Story by
Mike Vardy
Mike Vardy is a husband, father, independent writer, speaker, podcaster and "productivityist". He is also the author of the book, The Front Mike Vardy is a husband, father, independent writer, speaker, podcaster and "productivityist". He is also the author of the book, The Front Nine: How To Start The Year You Want Anytime You Want, published by Diversion Books. You can learn more about his other work at his website, MikeVardy.com, visit his blog at Productivityist.com, and you can follow him as @mikevardy on Twitter.
Being at a conferece such as GROW 2011 allows for some face-to-face connections to be made with many of the companies that I have only engaged with in the virtual realm. This face-to-face connection happened with the folks from Vancouver-based Wishpond, one of the fifteen finalists that demonstrated it’s wares at [email protected] last night. Today the company announced the ability for any retailer with a store on eBay, Google Merchant Center, or Shopify to instantly create a Facebook Store with its RetailConnect shopping platform.
Each of the newly-created Facebook stores will be fully populated with their product inventory and data including price, location and availability. RetailConnect makes the process a snap, with users having a new store up and running in as little as 15 minutes. The platform automatically ports all of the product data from eBay, Google or Shopify to Facebook and instantly creates a store for each retailer, keeping the product information synchronized with the source all the while so that merchants have no need to manage products within Wishpond. This allows retailers to get in the social commerce game with no extensive waiting period…or extensive cost.
With so many Internet users essentially “living” in Facebook, the development of e-commerce solutions within the social network is a no-brainer. By acting as a conduit between Facebook and popular services like eBay, Shopify and Google Merchant Center, Wishpond appears to be ahead of the game. And may very well be speeding up the evolution of how people buy things online.
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