Social ecommerce site Zlio has secured $4 million in Series A funding in a round led by Mangrove Capital Partners.
The announcement coincides with an important milestone for the Paris based company; Zlio has now reached 100.000 shops with 2.5 millions unique visitors per month.
Zlio gives users the ability to create their own shops and sell goods from other ecommerce services. Users can stock their store with over three million products and earn commissions on every item bought from their Zlio Shop in a similar fashion to a regular affiliate program.
Zlio made headlines in May when Amazon banned Zlio users from promoting Amazon products on Zlio shops.
The company was launched in September 2006 by Jeremie Berrebi, ex founder of Net2one (sold in April 2004), David Levy & Jean Guetta. Mangrove Capital Partners is best known for its early investment in Skype.
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Startup from Paris!!!
I am impressed.
Interesting concept, and I think it has potential to become a viable business simply because it’s based on affiliate programs, but a recent Jupiter Research study seems to indicate that “social shopping” has a long way to go and may not be as promising as some are banking on it to be.
http://www.drama20show.com/200.....-shopping/
So Quixtar 2.0. How dandy.
Thanks for your comment Drama 2.0 but we are not a Social Shopping service…
We are a Social Commerce service
Very big difference !
Why is everything now “social”? Honestly, social ecommerce site doesn’t even make sense.
The “social” part is simple: Zlio offers web communities already in existence, like blogs or forums, to set-up an affiliate store with all sorts of things relevant to that particular community. This in turn helps the web community admin/ host generate revenue to continue the operation of said community. Amazon’s stance could hurt them in the long run, but they certainly hold the pole-position currently.
Remember Affinia.com? sequoia-based company that imploded after millions $ were spent *on the exact same concept*?
Amazing to think it could work 7 years later
My friend used to have Quixtar. I told him to quit marketing scams. They end up delievering him illegal imports such as african toothpaste, chemical dog food, etc…. He can’t freak sell thing to anyone.
GDP & your U.S startup company. Hmmm…. This would make France rich.
I aren’t sign up and lose my bank interest rates.
All your France products can invade America Mcdonalds, Google, Amazon, ebay, etc… I aren’t sign up!!!
We choose America products. They are good for economy!!!
seems like a decent idea - and 4mill is that bad.
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Guys, I don’t think you get the concept. Jeremie explained it well, so please read his explanation again
I wrote about it at http://flatplanetphone.com/wordpress/?p=266
@ #3 Quixtar as in Amway?
Lol.
@11 Amway is the brick and mortar version of Quixtar
@10 I get the concept. It’s like shopify.com backend with affiliates marketing from real retailers. Too bad the “real” retailers don’t want to play ball. They already have affiliate marketing programs in place. So what do you have left in the market to do the fulfillment? Third rate retailers.
I yield to superior knowledge, and logical reasoning in this case.
But, will anyone ever offer something to compete with amazon?
Have an overseas company make you a clone of Amazon. You can call it Zipadeedoo. Tell investors that it is a social Amazon and BAM!!! Millions!
Exactly, Alaska - the key questions to ask are:
-how many of those visitors to the shops are new and how many returning?
-out of those 250,000 shops, how many are still active or did people get bored after setting one up and left it
-how many sales do each shop do in a month
-how would anyone “find” those stores (unless it is purely for a community site in which case you have to ask yourself why not just use Amazon aStore?
this is a good success and I invite you has to visit my shop