ShopO Personal Storefronts

1. Enabling easy management of a storefront which can enable procurement of local and multi-national items for in-person customers, with personal recommendation service.  2. The team has created a software and service that enables sharing of deals and management of the financial mechanics of running the business and providing for individual customers. 3. The solution enables the creation of small business entrepreneurs to create a storefront, general store, specialty store, etc., and enables profitable management of the sourcing and providing in their small business.  From an end customer perspective, allows the customers to obtain items otherwise unavailable when international credit, or language skills may prevent them.  This also allows the end customer to take advantage of personal shopping for families with working parents.

Our solution affects any household which would like to obtain international articles, or which needs help with the household procurement function.  This is targeted specifically to households with working parents, or working to obtain items from places where they wouldn't have time, credit, or language skills to obtain the items. Some of our most popular items are children's vitamins and children's clothing.

We completed an analysis including: social media messengers, language grouping, GDP status and rate, spending rate, technology use, female unemployment rate and ability for women to be in business.  Ukraine and the Baltics popped out as a pilot starting point, with a number of possible size-able markets beyond.

The solution has many beneficiaries, including merchants to find different markets, shop-front entrepreneurs creating a business, end customers able to find appropriate merchandise and deals with less time than traditional shopping.  This could enable a mother to work out of the home and still accomplish the job of providing for the family.

This is a significant market given the number of households and potential shoppers.

Our solutions is software and process based enabling easy reporting and managing of the social media interaction, combined with the shopping, deal availability, end-customer management, international and local procurement functions.  It uses web and app based applications and people to complete the processes and enable the roles.

Our initial target population was the entrepreneurs creating storefronts and doing personal shopping to support their local customers. We have done recruited them, supported them and done a number of conversations with them.  We have hired some of them for the core team to ensure the solution aligns with their needs and create a profitable company for them.  

We are adding the end customers that are enabled to have more choice in their lives by ensuring their household procurement is taken care of while they work at more profitable work.

We are also starting to explore merchant needs that are likely to have products that match the bulk of the customers.  We are especially exploring the smaller merchants that may be entrepreneurs and craftspeople as well.

In addition to the core software and process solution, we have also created an on-line academy that works to train new storefront owners to be successful store front owners and shoppers for their end customers.  We have experimented with a number of ways to train, recruit and continue to work to improve this.  We are finding the most effective method is a personal advocate combined with on-line resources.  Our goal is to create successful entrepreneurs running a local virtual store front, as well as enabling end customers to utilize their time most efficiently while providing for their family.

Our solution is powered by newly empowered, previously excluded, people.  

In this competition, our shop makers have the huge advantage of being powered by both a great Artificial Intelligence engine that can search the for the best products and an actual human being who can understand all the nuances of human interaction and respond with excitement, empathy, warmth and humor to the expressed needs of the clients.  Our humans can also help predict needs of customers, such as the next size up of winter boots for growing children before the snow falls, ideally in a good sell of sale before new winter goods arrive.  Optimizing for the families, rather than for the merchants.

Our technology is classic software technology and people processes that provide core support through search engines, automated queries and social media links.  Additionally, we are building the back office reporting to support the shop keepers in managing their orders, payment processes, tax requirements and other financial and reporting requirements to enable them to create and manage a profitable business.

This base technology is used in most e-commerce sites and back office business process management.

Our solution relies on the entrepreneurial spirit of previously excluded groups.  In our Ukraine pilot, we have seen a number of pregnant women, women on leave and housewives create businesses.  As they become successful, some of their husbands have become involved in growing the businesses.   We are seeing women with the ability to create incomes, while still taking care of their expected traditional family roles.  Some of the women who have created shops are serving other women who are working to ensure they can deliver their expected roles to their households as well.

Women with options create options for their families.  In the future we would also like to work with excluded makers to enable their products to be available through the world.

Currently 50 shoppers, serving about 50 customers each.  Ideally growth in current countries and adoption in others.  COVID and similar changes have significantly impacted our activity.

Perhaps more of a ten or fifteen year goals.

10+ million women become CEOs of their own businesses earning respect, making a living and having fun shopping for herself, her family and her clients.

70+ million households have the opportunity to out-source affordable sourcing and ensuring the best value for their needs, while enabling them to spend time on the highest level of value return with their time.  Whether they spend their time with children, caring for elders, or working a higher paying job, it is not spent shopping.

125,000 other US-based women have the joy of mentoring up to 80 other women around the world and earning extra income from 80 Startup LLC distributions.

ShopO creates a $100+ billion company with its One-Cart, Chat-based, Shopping Experience and satisfies its mission of investing in people.

We are at the point of needing increased finances, but more importantly partners in regions to fulfill our missions.

Acceptance in countries is required.

Ability to ship international products, as well as procure local products.

We are also in need of merchant relationships that are beneficial to create a sustainable business model for the core.  We have a sustainable model for the shop-keeper, but need scale to be sustainable at the core.

We are currently looking for local partners in these areas that would support this model and it's expansion.

10 people as core, variable software contractors and other members.

We have experience with living and working multi-nationally and have experienced these issues and these solutions.

We have partnered with UPS as a funder and board member.  We are exploring other partnerships.

Our business model relies on creating successful store fronts for our customers and enabling them to share some of those profits with the core.  Additionally, we would receive some split on the merchant streams for advertising at scale.

We require initial capital to get to scale to provide funding.  The entrepreneurs that we are serving require time to get up and running to provide payments.

Our solution needs a fabric of partnership to make it successful and achieve it's mission.  We believe Solver can help us achieve this.

We are looking to partner with organizations that can help us proliferate in appropriate markets.

We would continue to offer funds to help women start up their solutions.

We are creating entrepreneurs and enabling them to be successful.