As I've gotten older, buying gifts for people has become more and more of a hassle, as has finding gifts for people to buy for me. Who has the time to sit there for hours, trying to find the right deals, in the right size, at the right store?
I can't tell you how many times I've wished that someone would come along and just do it for me, but that seemed like nothing more than a fantasy.
Or maybe not? Online marketplace Bubbles, which acts almost like a personal shopping assistant, has concluded it’s seed round this week, with further investment of £200,000, the company has revealed to VatorNews. This latest investment takes the total of funding received by the company so far to £500,000.
Investors in the company include Alexander Azarov, Gill Dunsford, Stian Falck and Sacha Backer, along with "mostly private high individuals who have asked to remain anonymous," Bubbles CEO Julian Fisher told me.
The money that the company has raised will be used to invest in three areas: "sales, marketing and new developments," he said.
The London-based Bubbles is a virtual personal shopper for consumers. It works in the background, continuously looking for better products and deals on behalf of the shopper even when offline. The results are based on consumer behavior, buying habits and trend predictions.
Because the search remains live, it is constantly being matched to products, which ensures that buyers never miss a deal and retailers never lose a sale.
While the leaders in the market are eBay and Amazon, Fisher told me, what separates Bubble is that it encompasses the entire shopping experience, not just the end purchase. And, ultimately this is benefitial to both the consumer, as well as to retailers and advertisers.
For the consumer, always having the service running and finding deals saves them time and hassle.
"We perform a function of shopping that is difficult to maximise for the best benefit, ie., an exact match or a cheaper or better product. Critically we do this without the consumer losing any of their need to understand what they are buying, what is available and how it compares to other similar products," said Fisher.
For retailers, it means that consumers are essentially shopping 24/7, which will help move their items faster. And, as for advertisers, Bubble can give them insights into such questions as when, where and what influences buying decisions.
"The conclusion, a purchase, is just one part of shopping. What we provide are the solutions to help advertisers understand why a buyer bought / didn’t buy a product," he said. "Consequently our revenue opportunities lie in the entire shopping process which starts at the beginning and may or may not necessarily end in a purchase."
Founded in May 2012, Bubbles has been operating in beta since end the of August 2013, while the team focuses on onboarding merchants to the platform.
A limited run of social media campaigns to attract consumer activity and feedback, for test purposes, was successful, though, with over 175 merchants coming on in less than 2 months. They offered over 300,000 products. There are also more than 300 retailers in the pipeline, which collectively offer over 2 million products.
Since commencing marketing mid October, the company's growth has been "exponential," Fisher said, with over 30,000 customers using the service.
Bubbles was a top 10 finalist in the Vator Splash London competition in November, and on Friday it was selected as one of the top 20 start-ups of 2013.
Amish Jani, Founder and Partner at FirstMark, joined the company's Board of Directors
Read more...
Steven Loeb
The report outlined four areas as a guide to help startups to sell into these systems
Read more...
Steven Loeb
Flyte delivers mechanotherapy transvaginally to the pelvic floor
Read more...
Steven Loeb
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
For videos about Bubbles please see below
Background
Bubbles is a marketplace created around a proprietary matching engine. Its core solution and ‘problem solver’ is ‘time’, utilising the time we are not able to search whether we are ‘on’ or offline, bringing results in the form of products or services to significantly reduce the overal time spent searching but with features that dramatically improve accuracy in finding the right product (or service) at the right price.
It is being rolled out in 3 stages starting with the availability of products, followed by services and thereafter combined with an application developer store (similar to an App store) realising the hundreds of thousands of programmers and their solutions through 3rd party applications.
For the retailer Bubbles unique 24/7 matching process delivers unprecedented product exposure, for the shopper a unique, entirely intuitive and seamless answer to the rapidly growing need for personal search. For the advertiser Bubbles is combining product and services into a global marketplace with able to deliver highly targeted solutions that in turn will herald a break-through opportunity in customer acquisition and sales.
Introduction
Bubbles is a virtual personal shopper for consumers who buy online. Based on what’s being searched it works in the background, continuously looking for better products and deals on behalf of the shopper even after they log off. Results are then delivered to the user at their convenience. As the shopper’s search remains live in the system, the search is constantly being matched to products ensuring buyers never miss a deal and retailers never lose a sale.
Bubbles’ solution binds commerce covering B2B and B2C. It is global, scalable, substantial in size and has a revenue potential worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Consumers
For shoppers, whether purchasing as a consumer or business, the problem is the time and effort required to ‘shop’, i.e. to find the right product at the right price and to make sure that it is available. Consumers have come to expect instant gratification and have little or no time to browse, manually filter results, or to compare and contrast a raft of products against one another. And yet most fear and will regularly miss out on a deal.
