Intro to ShoppeThatShoppeThat is an online marketplace with a similar model to Bonanza.com or eBay. ShoppeThat is designed to feel like an upper-middle class shopping mall and not have a “fleamarket” or “quaint” image. We are NOT niche specific there are enough of those already. Merchants want one place that accepts all categories but are unsatisfied with both the big sites & “alternatives”.

Where ShoppeThat is so far:

ShoppeThat already has a partially active site albeit with a tiny few number of users due to not yet completing MVP & inadequate marketing funds. Even a few sales have been made. I am running a Beta right and not charging till later.

Beta & MVP Background• This is built using an old PHP Probid Script to save time

& money. An expensive ground-up site was not necessary for a prototype & proof of concept. Sellers can make sales through this site right now and this will serve the purpose through our proof of concept stage.

• Although I'm close to finished I am seeking the donations to pay for an assistant developer to complete what's left as well as some marketing costs.

Problem Many merchants are not satisfied with eBay or Amazon

– Fees too high– Overly complicated– Customer support not

adequate for sellers needs

Other sites exist but most are stagnant or unsatisfactory

– Stagnant - ebid & ecrater mostly stayed the same for years

– Most sites in this area are really niche sites mostly arts & crafts – sellers need one place not 10-20 niche sites to manage inventory on – niche sites don’t answer the whole need

– Bonanza is the main one – it made it to 1 Million items in 6 months back in 2008 & 09 - despite actually having some categories like electronics - but it has a “quaint” atmosphere & is very different from what ShoppeThat is going for - users of Bonanza I have spoken to are ready to leave – but needed an importer to get their items from Bonanza – I am just now finishing one! Bonanza is slow moving and sellers are not happy with the climate.

Solution

– ShoppeThat addresses ALL categories which will be renamed Departments for the correct image

– ShoppeThat avoids the “quaint” or “fleamarket” image – also there is another domain ready– ShoppeThat commissions will be 5% - half of eBay and less than half of Amazon– ShoppeThat will make use of non-traditional marketing methods compared to those used by

online marketplaces – print catalogs – transit ads (but these come much later after 1 Million items)

– We emphasize fixed price for the Mall image but could have auctions with a large user volume – but these seem to be mostly dying out due to users wanting speed

– We will have a variety of importing & advertising tools compared to other sites– Greater Multi-channel emphasis than others - greater potential for growth

Our “full vision” (years away) is a site with 25-50 Million items and at min. several physical kiosks and some stores (starting in pilot locations in Dallas) – Etsy made such a pilot store a few years ago.

Shoppers

– ShoppeThat was originally designed to differentiate for merchants first – but shoppers were addressed too:

– Pay-to-play Comparison Shopping Engines(CSEs) have put smaller marketplaces more in competition with smaller paid CSEs – ShoppeThat will be a functional hybrid of the two for shoppers later on in Stage 2

– Retail Convergence – brick & mortar with ecommerce – although physical kiosks are not possible until ShoppeThat has millions of items and significant revenue – we will use an offline presence from the earliest possible times starting with offline ads & on-demand print catalogs(coupled with online catalogs) - this is later in Stage 2

ShoppeThat Mission & PhilosophyMission & Philosophy for Sellers

• Not biased in favor of large or small sellers but equal• Be a platform for sellers across any niche• I believe everyone should have a way to start a business -

lower barriers to entry by ease of use, lower fees & simpler polices

• Acknowledge the growing number of multi-channel sellers• More control over advertising tools including error reports

& provide similar tools to a Shopping Feed Aggregator Service

• Transparency about policies – tell sellers why we have certain requirements

Mission & Philosophy for Buyers• Cross-device access & a fun shopping experience• More filters for searching• Catalogs• Wish lists, favorites & social integration• See the true variety of products merchants have to offer

not just those that are profitable for CPC campaigns or ones with UPC codes & other identifiers many products don’t have

Overall Mission & Philosophy of the whole company

• Easy to use both in the UX and the site policies & rules – selling & shopping should be easy & fun

• Quality customer service• Balanced between shoppers & merchants• Automation & Technology - Automation is

rising, there's no way to stop it. Instead embrace it and prepare - create income streams not just jobs & maximize efficiency within the company by automating as much as possible & strive for technological advancement; in the future with mass technological unemployment, marketplace sites & freelancing will become a massive part of the global economy compared to now. Companies in this area can play a vital role in the future economy & have a responsibility there.

