Thursday, 22 February 2024, Bengaluru India
Kristine Locker eventually decided to create a social shopping platform, dubbed after herself, that would allow her to combine all of her tabs into a single, shareable virtual wish lists after years of pasting shopping links into spreadsheets and taking screenshots of items to send to her loved ones.
(Image Source: Techcrunch.com)
Dubbed the “Pinterest for online shopping,” Locker was introduced as a Chrome extension in 2022 and enables you to save any online product into categorized wish lists. You can also find other users’ outfit collages, work with friends to create giftable collections, and share your creations via social media or email. An iOS app for it is also accessible.
The firm announced today that Locker had closed a $2.5 million round led by Wonder Ventures, valued at $9 million.
Wonder Ventures’ Valentina Rodriguez told TechCrunch, “Kristine Locker has figured out something which Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook have all tried and failed to nail down.” “Socialization occurs around the main product of shopping, not the other way around. She has created a platform that makes socialized commerce incredibly user-friendly and naturally viral, mainly because she is the ideal combination of entrepreneur and product.
Locker is intended for regular users who wish to create shoppable collections for enjoyment, unlike influencer-focused platforms LTK, Collective Voice, and Split, which are made to monetize a sizable social media following.
“I noticed that several platforms in the competitive landscape were designed with influencers in mind. The founder of Locker told us that none of it satisfied his need as a customer to plan his purchases and have an organic location where he could see what his peers were buying. “[Locker’s] goal is to build an authentic user-generated sharing platform free from any form of monetization, so you don’t feel like, ‘Oh, someone is sharing this with me so they can make money off of it.'”
Locker doesn’t let users get paid for sharing things, but you may sign up for its “Shopping Club” to receive rewards when friends use your link to make purchases. For example, you’ll receive unique Locker merchandise if you recommend 25 users to Locker. The CEO of the startup says that at 500 users, you get $750 to buy an outfit from your Locker collection.
According to Locker’s business plan, affiliate networks are how the company partners with companies to generate income. Locker’s commission rate typically hovers around 12%, but it can go as high as 25% based on the company’s desired exposure.
“To maintain fairness for the participating brands, we remove brands from the discovery page if they don’t participate in the affiliate space,” Locker explains.
The latest funding round for the company was conducted two years after Cabell Hickman, a higher-education consultant, and Locker user featured in The Wall Street Journal for her $6 million portfolio, made a notable $1 million investment in the business. Tariro Makoni, senior strategy manager of global startups at AWS, Elizabeth Egan (Breakaway Ventures), Maggie Sellers (HSR Ventures), Kira Jackson (Rx3 Growth Partners), Alex Doman (AVEC Drinks), and Chris Arreguin, a former executive at Honey, are among the other investors. Locker boasts 80,000 active users per month.
(Information Source: Techcrunch.com)
