THE BIG IDEA
Here’s the “BIG IDEA” in 144 words:
There is a fundamental disconnect between the quantity of products that capture our attention and imagination each and every year
and the amount we actually decide and can afford to buy in the end, because of the prohibitive prices that such highly advertised or premium goods usually have. Therefore people are forced to face tradeoffs.
However, this problem can be overcome by putting in place a system that allows people to share part of their wealth in a mutually beneficial way.
Snapup is a platform to complete shared purchases that allows people to
“smart share” their money, and gain huge benefits in the process.
It leverages the power of the cryptocurrency, the latest advances in Information Technology and the power of the community to help people get the products they love and desire most saving from 80% up to 90% on their retail prices.
Our unique mechanism is different from everything that came before us.
Takes the best from ideas that have already proven successful in the past, Online Penny Auctions and GPOs, disrupts them with our revolutionary economic model based on meritocracy and brings them in the new era of the web!
A Changing Market
The birth of our business is rooted in the analysis of several Economical, Social and Technological forces that make this the ideal historical moment for it to raise:
Global demand for luxury goods is strong and rapidly growing, with over $200 billion in annual sales each year. Consumers purchase these goods for a variety of reasons, among them because they convey a sense of status, wealth, and exclusivity. [1]
These kinds of high quality products are very popular amongst young people aged from 18 to 30, especially technology and clothing, but these generations have also been shown to be more price savvy of their elder counterparts and focused on making the most out of their money. [2]
“As Millennial and Gen Z consumers become a dominant spending force, their phones are their connection to the world, and it’s only getting easier for them to spend their money by using it.” — Ms. Drucker Mann
The market of the services that try to address similar needs is facing a period of decline because the businesses in the landscape are not keeping up with changes in technology and the habits of the new generations.
Current solutions are created to fit into a world that doesn’t exist anymore:
- They assume that people are gonna interact with their websites using a Desktop computer, so they don’t have an experience optimised for mobile devices.
- They are not ready for a world in which Sharing Economy, Smartphones and Alternative Payment Methods are the buzzwords.
If we think about it, less then a decade ago, you could surf the net only with your Desktop computer while being at home. Businesses like Internet Points flourished, as of today, you see fewer of them for every year that goes by.
Why? Starbucks! Nono, just kidding.
A 2016 Google survey stated that roughly 70% of google searches are performed from Smartphones. [3][4]
Last year, the number of smartphone users reached all time highs and an ever increasing number of people use it to shop online while being on the go:
Germany, 74%, France, 66%, United Kingdom, 83%, Italy, 29% [5]
Smartphones are becoming an integral part of our lives, in fact the first thing that 7 out of 10 people do after opening their eyes in the morning is, you guessed it, check their smartphone! [6]
The Problem
Generally, to address this, companies were looking to create mobile apps to launch on the app store. But this comes with a whole series of very strong economical and technical disadvantages, today even more then before:
- The mobile apps market reached saturation. There are millions of apps on the app store but numerous surveys have shown that on average every user is actively engaged with no more than 5 apps installed on her device, besides the stock ones, pre-installed by the manufacturer brand[7].
- 77 percent of users never use an app again within the first 3 days after the install, which is why of the >1.5 million apps in the Google Play store, only a few thousand sustain meaningful traffic. [8]
- Installing software on devices means having to release updates that people will have to download, and thus having to deal with the complexity of handling different versions of your app simultaneously on the devices.
This makes the development and maintenance costs skyrocket. - Your code is in the hands of a third party. To release an update for your application you have to ask for permission to the store in which the app is deployed and wait for approval. This process can take several days.
- Smartphones run many different Operative Systems: IOS, Windows Phone, Android…
These OSs are not compatible, so you must have at least 3 different versions of the same application if you want to be able to use it from any device.
Other important issues that similar businesses face are:
- Keeping up with the interaction of thousands of users at the same time that need to be instantly informed and notified.
In fact if you want to launch such a business you have to take into account the enormous costs and complexities associated with the creation and management of an IT architecture that can serve thousands if not tens of thousands of accesses simultaneously, quickly and reliably, because we are talking about managing financial movements and transactions, and order placements here.
- People are increasingly demanding so the interaction with your application must be fast, interfaces must be intuitive, familiar, and fit perfectly to any device on which the interaction takes place.
What do we need then?
A Web Application that behaves exactly as a mobile app, that works in the same way on any kind of device, included Desktops, that bears the load of thousands of users who interact at the same time at reduced costs and that offers an innovative sales system aimed at the satisfaction of a specific need: To allow people, in the easiest, most intuitive way, with a few clicks or taps, to save on all the most advertised and premium quality products; and last but not least, accept a large variety of payment methods: Traditional Credit Card, Paypal, Fingerprint, Cryptocurrency etc…
This hasn’t been possible, until now!
Our solution
Up to a few years ago the specific technologies to achieve these results did not exist, and the ones that did were incredibly inefficient, overly complicated and costly to manage at scale.
This is no longer the case thanks to the latest advances in the IT Industry pioneered by Google and Facebook engineers.
We invested countless hours of study and research on the most bleeding edge technologies, that combined with our revolutionary sales mechanism are brilliantly solving all the problems that prevented such opportunities to emerge in the market.
What is Snapup?
For young people aged between 18 and 30, that strive to be on the cutting edge of fashion and technology trends, Snapup is a revolutionary platform that allows them to save between 80% and 90% on the retail prices of all the premium products they love and desire most.
Unlike everything that came before it, it is based on a new economic model
that allows people to smart share their wealth in a mutually beneficial and meritocratic way, and is aimed to multiply by orders of magnitude the spending power of all the people who belong to the community.
It has a virtually unlimited catalog thanks to drop shipping and is built with the latest technologies which allows it to be cost efficient, reliable, fast, intuitive and to work seamlessly on every device, no installation needed.
References
[1]: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ill-have-what-shes-having/201405/why-do-we-buy-luxury-brands-and-how-do-they-make-us-feel
[2]: http://www.retailwire.com/discussion/are-millennials-and-gen-z-more-about-convenience-or-price-when-they-shop/
[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/02/mobile-web-browsing-desktop-smartphones-tablets
[4]: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/75-internet-use-will-mobile-2017-report/177433/
[5]: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/tgm/table.do?tab=table&init=1&language=en&pcode=tin00096&plugin=1
[6]: http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/61-percent-people-check-their-smartphones-within-5-minutes-of-waking-up-says-deloitte-survey-355141.html
[7]: https://techcrunch.com/2015/06/22/consumers-spend-85-of-time-on-smartphones-in-apps-but-only-5-apps-see-heavy-use/
[8]: http://andrewchen.co/new-data-shows-why-losing-80-of-your-mobile-users-is-normal-and-that-the-best-apps-do-much-better/