Business modelShoppeThat is a marketplace with a similar Business model to eBay or Bonanza.com. Money would come from commissions, subscriptions & from ad revenue in-site & third party.

ShoppeThat commissions will be 5% (although slightly higher than Bonanza – it helps pay for advertising which Bonanza does little of)

1 Million Items with a Monthly Sell-Through-Rate of 10% = $125K/mo in Revenue or $1.5M Year (commissions only)

Try it yourself – www.shoppethat.com/calculate_total.php

Stages of our Growth Plan– Stage 1 - Proof of concept (MVP) (spring-early summer 2015) – Stage 1

is the purpose of this campaign• Finish Beta & Dev• Gather Early Merchants (target bulk sellers) & Shoppers• 100K-1Million items• Monetization later in stage 1

– Stage 2 (late summer 2015 - early 2016)• Large seed funding round (~4-500K+) – Bonanza raised $1M (2010)• New scalable site• 5Million - 25Million items

– Stage 3 (late 2016 and afterwards)• “Full Vision”• Kiosks – expand into a physical presence• Experiment with 3D printing & other tech

Customer Acquisition Strategies for Stage 1

Merchants

• Use the listing importers that are being made to make migration easy from eBay, Bonanza, Etsy, Google Shopping – more platforms including EBid, Atomic Mall, Amazon Web Stores, misc.. CSEs, Shopping Carts & several more over time

• Use PR, Article Marketing, SEO Landing Pages & later some Facebook & Google Ads

• Use the closing of TheFind (shopping engine) & Amazon Webstore

Shoppers

Note: There will of course be a low shopper volume at first

• Newsletter• Blog• Social• Dynamic Category-oriented

Landing Pages• PR & article marketing• Use the closing of TheFind

(shopping engine)

Stage 1 (MVP) Development Schedule

• Release Group 1- New Listing Importers System (I'm almost finished)

• Release Group 2 - Shopping Cart & Referrals for Merchants (I will do this myself)

• Release Group 3- New Responsive Front End & a Powerful Custom CMS (trying to hire an assistant to speed things up)

• Release Group 4- Advertising Platform – shopping channel data feed generators, analytics & catalog generators (trying to hire an assistant to speed things up)

• Some work after but not MVP may skip (not part of the campaign) – extra shipping features, single page listing form etc..

Domain change & brand • “Shoppe”That does not really go well with our

planned brand image of an upper-middle class mall – There is another similar domain ready to go after Beta development is finished

• The site will be renamed and moved in late Stage 1 after Beta

Role of Branding• One of the significant failings of the few sites that are competitors

is lack of Brand Awareness• ex: eBay actually only had ~15 Million(eBay US) items in 2008 (it

was 11 years old) but it had the brand power – these other sites don’t have 1/20th the brand power – due to their marketing efforts in fact most have sellers do all the work

• Toppling eBay or Amazon is NOT a goal but third or fourth place eventually is great and feasible with the correct strategies & a little guerilla approach

• Our marketing efforts emphasize branding such as plans for printed catalogs & misc offline strategies after 1-2 Million items & a heavy use of PR and Article Marketing

What we need the funds for:Important Note: the marketing funds can be used from the beginnning – but between the two dev

sections of our campaign they must go in order Redesign & CMS are the priority of the two.

• HTML/CSS Redesign & Content Management System• Responsive Re-Design that properly reflects the atmosphere and brand image• Buying guides & product reviews• Category data & promotions• Analytics & Tag management• Email management• Ad management• Some Automation• Dynamic landing pages for shoppers & merchants

• Advertising System• Includes feed generators for Shopping Engines including Google with Validators & errors reports for merchants• Will later support digital & print catalog data generation• Includes Retargeting• Charges extra commissions • Also supports subscriptions like Bonanza has for even more advertising

• Misc Marketing• PR• AdWords/Facebook Ads• Misc.

Visit ShoppeThat to get a better understanding

• www.ShoppeThat.com• More info on the listing importers and Beta

can be found on the Merchant Blog• There is also a

“ShoppeThat.com/companyinfo/” under construction

• ShoppeThat is on FB – Facebook.com/ShoppeThat