Evoqu closes $1.95M seed round -- Expands ShopAdvisor Platform to Bloggers and On-line Media Sites

BOSTON, June 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Evoqu, developers of the ShopAdvisor Platform, connecting commerce to content, has announced that it completed a $1.95M seed round funding in May.  The capital raised will be used for increased marketing and business development activities.

The ShopAdvisor Platform leverages the natural "deferred" consumer buying behavior for higher consideration items (clothing, electronics, furniture, etc.) where consumers don't "buy now" – but instead gather information about a product over time, including price comparisons, friends and family opinions, product reviews, availability and other factors – and keeps track of this information to re-engage the user at some point in the future, dramatically increasing the likelihood of a purchase.   Launched as a mobile app in September 2011 for iPhone and Android, along with an iPad release in February, the ShopAdvisor active user base has rapidly grown to over 2 million consumers.  Evoqu is now adding the deferred purchasing platform to on-line media and blog sites.

ShopAdvisor for Media and Blogs – bringing commerce to content

On-line media, lifestyle publications and blogs generate product awareness and prompt consumer interest.  However, they are almost always disconnected from the resulting purchase.  The reasons are twofold:

1. Once the reader leaves the page, the property has lost any connection to them and their intentions about the content
2. Even a buy-now button or affiliate link, which have less than a 1% click-thru rate, leads the reader away from the content without a way to re-engage them later

The ShopAdvisor platform solves these challenges.  It allows users to "Watch" products that they are not yet ready to purchase, while keeping them engaged in the property's content.  It gathers the relevant content to educate the consumer (price history, buyers guides, reviews, online/local retail prices, etc.).  The platform then alerts the consumer when something important happens (the price is reduced, the product is recalled, a new competitor appears, etc.).  The Watch button in a media site or blog effectively connects: the reader, the product, and the source (the property's content) and monitors this combination over the course of the buying process.  This method of re-engaging the user is currently yielding click-thru rates at greater than 10X the industry averages. 

When a content publisher includes a "Watch" button next to a product placement in editorial, the connection between the page and the purchase transaction is maintained.  Three key values come from this:

• Deep consumer insight on how your content drove product demand, over what period of time, and through which fulfillment channels;
• An increase of new users to your content; 
• A new and traceable source of revenue.

For more information on how the ShopAdvisor platform is re-defining on-line commerce, visit the company website at www.evoqu.com.  To experience the ShopAdvisor mobile client, download the iPhone or iPad app on iTunes, or the Android app on the Android Market.

About evoqu - Evoqu, Inc. develops ShopAdvisor, a deferred purchasing platform that connects consumers' initial interest in a product with their eventual purchase. ShopAdvisor's cloud-based services are used by blogs, media sites, and third-party applications to incorporate deferred purchasing into their user experience. Evoqu has also developed its own deferred purchasing shopping application for iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle and the web. Founded in 2011, Evoqu is based in Boston, MA.

ShopAdvisor, evoqu, and Watch Button are Trademarks of evoqu, inc. © 2012

Contact:
Michael D. Maggio
[email protected]
63 Great Road
Suite #203
Maynard, MA 01754

SOURCE Evoqu