Interview with Ferdinando Caruso, Founder of Live Cartel, the first online shop platform that combines the typical features of e-commerce with the innovation of live streaming.
The history of e-commerce, as we know it today, has a very ancient tradition. It was in 1995 when a guy from Seattle ,whose name is Jeff Bezos, launched the largest online library in the world: Amazon. We know how this story (not) turned out, today Amazon is not only a simple bookstore on the net, but a global giant that over time has become the reference point for online purchases. Since 1995 a lot has been done, other actors have come into play, technologies have increasingly evolved and e-commerce has become an extension of physical shops, accessible to all. Launching your own e-commerce of products however, may not be properly so simple. You need planning, sizable investment in some cases, in-depth knowledge of the regulations and of course of someone who will help you to create the website!
Live Cartel, a platform rigorously Italian, was created to help those who dream to open their own brand online, making their life a little easier.
What is Live Cartel
Live Cartel is an online shop platform that allows you to open your professional e-commerce in a few clicks and without stress. To start selling your products, you won’t need any computer skills or the support of friends and family persons’ skilled in the field. Simply you have to register yourself into the platform to start configuring your online store in just a few steps. You sign up, Live Cartel does the rest!
The functions of Live Cartel
Opening an online shop with Live Cartel is very simple. Thanks to an advanced editor, in fact, you can customise the store in an effective and functional way.
The product catalogue
You can quickly create your own catalogue of products including variants (sizes, colours, shapes, etc.) with just a few clicks. You can manage categories, prices, discounts and stocks without any inventory restrictions. European tax profiles are already pre-filled, in such a way as to waste too much time on bureaucratic issues. And if you already have a website with a catalogue but your desire is to switch to Live Cartel, don’t worry! The Live Cartel team will be at your disposal to migrate the entire catalogue to the new platform.
Marketing
Live Cartel is an innovative platform that also is dedicated to the promotion of your brand! Among the features included ,in fact, there are tools to increase your sales and make more efficient investments. Among them:
- SEO management of products
- creation of discount codes
- creation of promotional prices
- live streaming shopping
The Live Streaming Shopping
This feature can be defined as the most advanced and innovative online sales strategy. Included in the Live Cartel offering, Streaming allows you to sell your products live, via the Live Cartel application. You can create your own online show, invite people to watch it and allow them to shop live while you present your products. Revolutionary, is it not?
How much is Live Cartel?
The platform allows you to immediately open your account for free for a trial and if you like it, you can choose between the different plans which one best suit your needs. The really nice news is that you can start selling from 22,95€.
If you want to know more about Live Cartel read the following interview with Ferdinando Caruso, founder of the company.
Hello Ferdinando, nice to meet you and thank you for your time. Tell us more about this fantastic project.
Hi, thanks to you! In short, Live Cartel is the first platform in the world that combines “traditional” e-commerce services with live-commerce in a native and integrated way. The platform allows anyone to open in a few minutes a complete online shop, professional, easy to use and that offers the possibility of selling live
How and when was the idea of Live Cartel born?
During the lockdown there was an explosion of e-commerce, due to the need to find alternative sales methods than the classical physical store. In Italy this revolution has been and is before everyone’s eyes. But if we move on to look at what is happening around the world, we can see that there are many more revolutionary realities that can really change the rules and sales methodologies. In China, for example, lockdown has given a decisive boost to a phenomenon already active in the online sales sector that I have been monitoring for a while: live-streaming. In the East there are many apps that allow you to make live sales, but my idea was to expand the tool of live streaming, integrating it into a platform that also allows the creation of an online store. In this way it was possible to offer a wider audience both the possibility of selling with classic checkout and during a live video promotion. Starting from this , we started to work on simplification, because I wanted the platform to be the easiest to manage among the existing on the market. Simplicity, we know, is the hardest effect to achieve, but we succeeded 🙂
How long did it take to shape the project?
Well, there is therefore a rightful premise about it. The team that realized the project has a history of professional harmony that lasts for years and a combination of professional skills that is really hard to find. This meant that the development time was drastically reduced by a combination of uncommon factors. What in fact would have required at least 24 months of development, was actually accomplished in just over half, more or less 14 months for everything, both for the web part and app. It is important to note that during this period, not only were no other live-commerce platforms born, but no other ecommerce platforms were born in general. This is because creating a PAAS (platform as a service) is already very complex, but doing it in the field of e-commerce is also more challenging.
Live Cartel was created to offer to all the possibility to open and launch their own brand online. How important is technology in the process of “democratization” of business opportunities?
So much. Technology, however, can be both an opportunity and a threat. Let’s say that, in the field of sales services such as Live Cartel, the technology is winning if the user takes the same time to make more gains, or earns the same as before but taking less time. Technology is what the users “discounts” in terms of the speed of the operations they perform, of safety, of protection from involuntary errors, but above all of understanding what they are doing, and that they do in an intuitive way, without having to read an instruction manual. Live Cartel technology is the most innovative ever. Everything is realized in a programming language called React, with which for example Facebook is realized, and that we have combined with other technological solutions to give life to the fastest and most performing ecommerce platform on the market. At the same time our concern is to make this ecosystem also very simple to understand, to use and to maintain. I’d say we succeeded perfectly.
Live Streaming Shopping. Live Cartel is the first online shop platform to take advantage of this innovative form of sales. Can you tell us about it?
Live-streaming shopping is like teleshopping on TV, but without advertising and without the obligation to pay for advertising space in the programming, with far smaller investments, but above all with a duration which makes it similar to an event. Despite what happens with social media, where live shows are often long and not very “intense”, on Live Cartel live shows are very short, because the only aim is to sell out the products shown in the shortest possible time. Let’s say that on social media live streaming is more like a slow and long story about the products to sell, and that to be sold forces the visitor to abandon the social media to go to the seller’s website, search for the product, put it in the cart etc…. While on Live Cartel live streaming is a rush to purchase, often on exclusive terms, which takes place directly in the app during the live, without leaving the platform and the direct. Just enter your shipping address, payment details and proceed to purchase quickly. In addition, on Live Cartel you can interact with the public, or invite them to direct private videos, such as for example in the case of a preview launch of a collection. Also, while on social media visitors are and remain users, on Live Cartel visitors become leads for the seller, who can build an interested and target audience, also exploiting the audience of social media, to be carried in a way that is no longer anonymous but identified for your Live Cartel store.
How did you launch your brand?
Thanks to the best agency in the universe 🙂
Plans for the future?
We’re working in two directions:
- Create a special version of the platform to be distributed through selected agencies, in order to be able to offer our technology to large brands that have particular integration needs.
- Develop the live-streaming part, with a multi camera system that allows the seller to manage, through his account, several different cams, to easily organize a real set of video production using only common smartphones. We are also developing an interface through which it is easy to hire an influencer or an external presenter for the live promotion of their products.
All this will be released over the course in 2022
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