With the rise in online shopping and the new social distancing restrictions, the days of browsing at the local shopping centre with your friends are now far and few.
Introducing, m8buy a social widget for e-commerce stores that lets you shop with your friends online, and get their feedback on what you’re planning to buy. And as a bonus, you get discounts.
Co-founder Johann Grunberger says the way people socialise and shop together has seen a fundamental shift.
“To address this, we’ve created a social eCommerce website that facilitates shopping in groups on websites for rewards,” he said.
“It acts as a widget or button on top of a retail website and you can invite friends to your group. They will have a certain period of time to invite others to give an opinion on favourites and make purchases. The more people in your group, the more rewards are given to each person such as cash back.”
This technological solution for the new shopping age by Grunberger and his co-founders Arjun Singh and Kirit Kundu, will also help retailers tap into social buying by allowing online shoppers to share shopping activities, and shop together in a time-boxed environment to achieve better price and value.
It also enables vendors to gain insights into customer behaviour and acquire new customers. There is no cost to vendors for set up and integration is simple. They only pay commission on sales made and control the level of discounts and time limits.
The pilot product soft-launched in mid-October 2020, with parallel launches with four retailers in October and November 2020, and there is a strong pipeline of 15 online retailers across a range of categories, such as active wear.
Grunberger says they now have10 pilot agreements they are rolling out with retailers, with two testing the widget and sharing their user experience.
“We are confident that we are getting closer to product market fit, ultimately seeing increases in conversion rates and LTV/purchase frequencies of retailers across fast fashion, cosmetics, furniture and footwear,” he said.
Currently, m8buy is in ongoing conversations with iconic Australian retail brands that are interested in introducing the widget to their online stores.
Grunberger says they are a global business leading interactive eCommerce innovations.
“We have built an interactive ecosystem that is anonymous, hosts different brands, games and recommendations from product buying habits through to influencer live streams,” he said.
“Our team is strong, experienced and committed to making m8buy work technically and operationally. We have experience in social and interactive eCommerce and look to China for inspiration, being on average, 10 years ahead of the west when it comes to this new type of ecommerce.
“I have built this type of solution before and have worked on six startups before m8buy.”
His co-founder Arjun is a banker and has worked in operations and finance, while Kirit’s experience was in technology and finance, including CIO of Innovation at HSBC and Cap Gemini.
The team came together and built the business in Antler, an early-stage VC platform that enables and invests in individuals and teams to build technology startups.
“I commend Antler on their ability to put talented people in a room, agree on common problems and solve them,” Grunberger said.
“They think differently, act quickly, give structure and have exceptional experience. They provided investment, my co-founders and the ability to solve the problem quickly. We were able to hit the ground running.”
- m8buy was built with and invested in by Antler, a global early-stage VC platform. Antler’s purpose is to enable and invest in exceptional individuals and teams to help them build the defining companies of tomorrow, from here in Australia. If you want to build your next company with Antler, apply here. Or watch the pitches of companies in the most recent cohort on ausbiz here.
- StartupDaily is the official media partner of Antler Australia’s Demo Day.
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