As aisle-3 prepares its early consumer marketplace launch, founders of the London-based ecommerce start-up have confirmed they are accelerating the release after securing £400,000 from angel investors including from Snap, Catch and MoneySupermarket.
The brainchild of Thomas J. Vosper and James Valbuena, aisle-3 is a revolutionary online consumer marketplace that makes shopping cheaper, quicker, easier, and more joyful for Shoppers who are used to opening an explosion of tabs and sifting through a constant barrage of online ads – by enabling registered Shoppers a single checkout across all retailers on a single, aggregated product page
Despite the prevalence of aggregators for flights, hotels or services; many shopping comparison sites and discovery platforms have tried and failed to create a destination that shows the best deals. Typically, the common source of failure is the relatively inconsistent standard of product data – which results in poor quality aggregation and is the reason Shoppers keep opening that extra tab to check one more site.
After two years in development, the global team of ecommerce veterans at aisle-3 tackles the woes of product search through proprietary technology that involves machine learning and AI algorithms to aggregate retailer offers and rich product information. Shoppers are presented with all their buying options on a single screen so that they can make purchase decisions based on their values such as price, delivery, locality, sustainability, or brand loyalty.
As important, the aisle-3 consumer marketplace creates unbiased results so retailers and brands are no longer at the mercy of marketplaces that promote their products or search engines that obfuscate results to increase clicks and raise ad revenues
The additional investment will supplement revenue and be directed towards further advancing the brand’s product and tech build; integrating a seamless one-click checkout; funding the first phase of the consumer launch and rolling out of the first product category – entry into the £625m Sneaker Market. When the online marketplace launches in a matter of weeks, it is expected to have the UK’s largest aggregated selection of sneakers and will enable Shoppers to see all their buying options in one place.
Online shopping is broken with frustrated Shoppers having to open an explosion of tabs just to find a pair of sneakers in a size that fits. I’m not prepared to accept or adapt to that experience. We’ve come a long way since I took out a personal loan to bootstrap the company and this latest round of funding will enable us to turbo-charge the business. Offering our registered aisle-3 Shoppers a single basket across any retailer is possibly the most exciting opportunity in e-commerce right now. We’re always hiring and looking forward to hearing from commercial partners, investors and potential team members ahead of our visit to Shoptalk [in Las Vegas] at the end of March
Thomas J. Vosper, aisle-3
Alongside the launch, aisle-3 have announced that they have partnered with one of the UK’s hottest FinTech Banking start-ups to launch a revolutionary cloud basket that Shoppers can use to effortlessly checkout and receive immediate cash-back across multiple retailers.
