Member Article

Gateshead’s Blooie aim to bring real world sales tactics online

A team of Gateshead-based developers have built an e-commerce tool that aims to bring “real world” sales tactics online, and are competing with firms in the US and Asia to corner the market.

The eleven strong team at Blooie have launched their ‘Communicate’ tool - a product that facilitates interaction between customers and the owners of e-commerce sites.

As alumni of the Ignite100 programme, co-founders Mark Ryan and Chris Manson have raised venture capital and angel investor funding to take Communicate to market.

The idea had started life as a social chat tool, used to join readers of online content together. Since the start of 2013 the team have refocused and are now connecting potential customers with sellers.

Mark Ryan explained: “There are many reasons why people want to have a conversation online, but ultimately they want conversation because they’re engaged with something. We had a tool that was doing this, and it didn’t take long before we saw the potential in e-commerce.

“We wanted to change what chat should really be about on your website. As we see it, this is about bringing real world sales tactics online.

“If you’re in a shop, an assistant can come and ask you if they can help. They use that chance to drive someone to a sale. We’re providing the same opportunity, but with an added arsenal of statistics about who their customers is, what they like and what they’re looking for - in real time.”

Communicate provides a drop-down chat interface for websites to install, which is designed to mimic “can I help you?” moment.

The website also has a dashboard at its disposal, where all browsers are displayed in real-time, including information about what other site they’ve come from, how they engaged with it and even an email address.

Communicate pulls in information from user’s social networks to build a profile of them - a powerful tool for sellers to employ.

A subscription model generates monthly revenue for the firm, who say the scope for the product is huge - from online butchers to car showrooms.

Mark added: “The fundamentals aren’t all that new, but we aim to offer a tool that gives websites control of their sales pipeline.

“With Communicate, websites can talk to customers at very stages of the pipeline - from those who are just about to commit on the “buy it now” button, to those who’ve yet to go on the website.

“The website can also send out a tweet or facebook with a link, targeted to users, driving them to specific points on their site where they can then engage them in chat.”

Mark explains the next steps for Blooie, and Communicate, will be around strengthening the product’s functionality and marketing it to establish a customer base in the North East and UK.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .