The new buzz word is "Social". If you can make anything social on the web today you're part of this whole mess we call web 2.0.
The newest thing to go social is your online store, and I mean your ENTIRE online store. If you have stuff to sell that is. This is not a store that you can create with affiliate links, just wanted to make that clear.
CartFly is a web application that works as an e-commerce tool for your site. You can create a free store, you get yourdomain.cartfly.com, along with that you also get embeddable code which can be placed across blogs and websites.
Anybody that buys stuff from your store will deal directly with you, which means you need to have inventory of the product. The payment comes to you via Paypal. CartFly will take 3% of every sale that you make through your store.
This is like that new service Tailgate.com where they are trying to convince people to do their transactions on the banner itself. Though CartFly is not a banner in anyway, but a big widgetized online store. I don't think CartFly will Fly that well.
Here's why -
- It's open to gaming, even though they are using RapLeaf.com - which is an Online Reputation Lookup service. {never heard of RapLeaf till now}
- If you're not signed up with RapLeaf you don't get a "reputation", so who's going to buy from you.
- Statistics can be easily manipulated, all it takes is a few family and friends.
- Why would people want to put this big thing anywhere?
I'll also pinpoint the positives here, which are -
- A seller can really expand their reach if they have a viral product.
- The interface looks catchy, so if anything it will peak someone's interest to click.
- A seller can update his inventory and it gets updated everywhere his store is embedded.
- The payment is sent via paypal, so there is a fall back system to get your money back in case their ever is a fraud.
Don't get me wrong I like it, but I just don't see it getting very popular. It might work for more people who perhaps have a lot of social networking going on in their lives. But not for the rest of us. Here's a sample shop below. {It might not show up in the RSS feed}
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Thanks for your review on our site. Just wanted to catch you up on the latest. Concerning the Rapleaf ratings, all our merchants will have accounts auto created for them via Rapleaf. Therefore all our merchants will have them automatically. Second, Rapleaf has filters built in to avoid spamming so friends and family will not be able to sway customers in one direction. We felt this was important.
Also the sales through our widgets have been through the roof. These stores are passed in the same manner as a YouTube Clip. Many of our merchants friends have jumped on board to carry their cartfly store in their own personal profile. It’s just the way the social web works. Bands pass banners around to their friends, our users pass stores. More replicated stores (with affiliate programs coming), more visibility, more sales.
Anyway, I love to engage in the convesation more and hear additional feedback.
great to hear about the affiliate programs in the works. that’s something I would be interested in myself.
Like I said it like it, it’s just a new medium that might take some time to catch up with all of us.
Best of luck.
I dont know anything about selling anything but that is the cutest fly logo I have ever seen in my life!! just my 2 sense.
Stacey
Ali,
Thanks for the article on cartfly. This is an exciting time. Our official launch is the 25 th of this month. A very well written article on your end so thanks for that!! Although I wanted to make just a couple notes.
1. You can change the size of your store to fit it where ever you want it to go.
2. As far as popularity is concerned we have not yet done an ounce of advertising and we already have over 400 stores. We told about 30 of our friends that have stuff to sell, so in a couple months we have grown by almost 15 times!!! If you goto our search bar and just put a period in there you will see at least a couple hundred(Our new search is coming soon!!! LOL) If you follow some of those stores and see where they are posted you will see that some people have as many as 25 stores replicated around the web.
I do agree that our affiliate program is exciting and we cant wait to unleash it. We have a bunch of other features that we will be launching soon. In any attempt I appreciate you taking the time to review our product. and to whoever gave us the cute logo comment thanks, I have a 4 yr old daughter and when I showed it to her she said “daddy I want to play with that fly” and I thought to myself……This is our logo!!!
Bob Schober Founder Ustrive Inc/www.cartfly.com
Cartfly is an exciting service and we look forward to watching them grow! They’re definitely filling a niche market.
Regarding Rapleaf – Josh is correct. We have spent a lot of time refining our algorithms to prevent gaming, as fraud is one of our top concerns. We also provide information beyond ratings, such as social networks and profile stats. So essentially, everyone has an online reputation whether they have been rated before or not.
Cheers!
-Dan
Rapleaf
We just started a directory where CartFly users can post their store for free. Check it out at http://www.cartflymall.com .