Swish (YC W13) Makes Selling Simpler For Inventors And Creators

Swish (YC W13) Makes Selling Simpler For Inventors And Creators(techcrunch.com)

78 points by lanthe 13 years ago | 13 comments

There's definitely room in the market for several players (in terms of the whole crowd-design/manufacturing space), but I think that down the road, there will be one clear winner. At the end of the day, this industry is a network effects game. Inventors/sellers will always flock to the service with the largest user base to increase their chances of getting their ideas to market. Right now, I'd say the frontrunners are Kickstarter and Quirky, although I've personally seen inventors shy away from Kickstarter because of their increasingly stingy policies. Quirky probably has the most unique model by partnering with big box retailers and tapping into a much broader distribution bottleneck.

czstrong 13 years ago | |

I don't think there will be one clear winner in the crowd-design/manufacturing space, I think there is room for a site for each niche.

For example, http://www.unbrandeddesigns.com/ is gaining traction as "Quirky for furniture". I see many advantages. The submissions and participants are more focused and passionate since they're only dealing with the type of product they care about. And the team can source, build, sell, and distribute more effectively because they are only working within one industry.

spangborn 13 years ago |

The site itself is a bit weird. Most of the content looks like it's loaded in via AJAX, and on a slower connection it's pretty jarring. Clicking on "See All" initially shows the "About Us" section of the page, which caused me to think I clicked the wrong link, and went back. It wasn't until I clicked it again that I noticed what was going on. At least throw some kind of AJAX spinner/placeholder or indicator that the page content is still loading.

Cool idea though.

Bradosaur 13 years ago | |

Thanks for the input! We're AJAXing in the product data, and then the browser fetches the images from CloudFront. I'll add a spinner asap.

eaurouge 13 years ago |

Sounds like a great concept. But 35% of markup is too high. Margins for hardware goods are low enough already. Then you take 35% of that. I think you'll end up with a bunch of overpriced items with inventors struggling to make a profit.

HeatherBrundage 13 years ago | |

I can see why you might think 35% is high. Compared to Kickstarter or Esty who only charge ~5%, we do take a larger percentage. But at the same time, we are not just a platform like they are. We are actually a retailer, and we take care of payment processing and fulfillment to consumers. Most retailers charge 50% of the retail price for these services (which cost real money).

Though Kickstarer only takes 5%, you pay another ~5% in payment processing fees, and then you must set up and pay for fulfillment yourself, which is time consuming and expensive! We think it is inefficient that every Kickstarter or Etsy creator has to come up with a solution on their own, often at a large expense. We want the creator to focus as much as possible on building the best product they can, not on fulfillment, website, video, PR, etc etc.

You can read more about our wholesale pricing thoughts at: http://swish.com/wholesale

eaurouge 13 years ago | | |

I understand where you're coming from, but I would argue that your true value add is discoverability or customer acquisition.

Payment processing can be added easily to any customer-facing website. One-time product fulfillment for any number of customers, for completed products all located at one place isn't too hard. Yes, packaging is a challenge, but there are dedicated e-fulfillment services like Shipwire that don't cost so much.

Assuming I have a product that I would like to sell for $100, after accounting for payment processing and order fulfillment (let's say at 3% and 5% respectively), that leaves around 27% for customer acquisition. So I have to decide if paying more than $25 to acquire each customer is worth it. If we're talking about Costco, Amazon, Walmart, maybe. Some inventors would give their first born to get on a Costco or Walmart shelf, probably for good reason too. I don't think Swish offers the same value proposition, at least not yet.

srlake 13 years ago | |

If you're going through mainstream distribution, even at large volumes, at least 30-35% between the retailer and distributor is expected for electronics. More for other classes of goods. If the value proposition is really to handle distribution and fulfillment 35% could be attractive to small businesses that are below volumes for mainstream distribution.

lukevdp 13 years ago | |

I guess it depends on the industry, but in my experience in homewares, 35% is not high at all. 35% is about what a normal online retailer would aim for.

From a manufacturers perspective, it is great to sell through places like this because it allows you to assess demand before investing cash in a product.

jgillman 13 years ago |

I don't mean to be a yes-man, but just to offset some of the other comments: The site is clearly an early (but totally functional) version. It will get better + prettier + more ajaxy as time goes on. Bravo on your launch!

HunterV 13 years ago |

It's like a mix between Quirky.com and Kickstarter if I'm correct?

lanthe 13 years ago | |

We're a degree or two away from several businesses... I'd say we were closer to "Kickstarter meets Reddit".

kirillzubovsky 13 years ago |

I like little niche markets like this. If Roots didn't beat you by two weeks, I'd definitely get a cork wallet; seriously, a cork wallet! I like.