Alice.com gets $3.6M fund for household-goods shipping

With family-oriented profile features, Alice.com is more than 'Amazon for consumer-packaged goods'

Alice.com, an online retail platform for consumer-packaged goods (CPG) announced Tuesday a $3.6 million from undisclosed Spanish investors, bringing their total current investments to $18.2 million.

Founded in 2008 and headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin, the site recently partnered with the Spanish site Koto.com, as well as launched their sister site Alice.es, geared for the European market.

The company took the occasion of its funding to also announce that over the past year, it has experienced a 200% increase in the number of direct-to-consumer online storefronts for CPG brands, and that the site has reached the one-million user account benchmark.

Alice.com seems to work basically like Amazon for household shopping -- which is interesting, considering that it has been rumored Amazon makes a big percentage of its revenue from the sale of just such household items, like diapers and cereal.

However, Alice.com is tailored completely for the sale of household goods and has a lot more to offer than Amazon in terms of UI, with interesting features like a "suite of budgeting and planning tools," and user profiles that track what you buy and even send notifications when you're about to run out fo something.

Shipments are free and come to the user's doorstep in one bundled package called an "Alice box."

Alice works with over 600 manufacturers and brands, to bring wholesale prices for select items. The site also mentions, however, that not all the products on their site are gotten directly from manufacturers. Sometimes the site sources the products at the retail level to offer more selection.

It's free to open an account, and the site also has a free iPhone app.

"This round of funding allows us to accelerate our growth and propel us forward as the leading, retail marketplace for household essentials,” said Alice.com CEO and co-founder, Brian Wiegand, in the company's release. “2012 will be a big year for us as we focus on enhancing our customer benefits, and create new and exciting opportunities for our CPG partners.”