Flattr Partners With Socialvest To Add Free Funds As You Shop Online
Flattr has partnered with Socialvest, an Atlanta, Georgia based service that has deals with 600 U.S. based online retailers to take a percentage of sales and use it for charitable donations. With the Flattr partnership, now whenever a user shops at a participating retailer, they get 1-50% of whatever they spent kicked back into their Flatter account, which they can use to Flattr charities and content creators. Unfortunately Socialvest only focuses on U.S. online retailers, however they're looking into adding Amazon Germany and UK support. Flattr has a large German presence.
Socialvest offeres an interesting service to drive socially conscious shoppers to online retailers. They use a browser plugin to alert users which online retailers will donate a percentage of their purchases to charity. Socalvest does not keep track of surfing habits or credit card details, and keeps itself funded through deals with retailers.
iZettle's Nordic Launch Starts Tomorrow, Offers 5000 Devices Per Country
iZettle has announced that they will begin their Nordic launch tomorrow, and will be releasing 5000 devices in Denmark, Norway, and Finland, each, for beta testing. If you haven't seen our previous coverage, iZettle’s iPhone and iPad app lets anyone take credit or debit card payments on the go, with or without iZettle’s chip-card reader.
The company offers a service similar to the US-based competitor, Square, although Square is built for magnetic strip cards and plugs into the headphone jack. The device has already been beta testing in Sweden since November, a month after the company raised €8.2M in venture funding. We've already gotten our hands on the device, and will be releasing a more detailed review later this week.
Heverest.ru Grabs $4.3 Million In Financing
The Russian online retailer for sports, leisure, and travel goods, Heverest.ru, has received $4.3 million (€3.2 million) in financing led by Fastlane Ventures and eVenture Capital Partners. The company opened for business June 1st, 2011, and this investment adds to the company's total of $6.7 million in financing. This seems huge for a young e-commerce site, but CEO Vladimir Kim explains, "Before Heverest.ru, there were no such websites offering all kinds of sport, leisure and travel products in one place. We are in a strong position to change this, having joined the club of most successful startups in the Russian market of e-commerce, such as UTINET, KUPUVIP, SAPATO, etc."
Setting Up An Online Store Is Still Hard
For the past couple of days I've been looking at different online solutions to setup a very simple online storefront to sell one physical item on behalf of our rugby club. While it may seem an easy and a quick task to do, it's surprised me with the amount of things I have to look into, not to mention the amount of insufficient solutions on the market. The work of setting up this storefront has opened my eyes to the fact that there's still a lot of room to set up a startup in the e-commerce space.
I'm not saying there aren't good solutions on the market, but most of them are aimed at those who want to run e-commerce sites full time with hundreds of SKUs. My guess is that if you look at only sports clubs, there are probably thousands of them who have about 10 SKUs they'd like to sell online, just in Finland.
MySellr Transforms Your Facebook Page Into An Online Store
We have long lived with the word e-commerce and it won’t be wrong to request for a change in the naming convention, especially regarding social networks. Probably something like social commerce would do the trick. This is largely owing to Facebook, the network that has made brands more social. MySellr, is an Indonesian startup with Swedes on board, that tends to make the connection more important.
The startup provides an application within the largest social network, enabling anyone to start a fully functional e-commerce website from their fan pages on Facebook. This basically takes the challenge of distribution out of the question as you're around a lot of people. 800 million to be exact.
Design/story Opens Their Collections To General Public
After 9 months of operating a members-only shopping platform, Design/story opened their doors to the general public. Anyone can now choose and buy inventory from the website's Collections, which include hundreds of lifestyle and design products. Collections are centered around various themes, the first one - 'I Need A Drink' - offerring hand-picked interior decoration goods that help unwind at home after work. Desgin/story's main distinction from competitors in design-oriented e-commerce websites is the story-telling part of a shopping experience they offer.
Interview With William Wolfram, CEO of DealDash
We decided to interview William Wolfram, the CEO of DealDash. A startup that's registered in Finland, but operates mainly in the US market. Not a very common sight, but then again neither is the business DealDash is in. The interview is quite a long one, but then again - we felt it should be published in its entirety as it contains a wealth of valuable information.
Runet Trends 2010
Mail.ru's IPO came as a blessing for the Russian Internet. Since its announcement interest in the Runet has grown exponentially. As the year comes to a close, it's time to look back at the major trends that have emerged and shaped Russian internet in the past twelve months.
First, the number of daily Internet users has grown by 5% in 2010, reaching 69% by the end of the year. 85% of monthly users prefer to user Internet from home and only 9% of the Internet users go online less than once a week. Thus, more Russian people are using Internet more and more often.
Shobble Brings E-Commerce Stores Under One Social Roof
Shobble is a young new service that aggregates e-commerce stores (sound familiar?), which lets the user rate and reviews the different stores. It's based in Helsinki and only in Beta. And it's build by Jori Lallo - a single student - on his spare time.
Further, Shobble collects user reviews and ratings on e-commerce stores as well as other info that might affect a buying decisions, like delivery costs, available payment methods, return policies and so on. Thus, the service will aim to bring all the conversation from the forums and the grape wine to a one single easily found location. Simple, yet potentially quite powerful concept if the masses will start using it as e-commerce becomes more popular in the Nordics.
