I did an interview this week with Janne Waltonen, VP Marketing and Communications at Fruugo. It has previously been unclear what to call Fruugo. It is not a webstore since they don’t own any products, legally you cannot call the company a webstore aggregator either, and it is not a not a search engine. During the interview we solved the dilemma and coined a name for this new player in e-commerce.
Waltonen demoed the actual beta service and walked me through where Fruugo is currently regarding the number of products and number of merchants, but did not give me an exact date when the service is to launch to the public. I also asked whether Fruugo will have an open API for developers to tap into. This might sound like a trivial question, but could have big effect for the local developer scene and give an indication of the policy the company takes in embracing the entrepreneurial culture. Creating a platform to innovate on the back of what is potentially a very large e-commerce player can lift many boats. This is something we have not yet seen in Finland: If Nokia has not been completely stone walling the local startups, it certainly could do more for them (although there are a few positive individuals who have been supportive), instead of threatening to move out of the country, which is the latest row regarding the mobile giant. After meeting the high spirited people at Fruugo I am very hopeful.
Whatever people make of Fruugo’s and Boo.com’s similarities and the rumors circulating around the company, this week I saw a healthy service (albeit still very much in its infancy) that has a good shot to become a major player in the e-commerce landscape. There are still a lot of unanswered questions. We don’t know how the deal will eventually go down with the large number of merchants, customers or whether all the logistical and regulatory bottle necks can be solved when pulling the patchwork of EU 27 together into a solid buying experience. But there’s always unanswered questions and challenges when doing something new and as Waltonen told me a few weeks ago about the rumors: “dogs bark, but the caravan goes on”. And so it seems to do.
Fruugo from Teppo Hudson on Vimeo.
Biovakka Suomi Oy 
Bitbar
It would be interesting to see something like a “Amazon for Europe”, an ecosystem of its own. Hopefully Fruugo has plans for this and get over the usual European/Finnish “its-our-data-you-cant-have-it” syndrome.
As I understand it, Fruugo will not be an Amazon for Europe but an Amazon marketplace for Europe. When I buy books, 90% of the time I use the marketplace sellers because they’re cheaper. It’s very hard for Amazon to compete in all areas. In think Fruugo’s future looks brights and I’m quite excited by what such a visible “bit hit” might do for the ecosystem here.
Nice thumbs L ;)
What’s up with that “legally it can’t be called a webstore aggregator” thing? I’d like to think I’m pretty well up to speed on things, and I’m definitely not aware of any laws regarding what can be called a webstore or aggregation. Care to explain the statement?
Osma,
Transactions happen in Fruugo and Fruugo takes wider responsibility than an aggregator would take. E.g. price comparison tools do aggregate retailers and product feeds without any responsibility on transactions. Aggregator is therefore misleading description for service like Fruugo.
Thanks for the clarification Janne!
Thanks Janne. Yes, I agree that term does sound like a misnomer — I was confused by the “legal” aspect.
Nice interview, good work!
Would love to hear the interview but the video is not working. Can you repost it? What is their value proposition? Why go to Fruugo when those goods are available elsewhere?
Kalavala, It seems to me that the video is working just fine. You can also try to watch it at http://vimeo.com/3098029 if that helps.
I would guess that Fruugo’st biggest value comes from a centralized and trusted site, since it’s not that easy to buy from different countries when there is different languages, policies, payment methods and laws.