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Store page builder redesigns website and launches social marketplace to help market 26,000+ creative businesses.
If you run a creative business that sells crafts or unique products online, odds are you?ve heard of Storenvy, an eCommerce platform that lets small independent merchants build an online shop. Not only can merchants host a shop on their own URL with their own branding, but their products are also featured in Storenvy?s marketplace.
?Right now, there isn?t a go-to place on the web to buy from independent creative businesses, like industrial designers, fashion boutiques, clothing companies, nonprofits or musicians,? founder and CEO Jon Crawford says. ?Amazon has done an amazing job of providing a place to find almost any commodity. But Storenvy fills the gap for interesting, non-commodity items.?
With its site redesign and the launch of a social marketplace, the San Francisco-based startup has taken another step to differentiate itself from its many competitors including Volusion, BigCommerce, Shopify, Goodsie or Etsy. Instead of embarking on a price war, and after Tumblr president John Maloney joined Storenvy?s board of directors, the online store builder decided to take a page out of Tumblr?s playbook by focusing on building up its community of sellers and shoppers.
?As Tumblr was revolutionary to blogging, Storenvy is similarly important in the commerce space,? Maloney says. ?Tumblr has proven that there is strength in being part of a network, and I see the same thing happening at Storenvy.?
Storenvy?s new features include:
- Shopper Profiles. All shoppers will now have their own profile, which show their profile picture, products they envy, products they purchased, shoppers they follow, shoppers following them, and stores they are watching.
- Follow Shoppers. Shoppers have the ability?to follow one another.
- Envies. Shoppers can envy a product they like (similar to a Facebook ?Like?). A nice feature is that followers of a shopper can see their profile pic in the corner of products they envy.
- Subscribe to Stores. Shoppers can receive new product updates by watching a store they like.
- Real-time Popularity. Over 6,000 new products are added to the Storenvy marketplace each week, so they?ve introduced a popularity algorithm that shows popular products in real-time. The algorithm takes into account a product?s envies (likes), shares, and sales revenue.
- Mobile-ready. The site is mobile-optimized, which offers full mobile web shopping and checkout.
Crawford elaborates: ?We?re democratizing the way excellent products get in front of the masses ? regardless the size of the business,? he says. ?The new Storenvy removes the gatekeepers. To get into a store like Urban Outfitters, you have to get the attention of one of their buyers. Most independent merchants have no idea how to do that. On the new Storenvy, any great product can be easily discovered by the community and rocketed to stardom. YouTube has made stars of many of its users. In e-commerce, there?s no way for that to happen without the permission of a gatekeeper. The new Storenvy changes that.?
It?s free for individuals and businesses to launch their own store, but at?some point in the near future, Storenvy plans to take a commission of all sales that originate from its marketplace. Sales that originate from a seller?s own storefront will continue?to be commission-free.?Premium features are available to storefronts for a monthly fee, including custom domain support (use your own custom URL) for $4.99/month and advanced discount features for $2.99/month.
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To contact the writer on this story: Philip Nowak in Chicago at philip.nowak@firmology.com. Please?contact us?if you?d like to?submit a small business innovation story or small business tech startup, product or service.
Written by Philip Nowak
Philip Nowak is the founder of Firmology, a?small business news?and information media company focused on helping small business owners grow their business through technology and innovation.?You can find Philip on?Google+,?Twitter?and?LinkedIn.
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