The Mall: Universal platform for online shopping launched

As younger generations in the US return to traditional malls, the startup The Mall has brought this concept into the digital world. The new app allows users to create a personalized virtual shopping mall featuring their favorite brands and track all discounts in one place, reports Techcrunch.com reports .

According to co-founder Ellie Konsker, the idea stems from the fragmentation of online shopping. Consumers are forced to open dozens of browser tabs, subscribe to various newsletters, and track brand updates in real-time, which complicates the shopping process.

The Mall founders Shreya Halder and Ellie Konsker aim to turn this platform into a unified database, similar to Spotify for music or Goodreads for readers. Currently, the app hosts over 10,000 brands, and users can add new stores by linking their favorite brand's Instagram or TikTok pages.

Technically, the platform does not connect directly to brands via API. Instead, proprietary technology scrapes retail sites to update product catalogs and pricing information. The system uses LLMs (Large Language Models) to organize all data and send push notifications to users about new collections or discounts.