ShopSquad announced a new service today that helps online shoppers make smarter purchases with the help of experts.
The San Francisco company seems to have an initial focus on baby products. Chief executive Charles Katz demonstrated the product on-stage today at the Launch conference in San Francisco, where he pretended to need to buy a baby stroller for his sister’s new baby. He connected with a stroller expert in a video chat who interviewed him about his needs, then recommended a specific stroller gave him a link to the product.
Afterwards, shoppers can view a replay of their conversation if they want to remind themselves about the logic behind the recommendations.
ShopSquad says it has affiliate deals with hundreds of different companies, where it takes a cut from purchases which it will split with the experts. Katz acknowledged there’s a risk that the experts will direct shoppers to the most expensive product in order to earn the biggest fee, but he said shoppers will be able to rate their experts, so if they make bad recommendations that will become clear. He also noted that those affiliate deals help ShopSquad differentiate from shopping help offered on specific shopping sites like Zappos.
The company has raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding.
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