Selectika: The new Enterprise Software That Provides AI Styling Solutions To Your Retail and Shoppers

Read about Selectika in the Womens Street Business Journal!

Selectika is an AI styling system that seamlessly integrates into ecommerce websites. Using Image Recognition and Data Science – Selectika extracts rich product attributes from your catalog (fabric, shape, neckline, style, occasion etc.), analyze it with shopper’s preferences (body proportion, personal style, emotion etc.). Based on its styling algorithms, Selectika is able to provide each shopper with his own optimal digital assortment and your marketing team with actionable insights that improve customer experiences, drive conversions and reduce costs. 

Interview with Tali Bezalel Hamdi, Founder and CEO of Selectika: Your business is in Retail Tech, offering brand impersonation to make customer’s experiences “enjoyable and perfectly pertinent at all times”. As data optimization for customer experience becomes more widely integrated, how do you believe Selectika will stay at the forefront of innovating the in-store experience?

We look at the far future and we keep asking ourselves how would people shop for clothes in another 5 or 10 years and what can we do to position retailers in front of innovation. It is our mission to fully prepare our clients for the upcoming future.

At this point in time the e-commerce field is thriving and new online stores are opening up at an accelerating rate but they all have the same value proposition and an on growing catalog, so the experience and uniqueness of the brand might get lost and even if the shopper uses filters, he still receives hundreds of results leaving him overwhelmed, so there must be a better way to shop than to sort through thousands of items.

The shift in digitalization and the changes in consumer behavior revealed the challenge in creating an online personal experience, to know who is the customer, what he is looking for, what his intention and motivation. And although there are few companies in this field non of them supplies a fully comprehensive solution.

Using Image Recognition and Data Science – we extract rich product attributes from retailer catalog (fabric, shape, neckline, style, occasion etc.), we use a fun quiz to analyze the shopper’s preferences (body proportion, personal style, emotion etc.) and based on our styling algorithms, we are able to provide each shopper with his own optimal digital assortment.

How have your professional goals changed since co-founding Selectika? Can you think of an important lesson you have learned throughout the process?

When I look back at myself I can confess I was a little bit naive, my only focus was the solution, now I know that human resources is the most important aspect in starting a company, I’m so lucky and blessed to be surrounded by an amazing, smart, qualified and professional team. Selectika is not my baby anymore, it’s a venture that grew beyond the original idea with the passion, persistence, and mastermind of this team. My professional goals are to grow our company and to lead my team to success, I aim to create the world leader in online personal experience.  

What is it about your role at Selectika that inspires you daily to continue innovating? What does ultimate success look like for your company?

I never thought that I would be an entrepreneur, as a child and a young adult, my imagination was limited to an executive position in a large corporation. Members of my family inspired me to grow out of my comfort zone. From a young age, my son has been a part of an entrepreneurship student group. an amazing program that taught students how to build their startups. Throughout the years I found myself repeatedly saying, “believe in yourself, There are no limits to what you can do.”, I realized I was preaching the words without implementing them in my own life, If I could say to my son that the sky is not the limit, I can say it to myself as well.

I founded Selectika because of my own frustration, it took me hours to search for clothes. My initial vision was to help people buy clothes using advanced technology, but now the vision has grown to a full styling system.

We re-evaluate our perception of success on a regular basis.  While today launching the first version, collaborate with top leading brands, win prizes, pitch Selectika in high tech conferences around the world,  NY, London, and Berlin and hear from our customers that they love us, to hear from my team that they feel lucky to be part of Selectika journey, to be a part of the creation of the new way to buy clothes online, to be a role model for the young generation of entrepreneurs and especially female entrepreneurs, to give back to the society, this is my ultimate goal.

Understanding the customer is an important function of many organizations; how do you find you are best able to build your customer base? Who are they, typically? Also, have you found the current pandemic has positively or negatively affected your ability to build your customership?

2020 has been a year that accelerated the digitalization and adoption of new technologies, so professionally it has been an exciting year. In one day, online shopping became the only viable channel for businesses and all of the owners and managers understood that they must improve this channel, and implement technological solutions to help their shoppers with online shopping. leading brands like express, Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor, Farfetch, and Desigual requested to meet us and wished to start a p.o.c and test our solution. This growing interest in our technology has continued even after the stores reopened. 

But this is definitely a challenge not able to meet with the customers face-to-face. Before the outbreak, I  traveled a lot for conferences and meetings, so I miss the interactions, as well as the change of scenery and culture, however, technology has enabled us to meet with everyone on the globe with just one click.