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Wanelo is an online social shopping site. Think Pinterest but dedicated completely to products. I’m already on Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook & Twitter – why should I join another network? Wanelo matters for one reason above all: VISITORS COME TO SHOP Wanelo is purely a social shopping website. People go there just to browse products and shop. They don’t go there to see pictures of their friends or far-away places or read funny quotes. They come to shop for products. It’s like having your items listed on Etsy, eBay or Amazon FOR FREE. The social shopping network also offers very important customer behavior insights: you can see exactly which products shoppers have saved. Why is this important? Saving a product shows intent to purchase. They may be Saving it to think about how it can go with different items they find or to share with friends to get their opinion on it. But no matter what the secondary reason is, the first reason is because they are thinking of buying it. And Wanelo makes it easy to view the profiles of shoppers who has saved your products in the top-right corner of each product page. You can then click on each person to see what else they’re interested in buying. With this information you can stock your shelves and plan your marketing accordingly depending on what your customers are interested in buying. Wanelo even has a complete app that lives inside of Facebook & every action taken by shoppers is shared with their friends. Why is this special? It allows for explosive growth of the site itself – as shoppers can stay within Facebook, chatting with their friends while they shop. This type of growth was seen by professional social networking app BranchOut. With an established company like LinkedIn it seemed crazy to try to compete. But the company has attracted 30 million users by building itself directly into Facebook. Wanelo is following this exact strategy and seeing massive growth. And the more shoppers that Wanelo attracts, the more that will see your products.Sites like ShopZilla, PriceGrabber, Shopping.com, NexTag & Google Product Search are great for getting found by shoppers. They are heavily trafficked and every visitor is there to compare products to buy. Normally when shoppers come to these websites they are deep into their buying cycle. They know that they want to buy a certain product & they’re now looking to compare different makes,models and prices. These sites have one major flaw though – they are not social. People go there basically on a solo mission. They do a search, find what they want and leave without telling anyone about it. Wanelo on the other hand is built for sharing – every aspect of it. Every time you search, hover over a product or visit a page you’re pushed to Save, Share and Follow in big, bright ways. And with it’s total integration with Facebook – everyone of those actions is shared to the world’s largest social network as well. Wanelo is not a solo experience – it’s a community experience.Yes!You may be confused at first on how to setup your own “Store Page”. Don’t worry, you can’t! Stores are automatically created when a product is added to Wanelo from that store’s website. To setup your own Store all you need to do is create a personal account and “Post” the URLs of your products to Wanelo. From that URL Wanelo automatically adds the product image, which Store it’s from and a Buy Now button that links to the product purchase page on your ecommerce website. All you need to add is the price and which product category it fits in. Currently there are only six product categories on Wanelo: - women’s Fashion - men’s Fashion - home - kids - entertainment - tech That’s it. Now you’re ready to go.1. Talk with Shoppers about their styles and collections 2. Collaborate with other retailers to get access to new shoppers 3. Create Collections for different shoppers’ styles 4. Create a contest 5. Analyze your customers’ tastes to find out what kinds of products to sellNow I know what you’re thinking – he’s going to tell me I need to ENGAGE with shoppers and GET FOLLOWERS blah, blah, blah. Technically yes I am – but instead of just giving you some fluff I am going to tell you EXACTLY how to do it RIGHT NOW and see RESULTS. 1. Get involved in the comments conversation of your items Currently comments are the only available form of communication between people on Wanelo. You can’t send messages, status updates, write on someone’s wall or mention anyone – so focus on your one outlet. Lucky for you, Wanelo sends email notifications to every user who has saved a product that you comment on. This is powerful – it’s like an open email invitation to every shopper to start a conversation around something that they have already expressed interest in. Introduce yourself as the seller of the product and give some exact recommendations on how your item can be worn or complemented by other items. BUT DON’T PUSH FOR A SALE!! Shoppers will know the moment you’re being insincere and are just trying to sell. Make sure you’re actually giving useful advice and they will trust you as a knowledgeable source. Trust me that this will lead to more sales than trying to pitch everyone directly. 2. Start commenting on products in Collections that have products similar to the ones you carry If you’re products arn’t seeing much action right away you can get started by commenting on popular products that are similar to the ones you sell. If your products go well with the one you’re commenting on, it’s ok to suggest it, but don’t force it. If you see a product from another brand that will go especially well with an item you see then say so. This will give you more respect as a source of real information about the entire industry space, rather than just someone who only knows/cares about their own products.Are you a part of any online retailer communities. blogs or (Etsy) teams? If so you’re in prime position to pool your customer resources with other retailers. You can do this by creating combined collections to promote to each of your customer lists. The best way to do this is with retailers who sell complementary goods – i.e. if you sell jewelry team up with retailers who sell sunglasses, shoes, hats and clothing. This will give you access to customers who are interested in your items and you won’t be directly competing with any other retailer in the collection. Once you have your team set choose 2-3 products from each retailer and create a collection out of them. Once you have that you can each start promoting the collaborated collection to your customers. This will give you warm leads to 3 to 4 times as many shoppers as you could have reached on your own. You can even setup Collection similar to ETSY BNS’s and BNR’s – which you can read about here – http://on.fb.me/RuZFBVEveryone is looking for something that fits their style. If you create a dedicated collection that you update frequently with items of the same style shoppers who like that style will come to see it every time you add something new. It’s OK if that style Collection doesn’t have any of your products in it. Shoppers who browse your Collections will come to trust your opinion and will look at the things you sell personally. Even if they aren’t interested in your products they’ll be more inclined to mention you to a friend to check you out because you’re someone they trust. What is the return in sales that I’m going to see from running a Wanelo contest? I’m glad you asked! Here are two: 1. You will get a ton of shares – read exposure & social recommendations – to each participants Wanelo following and Facebook social network. This will give you access to brand new customers – most of whom will be interested in your items based on their kinship to their friends who are sharing. Every click-through you get from a share will be a warm introduction to your products and your store. 2. Your current customers will spend time browsing your products looking for ones that they like. The more time your customers spend viewing your products and thinking about your brand the better – it will invariably lead to more purchases. There are two types of contests that are easy to setup and will get shoppers engaged and sharing YOUR products: 1. “Save it to win it” This one is crazy-simple. All you need to do is tell your users – on your website, Facebook Page or wherever you want to base your contest – to “Save” any product from your store in their account in Wanelo. This can be done by the user in a matter of seconds and will give you a direct share to their entire Wanelo following and their Facebook network of one of your products. 2. “Create a Collection Contest” This one is a bit more time-intensive for the users, but will ultimately get you much more shares and exposure. Have each user create a Collection of products that all have the same theme/subject i.e. “7 items to create the perfect outdoor festival outfit” or “6 items to create the perfect bathroom”. Each of these contests would have users sharing 6 or 7 items as opposed to just one – exponentially increasing your store’s visibility to their friends and followers.The last way to use all of the Collections, Saves and Comments on Wanelo to increase your sales is to discover the tastes of your customers. Look at the profiles of customers who have Saved your products. Now look at the other things they have saved. Look for patterns across all of your customers to see which types of products appear the most – these are the ones that you want to start stocking your shelves with next. Conversely you can see the most popular products that each of your current customers have added and send targeted emails to those users with similar products that you have. Simply browse through your past purchase orders and email lists and search for your customers in Wanelo. Once you have a few matches you’ll be able to start selling!