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[EXCLUSIVE] ShopPay: Taking the online store to the social network

I was out for a few beers with Andrian Lee a few weeks ago. I remember that night clearly because it was then that we dreamt of how easy online transactions would become if PayPal had full support in the Philippines. “How we wish PayPal came soon.” When I got to the car to drive home, Mike Abundo texts me saying PayPal had arrived. Wow. Beers with Andrian equates to accelerating the seemingly impossible in eCommerce.

Anyway I digress. Between beers, we talked about his new widgetized online shop. Why not bring the shop to the online consumers in social networks rather than have them go to different sites? Andrian told me that this move will not only make merchants’ goods easier to access, but it will also give incentives for social network members to earn cash on the side through commissions.

You can see some samples of the online shop widgets in his Multiply page:

http://reinventme.multiply.com/journal

This live shopping widget is in my Multiply page promoting TicketWorld. If you click on this item or more items, it leads to your shopping page. Everytime you update your main shopping page, all of your widgets scattered around the Internet will also be updated with your latest news, products and services.

My AsiaPay team has developed a new application to bring online shopping to the Friendster Generation and we are giving the code away to help our merchants promote ecommerce to the Pinoy social networking-obsessed market. Imagine being embedded in Friendster & all major social networking sites When they click on it, it leads to your page.

Now, your featured event can be imbedded like YouTube or Flickr in the ShopPay widget. We will be making the application available on Google’s Open Social (Friendster) & Facebook platforms.

ShopPay be as easy as imbedding your photos & video in your Friendster, Facebook & other major social networking personal pages. [via email]

The service has not yet been formally launched. Andrian gave me a week’s head up to unveil the service to the Internet community. If you check out his Multiply site, you’ll notice that the service allows for Level-Up top ups, Ticket World, World Vision Donations and many more.

Stay tuned for more announcements and the formal launch of ShopPay in the coming days.

By Jayvee Fernandez

Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast, EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.

5 replies on “[EXCLUSIVE] ShopPay: Taking the online store to the social network”

Great concept… but I was surprised when I saw his Flash Widgets. I guess I was expecting more like a “shop-inside-multiply” kind of thing, where you never have to leave your social network. I see some multiply pages doing this already using custom forms (but without the payment). Just my 2 cents.

The idea of doing business over social networks isn’t a completely new thing as many already do so especially in multiply. However, doing online transactions is different story in itself which IMHO is a risky thing to pursue whether you’re the seller or buyer in a situation wherein its not yet proven to be safe at all.

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