People always wonder what the antidote is to Amazon, an eCommerce empire that takes pride in ever-improving efficiency and using robots to replace humans. Maybe Poppy is our latest answer. Poppy is a fashion and lifestyle-focused marketplace. When you open the Poppy mobile app, which is the primary form of the user interface, you can explore thousands of unique brands with distinctive identities and various aesthetic choices. From indie yoga apparel brands to succulent gift boxes for birthdays, you can easily discover goodies to light up your day.

There is no other inspirational marketplace quite like this. Poppy has nearly 100 million products curated from all indie brands all over the internet. It is more like a "Shoppable Pinterest" or mobile-friendly "Google Shopping". And it is an ever-growing platform with daily updates of 15,000 products. So you may ask why we need another shopping platform like this? Why don't we just all stick to Amazon?

Poppy is very different from Amazon in many ways. It is way more mobile-friendly (aka Gen Z friendly) than Amazon and its algorithm resembles a Tiktok like personal shopping experience. While Amazon takes pride in shopping efficiency and speedy check-out, Poppy wants you to stay as long as possible on this platform to pick a summer dress, to compare a candle, to bargain for a painting or maybe at last to buy a pair of black pearl earrings. Bezos mentioned Amazon's contribution to society was the amount of time saved from offline shopping chores. Poppy's ambition is to replicate the offline bazaar feeling of endless browsing and inspirational shopping of things you have never seen. It is just very different from Amazon.

Amazon is a behemoth pushing products to their lowest price but Poppy highlights the brand personality. Different from vintage-driven eBay and craft-only Etsy, you can find thousands of brands at your fingertip on Poppy. You can easily follow these brands and receive the latest updates. You can check their new arrivals, latest sales, social media footprint, and influencer reviews (sometimes it can be a warning sign against buying). It highlights brands' unique personality as it features Allbirds, Cupshe, Alo Yoga among many others.

It is also a marketplace that sides with consumers. Different from other platforms that have huge fake review problems, Poppy just voluntarily exposed bad reviews to all. Nothing beats an authentic user review. Poppy meticulously compiled thousands of user reviews to make sure you have a comprehensive review of the product before you make the final purchase decision. You can see products worn by real people or placed in real homes. We understand it may in the short term damage Poppy's profitability but it does not matter because consumers will eventually side with Poppy.

It is Christmas time now and Poppy just comes in very handy. You can easily compile a wishlist on Poppy and share it with friends on your social network. You can also discover wishlists prepared by fellow poppies, from "Squid Game Toys" to "Christmas Gift Inspiration". You can easily find great minds that think alike and enjoy their finds on Poppy. Poppy wishlist is your practical and affordable cheatsheet to make life better.

We talk too much about efficiency in our day-to-day life. I can assure you that we will talk even more in the metaverse to come. Poppy's wishlist may be a good reminder of the "social element" of our shopping experience, especially in the post-pandemic era. If you agreed with their approach and wanted to build up your own online store, maybe now is the time to join the rebels of brands and sign up for the marketplace.