Feature

This Atlanta Startup Is Helping Small Brands Win Where It Actually Counts...On their Product Page

Many brands pour money into Google Ads, only to watch visitors bounce before converting — or lose them entirely to bigger brands once a curious shopper heads to Instagram or TikTok to learn more.

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When Tope Mitchell, PhD first launched Reflekt Me, she had her sights set on the big players. Back in 2022, the Atlanta-based founder was focused on getting her technology in front of major retail brands — giving online shoppers a way to see exactly how a product would look on their specific size, skin tone, or hair texture before hitting "buy."

But along the way, her team saw that there were thousands of smaller brands (especially in Atlanta) quietly building on Shopify — and struggling with a problem Mitchell also knew how to solve.

Fixing The Product Page

Reflekt Me is now available in the Shopify App Store, bringing that personalized shopping experience to emerging brands of all sizes. With See It With Preview It, the startup transforms standard product pages into what Mitchell describes as a "social proof mirror," embedding social media and user-generated content (UGC), how-to videos, and community-sourced visuals that are automatically tailored to each shopper's needs.

Store owners can then invite customers, influencers, or creators to make content that automatically appears on a product’s page.

This new type of content can help potential customers figure out if a product will work for their hair type or skin tone, for example.

Think of it as bringing your brand's TikTok energy directly onto your storefront, without asking the customer to leave and go find it themselves.

This bridges the gap between social media and the ecommerce storefront, building trust right on the product page.

And that matters a lot to smaller brands.

Many brands pour money into Google Ads, only to watch visitors bounce before converting...or lose them entirely to bigger brands once a curious shopper heads to Instagram or TikTok to learn more.

Preview It keeps them on the page by bringing those real people and reviews to them.

The Preview It app options starts at $99 per month.

Building For The Ecommerce Future

Want to see Reflekt Me in action? Atlanta-based brands like Puff Cuff are currently using the platform.

For Ceata E. Lash (Founder, Inventor & CEO) of PuffCuff, ReflektMe helps the company share its mission to "champion self-love and confidence by creating painless, damage-free styling tools for the often overlooked curly and textured hair community."

ReflektMe helps us show our product on real people with real curls, reinforcing the authenticity and social proof our brand was built on," Lash added.

Another brand, Yoni Mack, will have Reflekt Me on its pages soon. "What excites me about bringing Reflekt Me to the Yoni Mack site is the opportunity for women to see real people participating in self-care and womb healing rituals, because when customers see themselves reflected in a brand, it creates deeper trust and connection," said Yoni Mack.

ReflektMe is also helping the Sickle Cell Sanctuary, which is using the platform to provide "a modern, interactive way to showcase the wellness products and resources" they provide.

"The Sanctuary was created to be more than a wellness center—it is a space where individuals can discover tools that support their physical, emotional, and mental well-being. Reflekt Me allows us to elevate that experience by making information about our products accessible, engaging, and empowering," Dr. Tabatha L. McGee, Founder of Atlanta-based Sickle Cell Sanctuary, said.

Those companies are exactly the kind of community-rooted businesses Mitchell says she's building Reflekt Me for.

"Atlanta is a beacon for the world," she told Hypepotamus. And she has become even more involved in the Atlanta tech and business community since moving to the city a few years back.

The company went through Techstars in 2023 and beta-tested its Shopify solution with Ecomspaces, an Intown Atlanta 3PL fulfillment center. She's also a stakeholder at RICE (Russell Innovation Center for Entrepreneurs), a landmark institution for Atlanta's Black business community, the founding 100 executive board for the Atlanta Black Chamber's Black Beaty Industry Initiative, and the global advisory board for the Rarely Heard Women conference.

For Mitchell, who holds a PhD in sociology, the technology allows business owners to grow without having to out-spend legacy players on TikTok Shop just to get discovered. With Preview It, they're not fighting for attention in someone else's algorithm. They're owning the retail experience.