Netcycler Wants You To Swap And Recycle - We Have Invites
Netcycler, a Finnish startup, wants to get us to recycle all the pretty things we own but don't need anymore. After talking to the founders they are also keen evangelize their own version of cradle to cradle thinking and want to make more than just money, even though that is part of the plan as well.
The service itself is still in closed alpha (we have invites though, see more about those below), although to me it's a full blown Beta and working just fine. You can put your stuff for people to see, include a photo, description and all the usual stuff. In addition to this there's quite a nifty way to find what you'd like to get in exchange: You can also create a Wish, where you tell the service what you'd like to get in return. After you have done this, it will automatically offer you that, if someone is willing to exchange such a product.
Fruugo Launches Closed Beta, First Screenshots
Fruugo invited a few bloggers to the company's premises this week and demonstrated their service, also handing out beta accounts. (We'll try to get a few shortly also for our readers - let's see.)
Fruugo's Janne Waltonen, VP Marketing & Communication, mentioned that they have not really figured out yet 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. We could settle for virtual marketplace for now. What Fruugo wants to do is to make it simple and safe to sell and buy things online across the Europe regardless of the country borders. The transaction participants should be able to complete the transaction just if they were in the same country, using their local currency and language.
Fruugo is developing the live beta service constantly (with around 60 own employees and 40 consults), so the UI and layout will likely be totally different after a short while . But the first screenshots give some indication of how the service is turning out (more shots in Fruugo's Flickr stream). The priority order for UI is 1) products, 2) consumers, 3) merchants. Fruugo is trying to find the most interesting and successful consumer segments first with a broad, steady approach, and then go after the selected ones with bigger international marketing power. The company does not plan to provide mobile offering anytime soon, as the mobile market isn't yet mature enough, Waltonen commented.
The company depends on the logistics of the merchants, and hence requires all merchants to guarantee certain levels of shipping speed and reliability, with four shipping options at the moment. Non-confirming merchants will be removed from the service. Fruugo's including only 30k-40k products in the early phase of the beta in order to better evalute the usage patterns. Once they have figured out a working layout, gathered enough data, and fixed biggest bugs they will start adding multiple merchants offering the same products. Having none overlapping merchants is also why currently some of the products in the service are considerably pricier compared to some other stores.
Despite any rumors, Fruugo does not introduce any billing methods of its own, they will rather use existing ones. In the beginning they have just the most common credit cards and Finnish e-bank systems. PayPal will be coming only later, which is understandable, given that using credit cards and e-bank accounts is much more common in the Nordics. Fraud management is going to be a huge task to Fruugo, as Fruugo will take responsibility for all transactions, both merchant-consumer and consumer-merchant. The company has reserved the second floor of their office for most part to operational and fraud management activities. Waltonen commented due to fraud issues they have needed to also rule out some product categories due to the requirements by the credit card companies.
So far Fruugo will not introduce any deeper social shopping features, like group shopping. Rather, there are "social traces", meaning users can review products, seek assistance from other users, and see actions of others. Interestingly, the recent product views and searches of all users appear on the front page in real time (anonymously). Registration event of new members will be be shown with the users' real name. Fruugo isn't planning on introducing any sellable promotion slots, rather they expect merchants to rise in the ranks and get visibility due to reliable service, popular products and good prices, and complete product information, which will generate positive reviews.
One major problem in integrating with merchants is that really few Finnish online merchants are used to providing outbound feeds (e.g. RSS), Waltonen described. In Sweden, UK, and Netherlands the situation is much better, as apparently feeding the different comparison sites is more common there. Considering Fruugo takes care of billing fees, fraud management, first line customer support, and managing the customer returns, the 10 % revenue cut the company is taking does not sound bad at all. If they can get the support for the rest of Europe up and running as per their vision, it seems Fruugo might even be the only sales channel a small webshop could need. In that case there could be clear business opportunities open to 3rd parties for helping small e-tailers setting up Fruugo-compatible shops.
Fruugo's CEO Juha Usva did an interview with Finnish MTV3 this morning, you can watch it here (in Finnish).
---
Update: Check out also Startupbin's and Ekana Innovation's posts.
Read also our previous coverage on Fruugo.
Set Up A Business With Zero Cost: Scred Introduces MiniCorps
Scred, a Finnish company building tools and services to help friends, groups and communities manage their money, has released a new version of their service. Before Scred enabled me to track debts and share expenses in multiple currencies. I found the basic Scred service already useful in sharing expenses with my flat mates. Now Scred has come out with a new version of their service, which has a set of new features that take the service to a whole new level.
Fruugo Goes After EUR 60 Billion Market with One-Stop Online Mall
Fruugo, the ambitious Finnish e-commerce startup (see our previous coverage) has announced (see Reuters' press release Tarmo Virki's interview news below) the company is on track to launch closed beta still in January, as stated previously. The service will next open in Sweden by early February. The public opening is planned for April, while the news does not specify in which countries it will be available.
