This has been record-breaking holiday season, with e-commerce absolutely exploding on both Thanksgiving Day and on Black Friday. With sales reaching numbers never seen before, you can forgive retailers for finding yet another way to extend that shopping even further. Now, with Cyber Monday, there are even more deals meant to entice customers into handing over their money.
Interestingly, it is not just retailers who are promoting shopping now, but venture capitalists as well.
Venture Capital firm First Round Capital has launched a new website that will feature exclusive Cyber Monday deals from companies the firm has invested in, it was announced Wednesday,
“At First Round Capital, we’ve been big believers in the future of online commerce - and over the past few years have invested in many eCommerce companies, all at the seed stage,” First Round Partner Josh Kopelman wrote.
“These companies have now go on to to raise over $350,000,000 in follow on capital and will be shipping hundreds of thousands of products this holiday season to customers all over the world. Whether it’s Birchbox with discovery through subscription, Fab with curation, or Modcloth building a brand, these companies have set out to redefine traditional eCommerce models while building a product consumers truly love - and we couldn't be more excited about what we're going to see in the next few years.”
There are 25 participating companies, including Threadflip, which is offering a 20% off coupon; Fab, which is offering free shipping; Dogvacay, which is offering $25 off; TaskRabbit, which is offering $35 toward the site; Liftopia, whichis offering $10 off; UrbanSitter, which is offering $40 off; One Kings Lane, which is offering $15 off; and Poppin, which is offering a free box of ballpoint pens.
E-commerce sales are up this year, and promoting its investments in this way is a brilliant move on First Round's part. There is no downside here: it can only help the companies it has a stake in drive sales, increasing those company's bottom lines so First Round can reap the rewards with higher valuations.
Record e-commerce sales
E-commerce spending on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday both exploded this year.
Online shopping on Thanksgiving went up 17.8% compared to last year, and mobile was a large part of that.
Of the total Web traffic to retailers’ sites, nearly one-third, or 28.5%, came from mobile devices. By comparison, mobile only accounted for 16.2% of traffic on Thanksgiving last year. Consumers who shopped from mobile devices accounted for 15.4% of all online purchases.
Mobile users checked out an average of seven Web pages, and mobile and e-commerce shoppers alike purchased an average of 3.67 items.
Both eBay and PayPal saw huge gains in the number of mobile payments on Thanksgiving. For eBay, there was a 133% increase in mobile transactions on Thanksgiving compared to 2011. That number was even higher for PayPal, which saw transactions for go up a whopping 173% in the U.S.
Overall sales were even better on Black Friday this year, with 57 million Americans visiting online retail stores on Friday for record e-commerce sales.
ComScore reported that Black Friday saw more than $1 billion in online sales, marking an increase of 26%. It also represents the heaviest day of online sales to date in 2012—and, of course, it’s the first time that Black Friday has topped $1 billion in online sales. Last year, Black Friday raked in $816 million.
Amazon was the most visited retail site on Black Friday, followed by Walmart.com, Best Buy, Target, and Apple. The top selling product category was digital content and subscriptions, which was up 29% on Black Friday.
(Image source: https://gifts.firstround.com/)
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Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
The Liftopia platform helps ski resorts generate incremental sales through yield management, segmentation, and centralized distribution. The core mission of Liftopia is twofold: help skiers and snowboarders get out on the slopes more often, and help alpine resorts generate incremental revenue. The Liftopia platform gives alpine resorts the ability to sell advance-purchase, date-specific tickets, rentals, lessons and more, while still maintaining complete control over both the price and the quantity of items available for any given day. By selling date-specific products online and in advance, resorts can safely lock in business without hurting on-mountain sales. For skiers and snowboarders, it means that if you're willing to jump through some hoops and purchase a non-refundable, date-specific ticket, you can score deals that are as much as 90% off on-mountain rates!
Liftopia currently sells lift tickets, rentals, lessons and more at over 150 alpine resorts across North America. Our list of active resort partners and products is continually growing and changing. If you don't see deals for a resort that you are looking for, sign up for regional deal alerts and we'll be sure to keep you up to speed with what is on the site. We are constantly trying to improve our platform to be more useful for skiers, snowboarders and our resort partners alike.
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Threadflip is pioneering a new social shopping experience by offering consumers a simple way to convert closets into unique boutiques and connect with buyers and sellers. With a few clicks, users can upload images of clothing, shoes, bags, and jewelry straight from their closet, creating a vast marketplace of thousands of new pieces every day. The company is also piloting its white Glove Service with a select group of users, This service offers an end-to-end selling solution, allowing women to send in their clothing and Threadflip takes care of the rest.
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
Fab is on a mission to help people better their lives with design.
Fab was founded by serial entrepreneur Jason Goldberg in February 2011 and launched on June 9, 2011. Fab’s founders are Bradford Shellhammer, Nishith Shah and Deepa Shah. Fab’s headquarters are in New York. The company also has offices in Berlin, London and Pune.
Over 6 million people around the world use Fab todiscover everyday design products at great prices, to connect with the world’s most exciting designers, and toshare their favorite design inspirations.
Startup/Business
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One Kings Lane is the only private online sales site solely dedicated to designer home décor. Each day (Monday – Friday) there are 3-5 sales that are brand specific and last 72 hours. Events begin at 8 a.m. PST/11 a.m. EST. For the first time ever, consumers have access to the personal inventory of high profile interior designers thanks to the Tastemaker Tag Sales. The sales will include an exciting, eclectic mix of vintage finds, one-off samples, décor and furniture from a designer’s branded line. The first TTS will launch on April 10th. Every Saturday, for three days, an interior designer will offer a signature assortment of hand-picked selections, which will be offered to One Kings Lane members at 50 percent or more below retail value. One Kings Lane was founded by Susan Feldman, a former fashion executive who has worked with such companies as Warnaco/Ralph Lauren Swimwear, Polo Jeans, and C&C California, and Alison Pincus, a digital media expert who spent time at ELLE Décor, Home, and Metropolitan Home. When Susan moved back to Los Angeles from New York a few years ago, and into her first house as an adult, she was house proud, but noted the frugal climate. She saw an opportunity to create a new way to make beautiful home furnishings available affordably, a sort of online sample sale. She and Ali were introduced and Susan’s background in retail, combined with Ali’s background in digital media created the perfect combination to create One Kings Lane.
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
An online service for parents and sitters to connect through people they know, UrbanSitter makes booking a trusted babysitter as easy as booking dinner reservations. The site enables parents to search, book and review trusted sitters within minutes.
Headquartered in San Francisco, UrbanSitter was founded by a group of Internet veterans who wanted to use technology to power a faster, more personal babysitting service. For more information or to sign up, visit www.urbansitter.com.
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
TaskRabbit is launched in Boston, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Orange County, and is expanding quickly to other major cities
Startup/Business
Joined Vator on
DogVacay.com is a community marketplace that addresses the $5B market for dog-boarding and pet-sitting. Instead of paying for a crowded and overpriced kennel, our users book with experienced hosts who watch dogs in their own homes. In two months since launch the we have gained national coverage with thousands of approved hosts.
We provide multiple layers of quality control, a comprehensive insurance policy, emergency support, photo updates, and other pet services like daycare and walking.
We were founded in 2011 by a husband and wife team who boarded over 100 dogs in their home to make extra money while saving for their weddin. We are now venture capital funded by First Round Capital, Science, and several angels.
