Here I just want to list the most important advantages that companies can obtain using this type of online sales:

1. It’s a strategy that allows quick and profitable monetization of stocks: the margins, in fact, are quite high, certainly higher than those achievable by other methods of management of stocks

2. Opportunity to reach a greater amount of consumers that don’t have the possibility to buy the specific product through the usual channels. In fact there are consumers that have difficulty in finding designer clothes or luxury brands or just find them at higher prices.

3. No overlap with the traditional distribution network, thanks to the very short duration of the campaign without damaging the image of the brand.

4. Attention on the creation of a strong relationship with the final consumers. The major players in the industry invest a lot in the creation of trailers and shooting of the products that are offered online: websites are usually pleasant, friendly, accessible, engaging, highly interactive, designed for a sophisticated and demanding audience.

5. Mailing list:  this websites have devoted much effort in collecting a mailing list, even if all the e-tailer insist on the importance of “word of mouth. Who is invited by those who have already tried the service or by companies affiliated with the service (Born4Shop, for example, can count on partners such CartaSi, Fastweb, Sole24Ore, TicketOne, RCS, Gay.it) enters for free. Other website, such as Piustyle.com charges an amount of 15 euros on the first purchase. By contrary, to feed the crowd to its site, Privalia focuses on activities of viral marketing on the web through games and competitions that can capture the interest of the people of the Net: this strategy has allowed to intercept about 40 thousand new members. Currently, one third of the Privalia’s community comes from the “member get member”,that rewards those that have invited other potential buyers. The concept of “community” is central to this E-Business, so that some operators have even created their own blogs.

6. Creation of blogs: this tool has the aim of establishing direct contact with members and increases the transparency of services and operation of the portal. Every visitor has the possibility to voice his views and suggestions and sharing them with other members and with the company.

Although the concept of social shopping and the sites related to the subject are still a new phenomenon on the web, Veedom, compared to the competition such as StyleFeeder or MyFaveShop, adopt a new passive method. In this way it suggests products to its members without that their costumers try to find anything.

At the beginning, the only information the system needs are the interests of the subscribers from which the algorithms develop a profile of interest. Competing sites, by contrast, are much more tied to a concept of research which may be browsing the profiles of other users, or browsing by tags, or by typing a real key and then move from there through tags, user profiles etc… In other words, the competition behaves much closer to satisfying a specific need and this when the user accesses the site rather than pure discovery products and satisfy their latent needs, an area in which Veedow is focusing much.

Another important component is represented by the interaction between users who may be friends or just people with common tastes and interests.
First of all every user can save and share with the community their products, drawn from any site on the Net.
Moreover, every product can be rated, commented and tagged. Veedow does not sell products directly, however, shows that its users. The role of the service is rather to make people discover these products and links to sites from which you can then make the purchase.

The social shopping will become increasingly important, so as to become a real cornerstone in the rules for online purchase.
It’s important to consider that internet is not exclusively search-centric and the personal suggestions are important too. Obviously, research and discovery are not antagonistic or mutually exclusive, but more or less appropriate depending on context and user needs. This concept is now saying thanks to applications like Digg, Last.fm, StumbleUpon, and – why not – Veedow.

Startup Camp-London-Veedow