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Dote, a shopping app once praised for being ‘Gen Z’s dream mall,’ is ghosting its brands, influencers, and users as it quietly tries to fall off the radar.
Remember last year’s Dote scandal when the app was seriously criticised for discriminating against people of colour both on social media and at organised events? Somehow – after a great deal of damage control – the Gen Z-targeted shopping app managed to come out the other side relatively unscathed, continuing to grow in popularity for several months afterwards.
As Gen Z remains retail’s largest group of consumers, it makes sense that businesses would be keen to tap into the demographic’s estimated $44 billion in buying power, so why, therefore, is arguably the most successful Gen Z shopping app to date quietly trying to disappear?
On January 10, the company posted its last ever photo to Instagram and in the weeks that followed, users began complaining in the comments section that they were struggling to purchase anything on the app and that their saved items were no longer listed.
At the end of the month, almost everyone had received a notification that Dote would be terminating its iOS version and now, while still available to download from the app store, nothing loads when its opened and their website is officially inactive.
‘I saw a notification that Dote was going to shut the iOS app down,’ says 21-year-old Amanda, a frequent user of the app. ‘I searched for news about it and there was nothing.’
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7JLZlGlAYX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
