Socializing eCommerce

Socializing eCommerce Matt Hill: I think we’re a little bit more web 2.0 than most companies in our space, we’re clearly the fastest growing company in our space. Zorianna Kit: Hi, welcome to Dog and Pony, I’m Zorianna kit. Matt Hill is CEO of Shopit, a website that allows you just to shop, sell, trade and auction items. Matt Welcome. Matt: Hi! Zorianna: Tell me about Shopit. Matt: It’s a social networking commerce based platform that powers commerce and social communities. Zorianna: Wow, so what kinds of things do people sell? Matt: Everything that you’ve seen selling on eBay we probably be sold on social networks. Zorianna: Then the social aspect of it comes in where? People comment on the items or they discuss them? Matt: We have common tools but also we have apply the same types of technologies and intelligence to connecting buyers and sellers that linking would for business people of Facebook does for friends. Zorianna: So then how do you guys make money? Matt: We have an advertising based platform that allows people to—similar to the way a user would buy Google keywords to promote their website. We allow people to promote their basketball, their individual item through our network, our ad network onto these social communities. Zorianna: How did you start Shopit? Matt: We started the company a couple of years ago and it was really out of a growing need in major deficiency and the growth of social networking community is in the lack of ability for people to conduct commerce by simple means of showing products and things that they were interested in within their profiles. Zorianna: Can you give me an example of a typical user? Matt: Typically user would be somebody who’s seriously selling something on eBay for example but imports their eBay catalogue into their Shopit profile and then post it to their Facebook page. Zorianna: What is an 18 year-old selling? Matt: It can be anything from baseball cards to footballs to hockey equipment even services. We have service based listing similar to Craigslist so if you’re a limo driver in Cleveland or you’re a nurse providing adults or senior care in Pump Springs or mowing lawns on a Friday. Zorianna: So you can promote your own business? Matt: That’s correct. Promote your own business and syndicate your listing out through these social communities. Zorianna: Obviously, this must have an effect on the retail world. I imagine there are some people out there who are in the virtual world that must not like this site because it’s hurting them. Matt: I don’t think it’s hurting anybody I think we’re filling a gap that was never otherwise filled. In my opinion, this is something that a company like in eBay might have otherwise done except for the fact that they can’t operate on a free basis. I think we’re a little more web 2.0 than most companies in our space were clearly the fastest growing company in our space. We’re by far I think probably 15 to 20 times the size of most of our competitors on Facebook for example. Zorianna: How you guys changing the retail world? How was that working then? Matt: What we’re doing is we’re taking the free listing component of a Craigslist and we’re providing transactional means for free. So it’s similar to the way eBay and Craigslist would operate however we’re operating within social communities. I think from the retail prospective, there’s a 100 million in social networks that will leverage this service start selling things where they wouldn’t have otherwise done so before because it was time consuming and costly. Zorianna: We’re going to play a game right now called, none of your business. So I’m going to ask you a series of questions and you can either answer them or tell me that's none of my business. Matt: Okay. Zorianna: What’s the most valuable lesson you learnt growing up? Matt: None of your business. Zorianna: Really? Alright, okay, I wonder what the answer about is. What’s the most wasteful aspect of your company? Matt: The time I spend not necessarily doing things like this but traveling and raising capital for the company. Zorianna: That’s wasteful? Matt: It’s not wasteful but it’s time that I would otherwise spend building new product and I think that company is going it win in this basis, the company that has the best product. Zorianna: What color is your MX? Matt: It’s silver. Zorianna: It’s silver— Matt: Yes. Zorianna: You’re aiming for the black? Matt: No additional privileges in my opinion. Zorianna: Thanks for playing none of your business. Matt Hill, the CEO of Shopit, thank you so much for joining us. Matt: Thanks. Zorianna: If you have questions, comments or ideas or guess, please email us at info@dogandpony.com, I’m Zorianna Kit, thanks for watching.