Slingshot helps customers put all their eggs in one basket
Customers don’t want to fill in forms or remember passwords online. Start-up Slingshot helps customers select items from anywhere and they all go into the same basket, meaning customers only have to add details once.
Slingshot is a widget which can be added to any part of a site which allows the user to put that item into a shopping cart. It turns any marketing communication, an ad or a Facebook post into a potential point of purchase. When Stella Artois added the Slingshot icon to its Facebook page, its sales increased by 10%.
The shopping baskets are owned by retailers such as Tesco and Boots. Users who already have accounts with these retailers can elect to add items to their shopping carts from around the web as long as that retailer stocks the item. It has already signed up brands such as Kellogs, Heiniken and Innocent. I caught up with co-founder Mitch Vidler to find out more…
Mitch tell me what Slingshot does
Slingshot puts products in the basket of retailers using any branded communication as a source. We are mainly talking grocery sellers at the moment – we have signed up the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, mysupermarket.com and Boots and we can offer the service to any brands that these retailers sell online.
For example, say someone does their grocery shopping once a week at Tesco Online. They are researching baby food and come across Ella’s Kitchen website. They can add products directly from that site to their Tesco shopping cart where it will stay until they are ready to complete their shop later that week.
How did you and your co-founders come up with the idea?
We were still at university at the time. We used to do all of our grocery shopping online and we were looking for a certain product, probably a branded beer! We couldn’t find it online but had come across the adverts – we thought wouldn’t it be great if you could just put it into your shopping cart then and there, when you see the ad. We figured there was a disconnect in the communication.
I was studying management and my co-founder Stephen was studying computer science. First we worked out if it was actually possible to do what we wanted, next we turned it into a commercial proposition.
How long did it take to get off the ground?
It didn’t take too long to work out it was possible but then we had to work out a lot of problems. There’s the issue of retailer availability up and down the country, which products are available everywhere? For example Stella Artois stock cans in Asda but only sell bottles with Ocado. We had to work out how to manage these data sets and make it work – but we’ve worked out the issues now!
How long did it take to get the website finished?
It is never going to be finished! We will probably always update it as we go along. But we had a viable product about eight months after we came up with the idea. We will be constantly releasing new things though as customer behaviours change and technology moves forward – from our perspective it will never be done.
Our next change is to put more of a focus on promotional offers and price structures. The Slingshot button will be able to tell people if there is a 2for1offer on that product for example so you can send two products to the basket. Our first implementation went live in 2009 – a very basic proof of concept. The first real commercial offering that we took to brands was ready at the end of 2011 – we completely self-funded the entire thing.
When do you see the service rolling out to other kinds of online retailers?
Our next move will be into DVDs, games and electrical. We get interest from all type of people so we are in the stage of working out where the opportunities are and which are quick wins. We are expecting a DVD-type launch at the end of the year.
When people are using the service they tend to stick with one retailer, we do have the ability to link up multiple-retailers baskets but so far people have tended to stay with one.
How have you monetised the platform?
We are funded by the brands. At the moment they can use up to 10 slingshots for free of charge – so that’s add ten products to our service. After that they will have to pay a certain amount. We are valuable to the brands because we are giving shoppers the chance to act on impulse.
In-store people can walk past a product which they had no intention on buying and just grab it. It doesn’t work like that online at the moment, people search for what they think they want and they buy it – they are rarely exposed to competitors brands.
Do you think your service can make a big change to online behaviours?
Our widget can be slotted into social media – any platform that consumers use and turn that into a place were buying decisions are acted on. We are streamlining the process of shopping online as customers can add the products are they say them. Shopping will be incorporated into everyday life rather than at a time which someone has allocated for shopping.
Slingshotshopping.com
Speak Your Mind