By Anupreeta Das
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -
When David Pangelinan isn't
logging 14-hour days driving a fuel tanker, he's at his
computer indulging his latest hobby: building a succession of
online stores in minutes.
Pangelinan has built four online stores offering hundreds
of products for sale, from Bulova watches to Betty Boop
pillows, using the Web site Zlio.
"It was real easy," said Pangelinan, 43, who lives in
Columbus, Georgia.
Pangelinan said he's still learning the finer points of
e-commerce, and spends time browsing through thousands of
products on Zlio's catalogue that he could sell.
"I just went in there and started jotting down the products
that were interesting and caught my eye," said Pangelinan, who
spends six to 10 hours a week tending to his shops.
Zlio, which launched in France in 2006 and in January
in the United States, allows people to form online stores for
free. Users can choose a name, address and template for the
store they want to create and then begin displaying wares, say
an iPod or a T-shirt.
It's a simple tool, with none of the typical hassle of
designing a site, setting up a payment gateway and keeping
stock of merchandise and shipping.
Once signed up, a new shopkeeper can choose from more than
3 million products offered by 120 merchants, including Barnes &
Noble Inc, Zappos, Gap Inc and Apple Inc. They can then invite
friends and relatives to shop.
"It's the Tupperware party concept gone online," said
Zlio founder and Chief Executive Jeremie Berrebi. "But
people are defining the concept of the shop."
Berrebi, an Internet journalist-turned-entrepreneur, said
he meshed the idea of a Tupperware party with social
recommendation features in which users turn to friends for
shopping suggestions to create Zlio.
The notion of helping people create online stores is nearly
as old as the commercial Web itself. Major e-commerce players
eBay Inc and Amazon Inc have helped Web entrepreneurs set
up hundreds of thousands of independent online stores.
Sites such as CafePress have been around since 1999,
allowing Web users to create stores to sell personalized
accessories like coffee mugs. Zlio offers a far wider range of
goods for sale and takes more of a social networking approach.
Zlio also provides some marketing help. They can put a
widget on their Facebook or other social networking page, or
use Google Inc's AdSense software to direct traffic to their
sites.
So far, people have created more than 250,000 stores, many
organized around themes. One was devoted to all things red,
another sold only hot sauce, a third focuses on The Beatles.
John Holsen, who runs a small publishing business in Kansas
City, Missouri, recently started a shop with his wife, a yoga
teacher, to sell yoga gear.
"It started as an experiment to see if I could build an
e-commerce site in five minutes," Holsen said. "And you can."
He said his site gets up to 5,000 hits a month and makes
about $300-$400 on monthly revenue of $3,000. "You won't get
wealthy off of it, but if you built enough sites, you can
probably make a decent income," he said.
On average, shopkeepers make about $300 a month, but top
sellers can make as much as $3,000, Zlio spokeswoman Rachel
Bremer said.
Merchants share the revenue with Zlio and the seller based
on the number of clicks and sales. Shopkeepers display wares
and can earn up to 10 percent commission through eBay's PayPal
online payment service, either on every sale or on every click
generated. They don't have to worry about shipping orders
because the companies take care of it.
Last year, Zlio generated $12 million in sales for the
companies with which it has tie-ups, Berrebi said. He refused
to disclose how much money the site makes. He also has seen
some business interest in the site. Mangrove Capital, which was
an early investor in eBay's popular Skype Internet phone
service, is backing Zlio, too.
As for the name Zlio itself, Berrebi said it doesn't mean
anything. "It's just a four-letter word."
(Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)
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