Bubbles has solved these issues through a proprietary process allowing consumers to shop without the need to be actively browsing online for hours on end – we call it ‘Search without Searching’. In essence, Bubbles solves the limitations of traditional search whilst retaining its helpful elements. Using Bubbles delivers a faster, easier and crucially, a far more engaging and enjoyable shopping experience than the currently available alternatives.
Retailers
For retailers, the Bubbles service ensures that their products are available and matched 24/7. In other words the product is brought to the search (term) so the problem of missing a potential sale is averted.
Bubbles instantly matches products (to searches) that may even have only just been added into stock, whose prices have changed, or where deals have been created. These revisions to products that impact buying decisions would be lost on any other platform, where the search ends once the user logs off.
Advertisers
For advertisers, Bubbles will be in a position to provide trend and data analysis showing the complete shopping journey from start to finish. This will include invaluable information showing when, where and what influences buying decisions. Something which occurs during a typical shopping experience. We learn about our search from the results received and if these are imperfect we’ll narrow down or amend our search terms (e.g. adding a brand name or specific feature). On other shopping platforms each amendment would constitute a new search and no trackable connection would exist. With Bubbles, this journey or ‘quest’ will be monitored from start to end on the platform, providing a phenomenally marketable insight into shopping behaviour.
Monetisation
The primary revenue stream is a sales commission of 5% plus sales tax on the total transaction value (including delivery). This is charged to retailers at the point of sale.
Advertising, cross-promotion and complementary marketing with and between products and services offer one of the most significant revenue streams for Bubbles. With features that include, ‘Shoppers Paradise’, ‘Daily Deal’, ‘When it’s gone... it’s gone!’ and ‘The 60 minute deal’ Bubbles will be able to fine-focus marketing messages to buyers throughout the entire shopping process, including prior to the point of decision making, at the point of buying and post-purchase. This degree of interaction has never been accomplished by any other marketing agency.
Additionally, there will be significant value in the data that Bubbles will collate around consumer behaviour, buying habits and trend predictions. Bubbles will track, monitor and report the entire shopping process from start to end. Analysis will be available on what influenced buyers to move interest from one product to another, what shaped their decisions, how and why they altered their search terms and ultimately what level of incentivisation, if any, was used to drive the purchase. This is highly valuable data that will have a direct impact on product development and marketing.
Team
Bubbles was founded by CEO Julian Fisher who launched the UK’s first internet exhibition in 1995 which he sold to IDG. Just as smartphones were taking hold he developed Kwickee, Europe’s first mobile publishing platform, raising €1m, exiting to BNP Paribas.
Julian is supported by CTO Martin Adams with over 10 years of technical development experience with a focus on user experience, web architecture & software development. Martin was previously a software engineer at Ericsson and IBM.
Alex Azarov, Head of Development - 10 years IT development experience, a degree in Computer Sciences.
Anton Shabanov, Lead Developer 7 years development experience with a strong relational database skill set, “big data”, essential for Bubbles.
Mandy Cornick, Product Promotions Manager - 10 years’ experience in frontline retail management.
BUBBLES Advisory Board
Scott McGinley, Dalepak - formerly Operations Director at Play.com, is the eCommerce Director at Dalepak second only in fulfilment distribution services to Amazon.
Robert Jarrett, BIRA - Board Director at BIRA, the British Independent Retailers Association (7,500 retail members).
Mike Fauconnier-Bank - angel investor, previously at Citigroup where he advised clients on transactions in the Consumer, Retail and Leisure industries.
Sara Galloway - former senior buisness analyst eSellerPro (UK's largest independent ecommerce business management provider)
Traction achieved
Bubbles v.2.0 has been operating in beta since end August 2013. Since then the team’s focus has been on onboarding merchants to the platform. A limited run of social media campaigns to attract consumer activity and feedback, for test purposes, was highly successful.
- 175+ merchants onboarded in less than 2 months, offering over 300,000 products
- High merchant demand with 300+ retailers in pipeline offering over 2 million products
- Average of 20,000 unique page views per week pre-promotion
- Numerous partnerships agreed with major players in the e-commerce and fulfilment space, including
eSellerPro
3P-Logistics
Dalepak (video)
VIDEOS
Joined Vator on
A sales and marketing professional with a strong entrepreneurial streak started when he was only 8. A publisher & conference organiser Julian went on to launch the UK's 1st internet exhibition in 1995