ShopLocket Promises Customers They Can Sell Anything, Anywhere | Hacker News Reader

ShopLocket Promises Customers They Can Sell Anything, Anywhere

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40 pointsrafikech25 comments

I remember reading somewhere that the founder of this company initially pitched YC and was rejected. It's great to see her giving this a solid go, despite what must have undoubtedly appeared to be a setback at the time.

And I imagine she's feeling more than a little vindicated, now that her company just hit the front page of HN.

"Supposedly, co-founder and CEO Katherine Hague was part of that group herself."

Really, "supposedly"? TC: How about "CEO Katherine Hague says she was part of that group herself."

I know it must get tiring hearing dubious founding stories, but come on.

I had exactly the same reaction.

Dreadful writing indeed.

ShopLocket is teh awesome. I can't wait for if/when they add search & browse functionality to the site. It'll be like a beautiful, payment-enabled alternative to Craigslist. Can't wait!

I'm curious about the decision to not charge more. I think you may be assuming that people won't pay a setup or monthly fee to get a single product up, but I think you may be leaving money on the table.

I could see this being a great way for college students to sell tshirts to parties or groups to sell event tshirts on Facebook. Why not have them pay a larger listing fee up-front? I don't think there is necessarily a correlation between number of items and willingness to pay (especially if you are comparing to Shopify's $29/month plan which is aimed at small stores anyway).

Anyhow, this is a really interesting idea.

Thanks! We really appreciate the feedback. You're not the first to suggest there might be room to charge more. The most important thing for us is that we always have a risk free option. We want it to be really easy for someone to get started. But pricing strategies moving forward is definitely something we're taking a hard look at.

I haven't used Shopify but I don't understand why someone would pay $29/mo for a tiny store when you can set up a Big Cartel store for free. BC limits your html access and you can only have five items but shopowners can still customize the css and it's free?!

Well as somebody who has built stores from scratch and used Shopify, I don't think Shopify is a bad deal actually. Even when I build my own from scratch, I still have to pay for hosting that runs at least $30/month. Of course Shopify also takes a cut of sales revenues, but for somebody anxious to start selling, these costs are not huge. Add in difficulty and costs of setting up certificates, and to me, Shopify is not a bad option.

I think that if somebody is sitting there with a bunch of stuff they are eager to start selling, they are not going to mind pulling out a credit card and spending $20-$30 to get started. That's why I think these guys should raise their prices to capture that impulse buy up-front. I think there is a lot of value in knowing the brand. If I know Shopify is a proven product, I'll probably pay a premium rather than try an unknown service.

I agree that Shopify can be a good deal vs. building and hosting your own but I was trying to compare the $29 Shopify base plan to a Big Cartel free plan.

Big Cartel is a fairly established player in the "run your own storefront" game. With their most basic plan you can edit your storefront CSS, they don't take a percentage of sales, and you can have 5 products for free.

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That said, I see ShopLocket as competing more with Gumroad than with the "storefront management" companies. If I want to open a storefront then I will open an Etsy/Shopify/Big Cartel store but if I already have a website and I want to now offer a few items for sale then I would use ShopLocket.

I would be glad to pay the current ShopLocket fee after my first sale but would not be willing to pay an upfront setup charge. What if I'm not sure that anyone wants the item I am trying to sell? I'm not a retailer, I'm just a guy who wants to try selling something. ShopLocket would be driving away a large number of amateur sellers if they put up that barrier to entry. With no upfront fee there is the chance of catching the amateur seller who is testing the waters then ends up with a hit, with an upfront fee that person would go use Gumroad.

I sold something! And I never sell anything! Go ShopLocket and go Toronto!!

Can anyone explain a little more how it works?

This is Katherine - Co-Founder of ShopLocket. Basically you go in and create a product (name, price description, photos) and connect any PayPal email address and you're ready to publish. We give you a link to where your product is hosted and you can also embed your product into any web page or blog post using the iFrame we provide. Note that more payment options are coming soon.

How does this differ in practice from Etsy? I see you can embed it into another site, but are there any other advantages or differences in typical usage, like fee structure, searchability, and so forth?

Its a lot easier to get started with ShopLocket than with something like Etsy and the ability to select a style and embed it on your own site is a big plus. We plan to add custom CSS to widgets in the coming months, which should make widgets even more appealing.

Also on Etsy you still have a "store", and it only makes sense for certain categories of products. We're all about putting your products in front of your audience and the people that matter, rather than you just being another product in a generic marketplace. We want to create the ideal "display case" — a platform as awesome as the products people are selling.

Thanks Katherine! FYI: I am creating a start up coming up next month and I think it will be beneficial for your company to add your site as a partner because it will help you out to get way more traffic

Cool! Shoot me an email katherine [at] shoplocket.com :)

I think your idea is awesome! I always believe in those "step removing" ideas.

I'm interested in the strategy of focusing on customers for whom $29/mo is intimidating. Certainly a lot of them are served (perhaps not well) by the ebay's and etsy's of the world, but in both cases their featuresets have evolved to cater to larger sellers, which has undoubtedly added complexity but probably in the interest of growth and profitability.

So... Is the plan to stay small and simple forever, and allow people to grow out of you and move to other services? Not saying it's wrong, just curious.

I've been using ShopLocket during the beta, and it's a solid product. I know the founders and it's exciting to watch the concept evolve into a well executed product that will serve a large niche well.

Also, it's nice to see the Toronto startup scene get picked up in SV tech blogs. Congrats to @katherinehague and @hyfen on the launch!

I am definitively going to start look up on it! I also encourage the Toronto Startup Scene. I like to see diverse cities creating Startups!

I'm currently in the Beta too but haven't come up with something to sell yet. What are you selling using Shoplocket?

Actually, I sold a domain name. Two firsts for me.

We're selling Ladies Learning Code t-shirts [1]. And I also sold a Brazil guidebook. [2]

(NB: I was ShopLocket's first investor)

[1] http://ladieslearningcode.com/swag [2] http://thingsidontwantanymore.tumblr.com/

Katherine (CEO) on not getting into YC: http://katherinehague.com/post/18806809604/what-happens-afte...

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