ThingLink, which allows anyone to add clickable tags to any web image (useful for brands) and Savalanche, a Finnish social shopping startup, are today launching a new image-based social shopping model. In effect it will allow anyone to set up a web store and become a retailer for anything they want, while making their their shop appear on images.
Ulla Engeström, founder and CEO of ThingLink says it “makes social media exposure convert into sales.” An we’re talking one click here: thus speed. One click between a product and its buy button increases the chances of a sale. However, I must admit ThingLink will need a bigger partner than Savalanche if this is to take off outside of Finland.
But there is a nice potential upside here for content sites which blog about products, and Thinglink can already point to examples like retailers including Finnish Design Shop, Valleys and Tia Arkko.
ThingLink claims to be currently serving thirty million image views monthly and appeals mainly to music and lifestyle publishers says Engeström.
Last month ThingLink partnered with SoundCloud to add audio tags to images used by musicians on the site.
Here is is in action:
