SneakPeeq, a social shopping startup that debuted at TechCrunch Disrupt last year, has raised a new round totaling $2.67 million from Bain Capital Ventures; Metamorphic Ventures; Keith Rabois, Tim Kendall, Mike Murphy, and Vikas Gupta.
As we wrote in our initial review of Sneakpeeq, aims to replicate the experience of shopping for items in a retail store. So similar to the way you flip over a price tag to look at the cost of at item at a store, SneakPeeq doesn’t tell you the price instantly when you visit a product’s landing page. You click a “Peeq” button to find the price. The site features daily boutiques that offer discounts on clothes, shoes, home accessories and more from a variety of brands from well-known names like Kate Spade and Puma to smaller designers and purveyors.
At launch in May, Sneakpeeq would actually drop the price everytime you took a “Peeq” at the price of an item, with the discount available only until someone else bought the item. The company has pivoted slightly into more of an action-based shopping network. So basically, by Peeqingm buying, sharing items on Facebook, and more, you earn badges on Sneakpeeq, which can then be applied for discounts on an items.
All items are generally around 10 to 15 percent off, but in order for the price to drop even more, you need to perform some of the actions mentioned above. Founder Henry Kim explains to be that brands and merchants like this action-based system because pricing isn’t dropping for everyone, and is lowered for the people who are actually interacting with and sharing the product. Each boutique has a leaderboard where fans can compete by peeqing, sharing, and buying at products.
Additionally, every member on Sneakpeeq builds a discovery profile through peeqing, sharing and buying things. Users can also see who shares common interests in various product categories including Taste (gourmet foods), Living (home), and Style (fashion and accessories).
Another key differentiator for Sneakpeeq is a new Facebook Open Graph integration with the customized ‘peeq’ button. Basically, as you opt-in to the integration and ‘peeq’ items, this will be show on your Timeline. The integration will also show when a few of your friends are peeqing at a common boutique/product.
Kim says that the startup’s key engagement metric is defined as the sum total of peeqs, loves and shares in a month. When Sneakpeeq launched last year, the startup was at 78,745 engagements per month and in January 2012, saw 600,641 engagements.
In the future, Kim is working to expand gifting options so members will be able to gift products to and share badges with their friends. Video, and mobile technologies will also be introduced in the next few months.
Sneakpeeq is doing something in the social shopping space that could be very important for the next wave e-commerce. The startup is trying to incentivize users to actually engage with products in a social manners, and along the way, express this via Facebook actions.
