social media and other platforms, discover something that suits their taste and then make a purchase," an industry official said. "Providing content that keeps users inside the app as long as possible has become critical."

Zigzag's community services "e pick" (left) and "Recommended Review Items." [Zigzag app]

spa@heraldcorp.com