@Gumroad promises to make selling "anything" easier and the "anything" includes music that you never released, book that you wrote, a comic that you created or the beta of a video game you are developing etc. Gumroad brings instant credibility in the form of its founder and CEO Sahil, who previously designed the highly acclaimed Pinterest interface and is being funded by silicon valley heavy weights. Their initial focus seems to be on selling virtual products but do provide ability to sell physical products as well, although their website is not very clear on how exactly the logistics is going to work.
@Shopcade - One look at Shopcade's homepage and you'll see that its pinterest-ified E-commerce. The way it works is that If you find something interesting on the web, you can add that product to Shopcade's website (just like you would pin something onto Pinterest). ofcourse the difference here is that your entry links back to a website where you can actually purchase the product. When someone actually purchases a product thru the link that you added, you get a share of the transaction value in the form of points. And the points you accumulate can be "redeemed" for perks on the Shopcade's website such as being able to customize the theme, provide a shopping assistant etc. Categories of products that can be added to Shopcade's site range from books and music to tickets and travel products and pretty much everything in between.
@Styleowner lets you create your own store. The store here is really nothing but a curated collection of things that you, as a fashionista or a stylist, think are going to set the trend. For example, you could be a purveyor of all things denim. You could create a store that promotes the latest and greatest in the world of denim. But what Styleowner helps you to do is to provide the necessary backend to be able to actually sell your curated collection. Instead of simply redirecting the customer to another website, it lets them buy the product on your site and the fulfillment is taken care of in the backend. Its a marketplace kind of model with social commerce on top.
@Chirpify is a twitter based commerce platform that allows you to buy/sell/donate/transact on Twitter. They provide a tight level of integration with Twitter and Paypal, which is mandatory for you to use Chirpify's services. Paypal is the default payment platform for Chirpify. Essentially Chirpify is trying to find a way to "monetize" followers of a brand, a small business or service but simply asking followers to reply to a tweet that promotes a product with pricing and other information. More than buying products etc, I am more intrigued by their fundraising application that could be applied during elections or for any other purpose. This platform seems to make it easier for anyone trying to collect funds from their followers thru this platform. Currently, paypal is the only form of payment that is accepted.
Final thoughts - An underlying theme with many of these models seems to focus on the ease of use and emphasize that you dont need to be a tech savvy person to sell online. The mantra seems to be "focus on your creativity and develop awesome content and we'll do the rest for you" One interesting fact that I noticed was that pretty much all of the sites let you use either your Twitter ID or Facebook ID, as a starting point for creating an account with these services. Google+ was conspicuously absent.
If you have come across other #socialcommerce models or other innovations in this space, would love to hear from you. Stay tuned for my next post on companies innovating on #socialcommerce centric #marketing solutions
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