Is The Internet Ready for Social Shopping?

Over the past 6 Months, King Commerce, has launched 2 Social Shopping Apps that attempt to make people comfortable with the idea of Social Shopping:

Amazon Scraper King and Shopify Social King

To market them, I then tried my hand (for the first time) in selling online courses:

So, what have we learned?

WORKING BACKWARDS FROM THE MARKETING FUNNELS

a) The size of the network counts.

For the Chrome Extension, it took 4 months to acquire the first 50 users, but once the network got to over 50, it only took 1 more month to reach 100.

b) We've found that there isn't a lot of organic Search Traffic on Shopify. We also spent $420 on ads for the Shopify app with a high cost per installation (tried Adwords, Facebook, LinkedIn and the Shopify Ads Platform, so far).

We've gotten about 24 installs so far, but we really need to verify that we're adding value to our first B2B Clients, and try to grow organically without burning through cash.

In Covid, the name of the game is patience.

c) Much more organic Search Traffic on the Chrome Webstore. 

We've found that pumping the Chrome Extension listing description with content can lead to a very high count of daily impressions in Chrome Store Search Results.

This translates into 20-40 organic listing views daily, and 2-13 daily installs.

d) The Chrome Listing can be optimized. 

I've reached out to the Chrome Store to fix the listing image which appears in Search Results on the Chrome WebStore.

The name / USP / landing page / teaser video can all be tested.

e) Currently Chrome Extension users have pretty much zero incentive to keep the app installed.

Hence, I'd like to try out new pitches which might lead to fewer uninstalls

something like: "Discover niche Shopify Deals while browsing Amazon"

or: "Support local Shopify merchants" could make the extension more desirable (ie a Social Mission plus Savings Incentive)

f) High number of organic daily installs on the Chrome Webstore (peaking at 13 installs on September 15 alone)

Hence, focusing on user Growth via a Chrome Extension (even a new one) would give us a better chance of finding product/market fit and optimizing the UX 

- at least for the shoppers themselves.

If there are enough shoppers on the network, then it increases chances of Shopify Store Admins following naturally with a pitch like: 'Feature your products on the Oggle Network.'

- and even if the store Admins don't follow, we may at least have some user growth on the extension, and can re-pivot if there are new discoveries at a later point.

HOW CAN WE LEVERAGE THE FREE ORGANIC TRAFFIC ON THE CHROME STORE?

When I was a Product Manager at Hola, I was exposed to a similar business model with a B2C app on the Chrome Store (8 million users), 

and a B2B App to monetize the Chrome Extension

In Hola's case, they use idle browsers (with the extension installed) to scrape the web for their B2B Clients.

I don't have my heart set on solving a specific business need yet - but it looks like leveraging the Chrome Webstore, and the fact that I have a lot of time on my hands, might give this business a fighting chance.

- What are the next goals in promoting the products and growing the business?

We can try out 5-10 different pitches on both the Shopify and Chrome Stores (no need to build out full products - 

we can probably get by with just trying out different pitches / Marketing materials to maximize growth)

One possible angle: My co-founder (who wishes to remain anonymous) shared an article a while back about the damaging effect of Amazon on small merchants:

"the recent success Bookshop and Libro.fm have seen are evidence that what was a slowly building awareness of how destructive Amazon can be to local communities is now becoming more mainstream." 

I just leased the domain oggle.shop ('Oggle that shop') for a year, and might try that name out instead.