{"id":14254,"date":"2022-06-02T01:55:21","date_gmt":"2022-06-01T15:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/?p=14254"},"modified":"2022-06-02T01:55:24","modified_gmt":"2022-06-01T15:55:24","slug":"featured-listing-no-1-local-shopping-tool-in-north-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/featured-listing-no-1-local-shopping-tool-in-north-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Listing: No.1 Local-Shopping Tool in North America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About the business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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View the listing on Flippa<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Tell us a little about yourself. What\u2019s your background? How did you start the business?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since its inception, the eCommerce ecosystem has been designed to make it easier to buy a mediocre product 5,000 miles away than an amazing product 5 miles down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn’t until late 2019 that veteran comm marketer\/Sook-founder Jonathan Sandals realized this truth. The epiphany came after speaking to small businesses in his new hometown & going through the experience of trying to buy a local jacket for the rainy Seattle winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the business side, local retailers have been told that by creating an online store, they can find and attract customers through:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) SEO (capturing people searching for products on Google); and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) Ads on social media<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are two areas that require levels of funding, expertise, and time that small businesses simply don’t have compared with corporate retailers whose marketing teams work around the clock to target the exact, same consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the consumer side, buying local requires charity-levels of effort to actually do. If you wanted to buy a pair of pants locally, for example, you would:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1) Already need to know the names of the local businesses you wanted to shop;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2) Need to find their online stores; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3) Work to compare the offerings from 5, 10, and 15 local distinct websites at the same time!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first theory on how to make shopping local more normal was to integrate local product options into current online shopping habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This took the form of a browser extension approved by Google in August 2020 and Firefox in March 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sook functions by aggregating the inventory from 2,500+ small businesses across 125 cities into a product database that can be sorted by product type, price, and distance from the consumer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumers can either: 1) Shop on their regular big-name websites and wait until Sook alerts them of local options for what they’re looking for, or 2) Click on the Sook logo and browse products in a familiar way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an eCommerce business<\/a>, where are your products made?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The products found on Sook are the products sold at the small businesses essential to the fabric of their community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can you tell us about your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this space, Sook’s competitors have been paying $45-$125 per user. Sook’s inherent narrative and appeal mean we’ve paid a fraction of that – building our community into the No. 1 local-shopping tool with no marketing or ad budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How have you marketed the product and where are your customers originating from?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Primarily, Sook has worked through organic promotion to the following communities: 1) City-pride communities (targeting online communities for different cities where Sook works); 2) Fashion communities (targeting clothing and apparel enthusiast communities); 3) Early adopter communities (mostly tech communities who want to use new, exciting tools); 4) Positive-news communities (people who like to follow progressive, forward-thinking stories).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the asset on your listing owner-operated, how much time does it take to run the business, who else is needed on the team, and what is automated?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, Sook could run on its own as long as the bills are paid, but there is infinite room to use our database to build websites and apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does someone need to do to continue operating the business in its current form?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just make sure bills are paid to keep Sook running. To make money from email marketing, they need to offer it to small businesses or sign up for an affiliate program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing the business<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Can you list a few opportunities for a potential new owner to continue growing the business?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Potential buyers can: 1) Send sponsored or marketing emails to Sook users; 2) License for use in new countries; 3) Charge small businesses to be included; 4) Introduce share-of-sale for products discovered through the extension; 5) Identify shopping trends based on user consumption; 6) Build a website of our current database; 7) Build an app off of our current database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What has been the evolution of this asset since its launch?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The No. 1 local-shopping extension in North America. The goal of its creation was simple: Integrate local products into the regular online shopping of consumers. Without any money spent on advertising, the extension has organically grown to 11,000+ users, 2,500+ small businesses integrated, 1.3 million products, and works in 125+ cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does this business make money? What are the current revenue streams?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, Sook makes money by providing sponsored content and affiliate emails to our users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What marketing channels are most profitable for the business?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Email<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does the business currently acquire customers and what is your breakdown for marketing costs?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, Sook doesn’t pay for users. When I need to boost users, I simply find communities like the ones listed above and post about Sook!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How big is your current team? How many people does it take to run this business?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the reason for selling your business on Flippa?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve taken on an ever-expanding role in podcasting that has monopolized all my time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View the listing on Flippa<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About the business Tell us a little about yourself. What\u2019s your background? How did you start the business? Since its inception, the eCommerce ecosystem has been designed to make it easier to buy a mediocre product 5,000 miles away than an amazing product 5 miles down the road. It wasn’t until late 2019 that veteran […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":14255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[394],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14254"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14254"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=14254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}