Friday 28 September 2012

Looking at a new way to sell online

When setting up an online store, many users go through the same channels of selling on eBay or having their own ecommerce store. However, due to recent funding from seed fund accelerator, 500 Startups, Shopinterest looking to be a newly growing platform for users to sell their products online. 

Shopinterest allows users to create their own ecommerce store out of any Pinterest board they may have. For example, you simply need to add all of the images of products you have for sale on to one Pinterest board and you would then be able to transform that board into an ecommerce shop that has a fully functional shopping cart. Even if you don't have a Pinterest board, you can add the product images to your account and turn them into a store.

The service underpins the ever-growing trend of social commerce and while it is currently only available to residents in the US, Shopinterest are expected to make it available to other countries within the coming weeks. However, you need to be aware that this is not a free service. Once a user signs up they are then able to take part in a trial, but once the trial is over users will be required to pay for the service. The amount you have to pay will depend on the number of sales you make and products you have in your inventory.

While this seems to be a step forward in terms of developing social commerce to a new level, the fact that users have to pay for the service in a similar way that they would do on other marketplaces like eBay, may be a draw back for a number of online sellers. If a user already has an eBay store, they are going to be reluctant to pay a whole new set of fees to a different platform in order to have their products display on that site also. Furthermore, many users pay eBay's fees because they know the site has dedicated customers as well as a high volume of traffic and sales, so they know they will be getting value for money. Shopinterest is a rather new ecommerce platform and some users may be reluctant to commit to the platform until they are able to see a real growth in traffic and sales within the site.

As I touched on yesterday, developing new channels to sell online is always the right way to go for your business. However, which platforms you choose to move on to is entirely dependant on the products you sell, your customer base and how comfortable you yourself are with using that platform. While Shopinterest could prove to be very successful in helping to enhance a store's sales through social commerce, if you are reluctant to pay for an unproven service, you may look to take advantage of a number of free ecommerce shopping cart platforms that are available to day. Such as the free multichannel platform we offer here at eSellution, integrating an ecommerce, Facebook and mobile store with an eBay store you may already have.  

Get your free ecommerce store now: http://www.esellution.co.uk/pricing.html

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