Spaces: Follow Businesses

Review by eFreeware

Spaces is a free app from Wix.com that collects the online stores, blogs, communities and event organizers you follow into a single place on your phone. Instead of jumping between browser tabs and email confirmations, you keep the businesses and groups you care about in one feed and act on whatever they post. That is the core idea, and it is a fairly narrow one: this is a viewer and a doer, not a site builder.

The appeal for me is the breadth of what a single listing covers. Shopping, reading, booking appointments, joining community discussions and buying event tickets all sit inside the same app, which means the businesses you already deal with can reach you without you hunting them down. If you regularly buy from small shops, follow a blogger or belong to an interest group that runs on a Wix site, the convenience adds up quickly.

It has been on Google Play since August 2016 and now sits past 10 million installs with a 4.2 average from roughly 95,000 ratings, so it is not a new experiment. The developer's most recent note mentions only bug fixes and performance improvements, which tells you the app is being kept in working order rather than reshaped.

Shopping and order tracking in one place

The storefront side is the most immediately useful part for many people. You can browse e-commerce sites inside the app, buy items without switching to a browser, and apply coupon codes or discounts at checkout. Product pages carry reviews, so you can read what other buyers thought and leave your own after a purchase.

Order history is handled with the same logic. Past and upcoming orders are tracked in the app, which saves you from digging through email folders when you want to know whether something has shipped. For anyone who buys regularly from a handful of smaller retailers, that single view is the sort of thing that quietly replaces a lot of searching.

I would not expect this to match a full desktop shopping experience in every respect, and the developer is not pitching it that way. What it offers is a phone-first way to buy from the specific stores you follow rather than a general marketplace.

Blogs, communities and conversation

Reading is the second pillar. You can open blog posts from anywhere, like and comment on them, and share them with others, and the app keeps you current on the blogs and bloggers you follow. If you have a handful of writers you check regularly, having their posts arrive in one feed is more convenient than bookmarking each site separately.

The community side goes further. Members can chat with each other, join forums and groups built around shared interests, and read or contribute to discussion boards. That makes the app a reasonable fit for hobby groups, local organizations or membership communities that run their conversations on a Wix site.

The quality of any of this depends on the communities you choose to follow, since the app is a window onto them rather than a network of its own. For someone already active in a group, that is fine. For someone hoping to discover a lively forum from scratch, the experience will rest entirely on what those organizations post.

Appointments, packages and event tickets

Booking is where the app does something a browser often handles clumsily. You can reserve online sessions, buy packages, and pay for bookings without leaving the app, and virtual sessions can be joined through Zoom. That combination suits tutors, coaches, salons and clinics that sell time rather than products.

Events follow a similar pattern. You can get tickets for upcoming events, attend online events through Zoom, read and post on discussion boards tied to them, and share photos from the event. For an organizer running a mix of in-person and virtual gatherings, the app covers the parts attendees actually need.

What I like about this arrangement is that payment, booking and follow-up live together. What it does not do is let you run the business side; the developer points anyone who wants to build a website or manage an existing one to the separate Wix Owner app. Spaces is the customer's seat, not the owner's.

What you need before you start

The practical requirement is simpler than it might sound. Spaces works with businesses, stores, websites and communities that are already on Wix, so its value depends on whether the places you follow use that platform. Following a specific business or community is the natural starting point, and from there the app fills with whatever those organizations publish.

The app is free to download. It carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases. Any money changing hands is for the products, bookings, packages or tickets you choose to buy from the businesses.

The one thing worth setting expectations around is that this is not a directory. You follow what you already know about rather than browsing a catalog of local shops and groups, so the app rewards people who arrive with a list in mind.

The people this suits

The clearest fit is someone who already shops from, reads or belongs to organizations running on Wix and wants a single app for all of it. If you buy from a few independent stores, book sessions with a coach or instructor, and keep up with a blog or two, the combination of shopping, booking and reading in one place is genuinely convenient.

It also works well for members of an active community. Chat, forums, groups and discussion boards give you a way to take part from your phone, and event features mean you can buy a ticket and share photos without leaving the app. People who attend a mix of in-person and Zoom-based events get the most out of that side.

For anyone with no connection to Wix-based sites, the app will feel thin, because there is nothing to follow and nothing to buy. That is not a flaw so much as the shape of the product: it is built around the businesses and communities you bring to it.

A useful companion for Wix-based shops and groups

Spaces earns a place on the phone if the stores, blogs, communities and organizers you deal with already run on Wix. Shopping with coupons, tracking orders, reading and commenting on posts, booking sessions and packages, chatting in forums and buying event tickets are all handled in one app, at no cost.

The limits are structural rather than annoying. It is a customer-facing app rather than a management tool, so site owners need the separate Wix Owner app, and its usefulness rises and falls with how much of your life happens on Wix-based sites. Anyone outside that world will find little to do here.

My recommendation is straightforward: if you follow a handful of Wix businesses or belong to a community that runs on one, install it and sign in to the ones you care about. If your shopping, reading and booking are spread across platforms that do not use Wix, the app has nothing to connect to, and you can leave it alone without missing much.

What's new in version 2.133677.0

This release includes bug fixes and performance improvements.