Social shopping site, Shopcade, is introducing a new feature today that will reward its most active or, more precisely, its most influential users. Yes, folks, this is another attempt to turn social capital into something more material.
Building on the startup’s recently introduced gamification features which include a ‘Trendsetter Score’ awarded to each user — a sort of ‘Klout for shopping’ — the slightly unimaginatively-named ‘Perks’ will see its top users able to redeem exclusive products and deals. Those ‘Perks’ will hail from the brands that are the most popular on the platform, in terms of purchases and sharing (this is a social shopping site after all), and will include the likes of Apple and Urban Outfitters.
Pitched as a “trend-based” social shopping site where users discover, shop, share and get rewarded, Shopcade claims an inventory comprising of 100,000 brands and 70 million products. Notably, the London-headquartered company is founded by Nathalie Gaveau, who previously co-founded PriceMinister (which sold to Rakuten for 200 million euros in 2010). Angel investors include Daniel Bernard, former CEO of European retailer Carrefour, Ian Livingston, co-founder of Eidos Games and Lord John Birt, former director general of the BBC.
Shopcade rolled out its ‘Trendsetter Score’ and additional gamification features this July. The former rates users on their influence in relation to each other’s shopping habits. In addition, users get a set of “missions” or challenges to complete in order to earn rewards in the form of exclusives from partner brands, along with other game-like features, as the site hopes to increase engagement and, presumably, conversions.
In fact, gamification seems to be the wider bet here — hence today’s ‘Perks’ introduction. As we’ve previously reported, the company recently hired game designer Lawrence Clark to focus on developing and building more game mechanisms into the site.