After years of copying and pasting shopping links into spreadsheets and taking screenshots of products to share with friends and family, Kristin Locker finally has a social shopping platform that lets her capture and organize her endless tabs. (named after her own name). She has a shareable virtual wishlist all in one place.
Dubbed the “Pinterest of online shopping,” Locker will be released in 2022 as a Chrome extension that lets you save online products to categorized wishlists, discover collages of outfits created by others, and collaborate with friends. Work, create and share gift-worthy collections. via email or social media. Also available as an iOS app.
Locker recently closed a $2.5 million round from Wonder Ventures at a valuation of $9 million, the company announced today.
“Kristine Locker has found something that Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook have tried and failed to find,” Valentina Rodriguez of Wonder Ventures said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “Shopping is a core product that increases sociability, not the other way around. Thanks to the fact that she is a perfect fit for the founder and the product, she believes that socialized commerce is incredibly user-friendly.” We've built a platform that is inherently viral.”
Image credits: locker
Unlike influencer-focused platforms LTK, Collective Voice, and Split designed to monetize large social media followings, Locker is designed for everyday users who just want to curate a shoppable collection for fun. Designed for consumers.
“When I looked at the competitive landscape, there were platforms built for influencers… As a consumer, none of them really fit my needs to organize my shopping. [and] There's also an organic place where you can see what your friends are shopping, and that's what I really wanted to see,” said the Locker founder. “For the most part [Locker’s] The mission is to create a genuine user-generated sharing platform and there's no monetization around it, so it's like, “Oh, someone is sharing this with me so I can make money.'' It is important not to feel that it is because of something. ”
While you won't earn cash by sharing products on Locker, you can join its “shopping club” and get paid when your friends use your referral link. For example, if you refer 25 people to Locker, you'll receive exclusive Locker merchandise. Once a user reaches 500, he will get $750 if he buys an outfit from the Locker collection, explains the startup's founder.
Image credits: locker
As for Locker's business model, the company makes money by partnering with brands through its affiliate network. The average commission rate is around 12%, but Locker will increase commissions up to 25% depending on how much exposure a brand wants.
“If a brand doesn’t participate in the affiliate space, we remove them from the discovery page to maintain equity for the brands that do,” Rocker says.
The company's latest funding round comes two years after Cabell Hickman, a locker user and higher education consultant whose $6 million portfolio was featured in the Wall Street Journal, invested $1 million in the company. Ta. Other investors include former Honey executives Chris Arreguin, Elizabeth Egan (Breakaway Ventures), Maggie Sellers (HSR Ventures), Kira Jackson (Rx3 Growth Partners), Alex Doman (AVEC Drinks), and AWS Global Startup Senior Strategy They include Tariro Makoni, the manager;
Locker touts 80,000 monthly active users.