Canny e‑commerce analysts and web content managers aiming to increase their revenues might be interested in the fortunes of a Palo Alto-based startup called Fanplayr, which has just secured seed investment totaling $2 million.
The two-year-old startup devotes its energies into driving conversions on all websites offering e‑commerce options. Essentially, its platform helps e‑commerce merchants analyze their visitor traffic and pinpoint the optimal timing and value of purchase incentives. It also helps sites offer Amazon-style recommendations.
Big conversions for the small guy
Much less hassle than Google Analytics, Fanplayr provides a lot more guidance on how to get the best out of it, too. It typically monitors e‑commerce site visitors for a month to get a firm handle on their behavior before initiating any action. Once it’s collated the data and built up reliable profiles of site visitors, it springs into action, identifying shoppers who share characteristics with actual buyers but haven’t yet made a purchase. E‑merchants are then given recommendations on how to convert these cautious visitors into customers.
Fanplayr’s CEO, Simon Yencken, explains his firm’s approach like this:
“We deliver an automated report to the eCommerce site showing what we found about visitor behavior on the site, and recommending some strategies for how they can get increased conversion. Other products provide companies with this data and they don’t analyze it. We can get anywhere from 20 to 50 percent increase in conversion, of course depending on size, and up to a 50 percent increase in average order value.”
How to compete with the big beasts
And, e‑commerce managers take note, you only pay if Fanplayr delivers – its pricing structure is performance based. Unsurprisingly, with a pricing strategy like that, it’s ideal for the smaller guy – small to medium sized e‑commerce firms are the ones it’s principally aiming for. It allows these smaller firms to match the on-site shopping enticements offered by leviathans like Amazon, even though they haven’t got the kind of budgets to hire the kind of in-house engineering talent needed to do so.
Retargeting and personalized offers are at the kernel of Fanplayr — precisely the kind of deal smaller e‑merchants are seeking so that they don’t get squeezed out of the market by the big beasts. E‑commerce Goliaths are suddenly faced with some very competitive little Davids.
