Nowadays it’s pretty easy to set up an Online store to sell products, but every store has a common problem; consumers have to buy “blind” – they can’t see or touch the products physically. This is one of the most serious drawbacks limiting the growth of e-commerce. “Moast”, a Canadian startup co-founded by Mark Yeramian & Steve Mastro, offers a solution to this challenge.
With an innovative approach to sales, Moast’s team believe that ecommerce can compete favorably with brick-and-mortar stores & reduce their costs. Their system revolves around turning existing clients/customers into product-hosts. The idea is that businesses contact existing clients & ask them if they’d be willing to meet with potential clients who’d like to see the product firsthand before they buy. Once the existing customer agrees to this, he/she is listed on the businesses’ map as a contact for a particular area & product, & offered compensation for their time & effort.
So, instead of setting up multiple stores with expensive full time employees to showcase products, businesses simply have to arrange suitable compensation for the host’s time, which is, obviously, a far cheaper solution.
The platform’s dashboard offers facilities to construct a map, which links to products available on a company’s Online store. The link also lists product-hosts in the area who’ve bought the item. This map can be transferred from Moast’s dashboard to the company’s Website in the form of an iframe. The solution also includes embeddable contact forms, so that setting up a meeting with a host or acquiring a new host is a seamless experience. The iframe is easy to integrate & is only a line or two of code, which the client can copy & paste.
Currently, Moast is a pay-for tool, & includes all the tools necessary to set up and run the system. They also offer a free trial period so that clients can assess whether or not the tools are beneficial.
Image credit: Moast
