Ok, so here is a great little idea for online retailers.
Cartfly is a type of portable store. It enables a retailer to set up, for free, a cartfly store which can then be embedded into your MySpace or Facebook page. (You can also add it to Friendster, Hi5, Perfspot, Blogger, Xanga, Piczo, Typepad and Tagworld.)
Cartfly charges 3% of each transaction – but there are no set up costs so if you don’t sell anything, they don’t charge you. (So be sure to add enough margin to cover the 3% you’ll hand over to cartfly.)
It works like this. You set up your inventory in cartfly (you’ll get your own store), then you can embed it into your various social media platforms. The downside is that you need an Amazon payments account which is a bit of a bummer when most of us already have Paypal. Despite this, it is a nifty way to expand your reach into different locations with no cost, apart from your time.
Here is what a cartfly store looks like:
A customer clicks on the blue arrows to move about your inventory can click on the tab for either more information or to buy it.
Shopping widgets with full transaction capability will soon appear in mobile applications, Internet enabled television, gaming consoles and other electronic devices that access the Internet — Multichannel 2.0. It also gives retailers opportunity to open up shop on any website including shopping portals, affiliate sites, blogs and social networks.
Of course, Cartfly is not the only option.
Larger retailers might like to look at Alvenda. Alvenda works on a revenue share pricing model which “can be configured to deliver a return on advertising spend equivalent to, or better than, search advertising.” One of its flagship customers, 1800-Flowers, recently released its results from the use of portable stores which, it claims, contributed to a 41% rise in sales per impression for the ads when compared to regular banner ads during the Mother’s Day shopping period.
Additionally, interaction with the Shoplet ads was 10.5 times greater than traditional banner advertisements, according to Alvenda.
So look out for portable stores coming to websites near you. Or better still, get in first with a store of your own.
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