
Stockholm-Based Helishopter Takes On The Big Guys - jp1989
http://www.arcticstartup.com/2013/01/28/stockholm-based-helishopter-takes-on-the-big-guys-with-social-e-commerce-platform
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Scene_Cast2
I'm wondering if my take on this is in the minority, but I have the impression
that none of my friends would be very good for suggesting things to buy. Sure,
it might work for "I want an okay table / silverware / cups" - to which the
answer would be "I got this nice something at my local Target / Walmart /
Ikea", but it breaks down for most things that I buy. For example -
flashlights, knives, clothes, computers, pens, ink, watches, running shoes...
For those, I visit the relevant forum (watchfreeks, fountainpennetwork,
candlepowerforums, etc) and decide from there. Sure, on some occasions, a
friend or two have already done the research, so I can get a jump-start that
way - but it's an exception rather than the rule.

I'm actually quite curious whether I'm living in a bubble with my shopping
trends being abnormal and atypical, or whether it's a bigger pattern. Do most
people shop differently (and would benefit a lot from friends' suggestions)?

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jp1989
Not a bad point - I personally have a couple of friends who are pretty clued
up on a few things (whether it's tech, fashion, design stuff) so I generally
am inspired by what they buy. I don't even always ask them - but I follow what
they are purchasing because I trust their judgment on those things.

I'm of course a little biased, so I'd also be interested in hearing from some
other people on their shopping habits!

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seivan
Good to hear there is some noise in Stockholm

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jp1989
Absolutely. Where are you working at (I see you're in Sthlm)?

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seivan
Currently contracting iOS stuff in my underwear from my parents place. I don't
put pants on for nothin'.

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jp1989
My hero!

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jp1989
BTW - As you may notice from our landing page our video is outdated (UI-wise)
- so we'd be open to having a HN'er make us a new one. Any takers?

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GU5TAF
I like it, seems like a hybrid between amazon and pinterest... but what makes
you different from sites like thefancy.com?

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jp1989
That's pretty spot on. We're trying to mix the "practical" of Amazon
(everything is there) with the "inspirational" of Pinterest (your friends are
there).

We're different from the Fancy in that we aim to provide a natural destination
point for all shopping (whereby we have a very large product database) - where
I believe the Fancy are more focused on a "personal curation". The Fancy is an
awesome site though!

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loicuv
And what about svpply.com ?

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jp1989
Well - it's fair to say that we are closer to Svpply than to The Fancy. One of
the main differences is that Svpply focus on curation and user-generated
content, whilst we are indexing stores in order to create a large database. On
sites like Svpply/Fancy, I believe the users are more inclined to scroll
endlessly looking for product inspiration.

We want Helishopter to become a "natural destination" i.e. when you know you
are looking for a "green polo jacket", you go to Helishopter and search for a
"green polo jacket". From there you can see all the "green polo jackets" in
our database that are sorted by not only popularity but the social dimension
as well. One of the fundamental features is that we show you products that
your social connections have interacted with previously. For example, if one
of your "friends" has brought, or interacted with a "green polo jacket" from
gap.com, that product will show up first in the search results.

