Social shopping start-up Veedow.com has re-jigged its visual interface to eschew specific product search in favour of eye candy and serendipity. The beta site, itself launched five months ago, now places the emphasis on larger images and user recommendations to aid product discovery, in the style of window-shopping meets StumbleUpon.
The refreshed site features new shopping categories with fewer products than before, less heavy text, better upload features, a drag-and-drop wish list and trash feature within the flash module. Veedow thinks this approach to be the future of social shopping, and says it sets it apart from its primarily US-based competitors; Kaboodle, Stylefeeder, ThisNext and MyFaveShop (the lone UK based competitor). But somehow it seems doubtful that merely bigger pictures will do it for them. Matteo Canzi Blanc, Veedow’s co founder says the site now has 3,000 users which is not a particularly strong number inside 5 months. The company’s revenue model is based on affiliate schemes with partner sites.
However, Veedow says its bundle of smart algorithms learns what users like and analyzes the Veedow community opinion of products to offer users personalised recommendations, while users can also recommend products to each other.