Resale apps have spent years trying to make secondhand shopping feel as slick as buying new. LUVED, a Dubai-based marketplace for preloved luxury fashion, is the latest to reach for AI to close the gap. The homegrown app has rolled out two new features: LUVBOT, an in-app AI assistant, and My Impact, a dashboard that tries to make the sustainability case for buying used.
LUVBOT is pitched as an intelligent shopping companion that follows users across buying, selling and gifting. For sellers, it monitors how listings are performing and nudges them to tweak pricing, improve visibility or respond to interested buyers. For buyers, it surfaces relevant items and fires off timely prompts to grab pieces before they sell. It will even weigh in on negotiations, offering guidance based on marketplace demand — the kind of hand-holding that, in theory, turns browsers into closers.
The second addition, My Impact, leans into the eco-pitch that underpins most resale platforms. The dashboard estimates the carbon emissions avoided, water saved and number of items kept in circulation with every transaction. A Nearby function highlights listings within a 10km radius, which LUVED says encourages shorter delivery trips and more local trades.
Built on an already AI-heavy app
LUVED is not starting from scratch here. Since launching earlier this year, the app has offered AI-powered autofill and dynamic pricing suggestions that let sellers spin up a listing in as little as five seconds from a minimum of three photos. It also pitches itself on seller-friendly economics: sellers keep 100% of every sale with zero commission, while buyers get secure payments, item authentication and buyer protection, plus door-to-door logistics and in-app chat in both English and Arabic.
The features arrive as circular fashion becomes one of retail’s busiest corners, with the likes of Vestiaire Collective, The RealReal and Depop all chasing the same shoppers. LUVED’s bet is that a chattier, more proactive app can stand out in the Gulf, where founder Shaima Sibtain is positioning it as a trust-led, mobile-first alternative aligned with the UAE’s sustainability goals.
It is worth keeping expectations measured. AI shopping assistants are quickly becoming table stakes rather than differentiators, and the environmental figures in My Impact are modeled estimates, not audited savings — useful for motivation, less so as hard accounting. LUVED is also still young, founded in 2026, and remains iOS-only for now, with an Android version still to come. The real test is not whether LUVBOT can answer questions, but whether it actually gets more people to list, buy and hold onto secondhand pieces.
