Built In Chicago would like to congratulate August’s Startup of the Month: Reppio!
This fashion and goods startup puts the tools to shop locally in the palm of your hand—or at least at the tip of your finger. Founded by four former finance guys, Reppio evolved from a peer-to-peer shopping network into the ecommerce discovery portal it is today.
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“Reppio's goal is to allow users to discover both their own city and new cities in a completely different way, by showcasing shops tucked away off main boulevards and underground designers,” says co-founder Sean Korb. “By giving users access to these sellers, they can find the most original, unique pieces that fit their style and buy them straight from Reppio.”
By giving people the ability to virtually browse local boutiques and sellers without storefronts, Reppio is poised to shake up the way locals shop. Within a month of their pivot, Reppio signed up 3,500 new users.
We chatted with Korb to find out more about Reppio’s origins, the challenges of local shopping, why they pivoted and how they converged from around the country onto Chicago. Find our interview below.
How did the idea come about?
With current platforms, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to dive into a neighborhood and see the “hidden gems” instead of the mass merchants that can advertise the most. We started Reppio in order to remedy that disconnect. The reality is that busy professionals and urban dwellers rarely have time to explore or take advantage of their own neighborhoods, and they are missing out on the best parts.
What makes you different from other local shopping sites?
Sites such as Yelp or Facebook have some local, but lack basic discovery tools. These platforms give limited insight into the shop (style, products, or prices), are not ecommerce platforms, and require the users to know the store name or specific area they want to explore. Ecommerce sites such as Etsy, the Fancy, or Wanelo are aggregators of products that are not tied to any locale.
What are some of your day-to-day challenges?
One of the biggest challenges for us is deciding which shops, artists, and designers best match our vision for Reppio. We want only the best, highest quality, and most unique sellers who can represent local culture. We have been lucky with inbound requests to be on the site and we take vetting out who best belongs.
What funding, if any, have you amassed to date?
We are a fully seed-funded start up through private investors.
Why did you pivot from P2P to B2C?
When we decided to go help solve the local market issue, we investigated the P2P market first to see what was lacking and how to make it more efficient. As we went further into it, we found we were not passionate about it as much as the local shops that we were overlooking by focusing on P2P. We ultimately decided to go with B2C model because we felt that we would offer more to the users as well as the shops we are representing.
How are you uniquely using technology to solve the problems surrounding discovering local goods?
We are using technology to help blur the lines between online and in-store shopping. When a user is browsing we want him or her to connect with a product beyond a picture, as if he or she were in the store.
What are some of your greatest successes to date?
Our greatest success has been the positive feedback from vendors and users alike on our commitment and belief in local shopping. We have been very well received in Chicago and as a result been growing our user base at a fast pace from limited marketing coupled with strong word of mouth recommendations.
What are your goals for the rest of 2013?
In 2013 we want to connect Chicago with other major US cities so that users in these cities can connect with the best local shops, designers, and artists in each market. Our focus has always been on local—meaning independent—small shops and designers instead of mass merchants. As part of that, we want to redefine local from being ~5 miles from someone’s house to be across the US (and soon internationally) so they can interact with these aspirational shopping destinations as if they were a local.
Why are you based in Chicago?
Chicago has offered a great launching point for Reppio. The diverse and vibrant neighborhood structure of the city is ideal for starting a business whose goal is to connect people with unknown neighborhoods and shops. Also, the technology community here lends itself to a startup such as ours. Whereas LA is more media, Boston biotech, and San Francisco pure social; Chicago has a history of exporting scalable community based start-ups that offer an innovative value add proposition (i.e. Groupon and Belly). Given our vision and Chicago's tech community, it was an easy decision to base ourselves here.
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