Indulge yourself with a beard wig, toy Lamborghini, or $5 sunglasses on Lish, a new impulse shopping site from Payvment with two-click purchasing powered by PayPal. Today’s launch sees Payvment expanding beyond Facebook ecommerce storefront tools by redirecting all traffic from its old Shopping Mall app to this Pinteresty discovery portal for its merchants.
Lish surfaces fun, affordable products from Payvment stores in real-time based on what’s trending. Unlike the controlled shopping experience of Amazon, you might not buy what you need on Lish. But you can always find something you want. We’re giving away a few hundred early invites below.
Three years after launching software to help small businesses set up stores on Facebook, Payvment noticed something funny about its traffic. 80%-90% of clicks in its stores were to its “Trending Products” sections, and the average cart size was just over one item. Research revealed that 40% of US retail purchases are impulse buys. It was time for a redesign.
So Payvment, with its new CEO Jim Stoneham and $7.75 million in funding from Sierra, Blue Run, and 500 Startups, built Lish over the last four months. Its purpose is to minimize the number of clicks required to find something cool and buy it.
The first time you shop Lish, you set a delivery address and pre-authorize a PayPal account — the only way Lish processes payments. Then you’re shown a home page of products that evolves in real-time according to what users are sharing to Facebook and Twitter. Click the Buy button on a purse, pocketwatch, or PBR wristband and with just one confirmation click they’re on their way.
To share with Facebook friends from Lish and teach its discovery algorithm what to show, you can instantly :) :| or :( emoticon any product. There’s also standard Facebook Like, Pinterest, Twitter, and Google+ sharing buttons to help your followers find fanciful gear.
Eventually Payvment plans to personalize Lish product suggestions based on your Facebook data. Sure I might be shopping for someone else, but I’d appreciate if it took my gender into account and showed fewer dresses. It also needs to be careful with auto-sharing to Facebook when you sign up.
People love buying crazy crap, apparently, as early tests of Lish saw a 3.6% conversion rate on visitors compared to a typical 1.5% for ecommerce sites. And it’s totally tablet and phone-ready, with a mobile web site set up so you can click through a Facebook news feed story while on the go and be paying for something seconds later.
Payvment has mirrored all its merchants’ storefronts onto Lish and will be redirecting traffic from its Facebook app to the standalone site to kickstart traction. It’ll still be earning money the same way: enhanced merchant admin and analytics tools for a subscription fee, but mostly through margins from its Facebook ads wizard for simply promoting stores and products.
Yes, Lish’s gridview is definitely reminiscent of Pinterest, Fab, and TheFind’s Glimpse. But Lish isn’t just about discovery, and it will never send you to a shopping cart or offsite. Lish is lightweight and self-contained, which maximizes purchases and makes it a great place for small businesses to sign up.
If that little voice in your head doesn’t stop you from previewing the plush panda iPhone case, nuclear hot sauce, or lightning bolt earrings, Lish could have them destined for your doorstep two seconds later.
Use this link from TechCrunch to get early access to Lish.