Online gadget retailer Grand St wants to be the go-to spot for interesting new hardware to be sold online. But after curating a daily selection of goods, the company is opening up its e-commerce shop for any hardware to list goods to be sold, as well as to test them out in beta and even make available for pre-order.
Grand St has spent the last year searching for all the best hardware products to list on its site and to make available through daily flash sales. Goods sold on the platform typically are listed for a week, although the best of the best have been added to the site’s “collection” of goods that are always for sale.
With the launch of its new marketplace, the company is extending its e-commerce platform to others who wish to leverage it as a new sales channel. Not only will hardware manufacturers be able to sell finished goods through the marketplace, but they’ll also be able to make them available for testing to beta users, as well as take pre-orders for their products.
Even better, Grand St will be taking no commission on goods that are put up for pre-order or beta testing. In doing so, the platform will compete against existing sales channels like Celery and Shoplocket — recently acquired by PCH International — for pre-order sales.
The company has already attracted hundreds of thousands of customers who have an affinity toward the types of interesting gadgets and hardware devices that are available on its site. As a result, it believes that it can provide hardware manufacturers with new potential buyers for their products.
Not everything will make the cut, however. According to Grand St co-founder Amanda Peyton, interested hardware manufacturers will need to apply to take part in the marketplace. To do so, they need only go to grandst.com/onboarding and fill out information about their hardware products.
Like Apple and its App Store, Grand St will evaluate whether or not those goods should be listed alongside its other hardware products. They’ll be judged based on creativity, reliability, user experience, design, and delight factor. And for certain products, there’s the possibility of being featured as part of Grand St’s daily sales and in its email newsletter.
According to Peyton, the marketplace will launch with more than 150 total items, in pre-order, beta, or available for sale. Of the items that have been accepted, 15 percent of the new products listed are in beta, 35 percent are available for pre-order, and the final 50 percent are available for purchase on the shop.
Grand St has raised $1.3 million in funding from First Round Capital, David Tisch, Gary Vaynerchuk, betaworks, Collaborative Fund, MESA+, Quotidian Ventures, and Undercurrent.