Storenvy has been described as the Tumblr of e-commerce. The site allows anyone to set up an online presence that can sell almost anything to anyone – and for the moment it’s totally free. By giving away the tools to create an online marketplace, small independent stores can sell online as well as use the usual social outlets to promote their wares – think Twitter and Facebook.
Currently, the stores which are mainly based in San Francisco have attracted over 60,000 shoppers who have visited some 2,800 stores, big numbers for a small start-up. The site resembles a more social version of Etsy with lots of cool and unique products for sale but there’s an important difference. There are no fees! That’s right, the site takes no fees from its customers (buyers or sellers) so they’ve had to go looking for serious investment to build momentum.
In this climate, Storenvy has almost performed the impossible and found $1.5 million dollars which should see the site ticking over for quite a while. In the distant future, there will be a switch to a freemium model but nothing has been confirmed regarding this. This is not an uncommon move for current start-ups but really does require a significant user-base to make this viable. The investment money is going to be used to recruit and form a team – mainly Ruby and UI/UX developers but this should fuel the immense growth envisaged by its founders and presumably the investors.
