Tea with Alice of Shop Pulse

...written by Leia

Last month I caught up with Alice - the young, stylish entrepreneur and creative energy behind the Shop Pulse website. If you've visited the site and want to get to know a bit more about her, read on!

Interest in Fashion

She started a fashion blog, Miss Fashion Whore, when she was in America for three months and had nothing to do. Her boyfriend runs a web agency so he made her a blog (how handy!) She was interested in staying up to date with the new trends, and indulged in high street buys more than designer ones, but her interest in high-fashion grew after blogging.

Her favorite shops? eBay, Zara (she says it's great for interpreting catwalk trends) and Topshop. Her own style is a mix of trendy as well as items from past seasons. For SS10 she's looking forward to the tribal look: massive jewelry and big bold prints. She's also really into girly-looking items: floaty fabric, nudes, crochet (a girl after my own heart!)

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Shop Pulse

Never visited Shop Pulse? This is what it's all about: It's an affiliate site that tracks everything that's new in online stores. The idea for Shop Pulse came from her boyfriend - he knew Alice liked to keep up to date with whatever was new in the online shops, so he created a system that scraped every website's "new in" section! What a clever idea, don't you think? He's in charge of the technical side of the site, while she takes care of the creative side. Sounds like a perfect duo!

They started the site this past September and had no financial backing at the time. Shop Pulse is still a work in progress but they have many plans for the future - they'll be implementing a blogger platform where fashion bloggers can use their software and convert all the links to products on their blog; the blogger would get a cut of the percentage if a reader buys the product. They are also planning to launch a weekly interactive lookbook based on the current trends, and are hoping to incorporate user-generated content like outfit posts.

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Alice's Tips for Online Shopping

- Hide your credit card when you've had a drink (or don't get a CC at all!)

- Don't buy too impulsively because it's too easy to spend a lot of money on cheap items

- Save up for one key item rather than buy fewer cheap things

Alice is such a great role model! She's only 21 and had no experience in business prior to starting Shop Pulse. Even though it's still such a young site, they're already generating revenue - Shop Pulse gets 4-10% commission from every sale made through the site.

Have you visited Shop Pulse? What are your thoughts on the site?