Entrepreneurial
Grow your own
Twitter-based shopping website seeks retailers
Buying something online can be a frustrating process. The shear numbers of websites offering the same product can lead to endless hours of surfing to try to find the right deal. Consumers often become overwhelmed and end up not buying anything at all.
Prashant Nedungadi (see Nedungadi’s personal five-day entrepreneur journal, exclusively for Reuters.com) has been one of those people and decided to use that frustration to launch IMshopping.com, a website that utilizes a combination of software and sales experts to direct buyers to the precise product they’re looking for. What Nedungadi has dubbed “human-assisted shopping” is a network of retail experts, or guides, and the broader community of IMshopping’s more than 30,000 registered users.
IMshopping leverages Twitter to help allow consumers to pose shopping-related questions around the clock.
The Twitter part works by submitting your shopping query to @imshopping, which spits back a response to your Twitter account, usually within 15 minutes, with a link to the answer of your question. Photos of the product and other recommended products may also be included in the response.
Experts weigh in on Twitter-based shopping site
Yesterday we presented entrepreneur Prashant Nedungadi (read his entrepreneur journal) and his startup website IMshopping.com, which offers a platform whereby consumers can ask specific retail-related questions, through the website directly or via Twitter, and have them answered by an online community of retail experts. (click here to read Nedungadi’s pitch)
Nedungadi launched his website last April and has already received $4.7 million in venture capital investment from SK Telecom, but now needs to find retailers willing to pay to utilize his virtual sales force instead of going the traditional route and hiring their own sales people.
Our panel of experts have watched Nedungadi’s pitch video and gave us their reaction to IMshopping and Nedungadi’s business model.
TAKING IT TO THE EXPERTS
-
Search
Follow Entrepreneurial
Certainly IMshopping is a great social shopping tool. But for one who is a frequent shopper requires to consult generic deal sites to save large amount of money. Sites like http://www.cheapdeals101.com/ , http://www.dealtaker.com/ are helpful to save your money. Thanks for sharing great info.
Bella.