Siilasmaa states in the press release interview they "are working to create a European marketplace, so that all those merchants would find all those consumers and all consumers would find all those merchants." Fruugo has said before the company wants to be the trusted 3rd party of e-commerce. Based on the latest press release news, this means Fruugo aims to unite the online shopping market by opening a "one-stop mall" for Europeans (Europe is the firm's main target market for now, as it has declared before as well). Fruugo will have hundreds of links to different online stores available in its mall. This explains why the company has been using user experience and website optimization and monetization consults. The initiative could certainly become something big if the company is able to execute the vision.
The addressable market is around EUR 60 billion ($79.50 billion), the company states, half of the total online shopping market in Europe last year. As Fruugo stated in the autumn, it targets all consumer durables and content sold in physical boxes. According to the news, there are some 30 merchants currently integrated with Fruugo, while further 100 in the process. The merchants carry brands like Lego, L'Oreal, IBM, Nokia, Adidas, Lacoste and Nike.
The big question speculated a long time has been, what is the business model? Fruugo now states it does not collect any sign-up or monthly fees from the merchants, it only charges transaction commissions. Fruugo's business model is said to mix "online retail with search and price comparison capabilities", and in addition, social networking, which allows consumers utilize their online networks when seeking the best shopping deals. There isn't more information given on the last point, but it certainly sounds interesting if Fruugo has created some way of utilizing social search (cf. Google speculations) while shopping for products, which might lead to much more relevant search results and recommendations.
Just recently, to add to Fruugo's well-known board members Nokia chairman Jorma Ollila and founder and chairman of F-Secure Risto Siilasmaa, Kim Ignatius has joined the company's board (the news in Finnish). Ignatius is Director of Finance and Administration in the Finnish international Sanoma media group, while he served before as Finance Director of TeliaSonera, the biggest mobile carrier in the Nordics. In the same General meeting the board also allowed usage of stock options. Sanoma has been very active in the past years buying internet and media startups so we will see if the corporation plays any role with Fruugo.
Apparently Fruugo's cash position is healthy after all, as the owners are reportedly not after quick profits - Siilasmaa states confidently "The day will come when this firm is cash flow positive."
See full press release interview news below.
Fruugo, a mysterious e-commerce startup
The informal Finnish marketing bible, M&M reported today (article in Finnish) that Fruugo, a mysterious Finnish startup with a world class Board of Directors including Jorma Ollila (Shell, former Nokia), Risto Siilasmaa (from F-secure fame and an active Finnish Angel investor) and Marko Parkkinen (from Bob Helsinki fame), has hired three Helsinki digital agency-world big timers, namely Janne Waltonen, Sami Keinänen and Kim Stenbäck.
According to the Finnish trade register Fruugo's line of business includes market place software development, digital market place maintenance and related activity. To shed further light into the startup, all Mr. Waltonen is ready to reveal at this point is that Fruugo is aiming at international markets right from the beginning.
Get your webstore running quicker than you can say MyCashflow
Talk about clear value proposition? How about getting your own webstore opened and running within one minute? That's how it works with MyCashflow, a recently opened service for creating your own shop on the web.
With signing up, the Middle Finland-based company instantly sets you up with search engine optimized store including most usual payment methods, inventory management, and easy admin tool. The subscription-based plans range several options from free, max 10-product store, to an unlimited premium one currently priced at EUR 249/month.
The service is currently provided only in Finnish, but listen up as the co-founder Ismo Ruotsalainen tells more about the company.
1. Could you introduce briefly what MyCashflow is all about?
MyCashflow is an elegant webstore software designed for small businesses and web designers.
2. How do you position yourself against and differentiate from the
other webstore providers?
There are lots of differences. For example, you can open your own webstore in few seconds, but I think the most important ones are the admin interface and HTML/CSS themes.
The admin interface is practical and dead simple to use. We have been working hundreds of hours to improve workflow and productivity. We've got tons of great feedback about our admin interface – people really like to use it.
HTML/CSS themes are something what web designers really respect. Finally they can design premium quality webshops without any programming experience. They just embed codes like {ShoppingCart} into HTML-template.
3. Can you let us know what led you to the idea for MyCashflow?
There's nothing particular. We have worked with webshops for a long time and the idea just evolved naturally. We noticed that there is a lot of need for improvements in the e-commerce software business and thought that we have a lot to give.
4. What have been the early successes and challenges with releasing your service?
We launched 2 months ago and there are 350 shops at a moment. Also web designers have been pleased to MyCashflow. There are now more than 10 marketing agencies that use our service. Whole thing has started well but there are still lots of things to do.
5. What can we expect from MyCashflow in the future? Are you going to release international versions?
MyCashflow is designed for the global market, that's why the English name. We started with Finnish version on purpose, because we wanted to learn how to walk before running. Finland is like a beta-test or a dress rehearsal.
Global, multilingual version is a next big step. First step of testing starts in few weeks and we launch when we are ready.
****
Thanks Ismo, and good luck to MyCashflow with rolling out the service on a large scale! With all the talk regarding entrepreneurs and small businesses not utilizing web enough in their business, there should be healthy demand for a simple and fast to adapt no-nonsense solution.
