Getonic, a mini e-commerce platform that can be embedded anywhere on the Internet and shared directly through social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, has announced today that it has raised more than $1.3 million in seed funding.
The company says several leading venture partners were involved, including Rutledge Vine Capital, Israel-based incubator TheTime – which we visited in May last year – private investor Mortimer Singer and a number of other angel investors.
Getonic, based in Tel-Aviv, Israel offers small businesses and professionals a unique way of creating scaled-down online stores that can be posted directly to the Web or social feeds. These storefronts, called POPshops, are essentially social widgets and offer a simple but direct ‘Buy Now’ button to encourage readers to make a purchase.
Perhaps more importantly though, each POPshop has three sharing buttons underneath which will republish the storefront either on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. If a user chooses to do so and one of their followers buys the product, Getonic and the relevant business or brand rewards them with money or other incentives.
In some of the examples we’ve seen, Getonic is willing to pay users 20 percent of the sale if their friends complete a purchase. It’s a risky strategy, but one that should ensure each POPshop is distributed far and wide on the Internet.
Getonic believes that by sending the store to the consumer, businesses are far more likely to sell a significant amount of their products or services. “Currently, businesses can post offers to their Facebook pages or Twitter accounts but these provide only very basic experiences,” the company said in a press release issued today. “Users are sent outside of the platforms and making a purchase is still a convoluted process.”
Getonic says its service is an end-to-end solution, allowing businesses to create their own POPshop in a matter of seconds through an online dashboard. Users simply need to select the product or service they want to sell, specify the price and tweak the appearance of the POPshop – but otherwise it’s good to go. With a single click it can then be posted to Facebook, Twitter, email or a company blog.
Although it’s still early days for the company, the Getonic website shows that large companies such as Warner Music, Groupon, PayPal and Wix are already taking advantage of the service.
“We built Getonic with millions of SMBs in mind. These are businesses that look to the power of the social web to find new customers and generate new revenue,” said Adi Eyal CEO of Getonic. “Our platform gives these businesses a powerful tool, not only to create visually attractive stores, but also the ability to tap into the social power of platforms like Facebook.”
Image Credit: fotologic/Flickr
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