Shoplette in the News

We got some coverage in Digital Life, the IT supplement of The Straits Times, on 7 January 2009. Here’s a quick extract from the article:

Sharing best buys

Now you can show the whole world the bargain you unearthed – and see if everyone agrees

By Chan Chi-Loong, ST Digital Life, 7 January 2009

SHOPPING is a very social thing as people ‘just love to tell others what they have bought, especially if it is a bargain,’ says Shannon Low Shen-Li, 32.
Armed with this observation, he and good friend Loon Kok Keong, 32, set up www.shoplette.com in May last year to do just that – tell people about great shopping bargains.

The duo quit safe, well-paying jobs – Shannon was in business development and Kok Keong was an IT engineer – to pursue the dream of starting up their own tech venture

‘Think of Shoplette as Twitter for shopping,’ Shannon says. Twitter is a popular mobile blogging tool where people send text messages to give updates on their life.

Similarly, Shoplette uses mobile phones to create content for a shopping social media network.

Say, you spot the latest Prada bag at a fire sale in an upmarket boutique in Kowloon, Hong Kong. You whip out your mobile phone, snap a picture, write a quick description and send text and image to Shoplette, where they are uploaded straight away.

Immediately, friends with a Shoplette account will be notified of what you just bought.

Furthermore, any Shoplette member can track your purchases and even vote on whether the buy is a terrific bargain or not. The more highly rated your purchase, the more visible it is on Shoplette’s main site.

This is a good approximation of the word-of-mouth effect, according to Shannon.

The fact that Shoplette is easy to use is another plus.

Besides user-submitted content, business owners can also set up a virtual shop on Shoplette. Basic accounts are free (for now) but featured sites which appear in a prominent position on the website are charged an affordable fee of US$10 (S$14.50) a month.
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You can read the full article here.