Young startup scores Fortune 500 company as first paying enterprise client
BALTIMORE, April 15, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — OpiaTalk is pleased to announce that Skype, a division of Microsoft, is the first paying enterprise client to deploy the startup's hyper-conversion widget for online retailers.
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Launched in early March, OpiaTalk is pioneering hyper-conversion for online retailers with its e-commerce widget, which increases both the speed and volume of online sales. The OpiaTalk widget allows retailers to offer on-site, time-sensitive promotions while simultaneously taking advantage of users' social connections in real time.
Skype is using OpiaTalk's Widget-as-a-Service (WaaS) solution to schedule promotions that allow participants to receive 20 percent off purchases of Skype eGift cards. When the scheduled promotions are running, Skype gift card sales are converting organic traffic at four to five times industry average.
"Social commerce is evolving, and we see participatory commerce (p-commerce) as the future," says OpiaTalk CEO Tom Popomaronis. "Consumers have become extremely savvy about online shopping; they want something to do to keep their attention. P-commerce is all about engagement and action. The more you engage customers and give them opportunities to take action, the more likely they are to buy. The converse is also true — if you're not engaging them, you're losing them. OpiaTalk is based on the tenets of p-commerce: the widget is fun and interactive for customers, and it also hyper-converts traffic and taps into valuable consumer data for retailers. It's a win/win for customers and merchants."
Skype's results are consistent with what other early OpiaTalk beta testers saw:
- High engagement: Of those interacting with the OpiaTalk widget, over 40% opt in by signing in through Facebook or entering their first name and e-mail to receive the promotion.
- Hyper-conversion: When an OpiaTalk campaign is running, Skype's conversion rate in the widget has reached 10%, representing a 4-5x improvement over the industry average.
Initially launched in private beta in late 2013, OpiaTalk integrates seamlessly with a retailer's site and allows customers to receive a promotion code only unlocked when a specified number of other users join the widget. Users can invite Facebook friends directly into the widget, driving even more social engagement. To ensure speedy conversion, the promotion code is only visible for 15 minutes, after which it disappears — the user's experience is "use it or lose it." In an industry where shopping cart abandonment hovers at 67%, hyper-conversion is critical to increasing incremental sales.
Online retailers looking to increase customer engagement and conversions are invited to go to www.opiatalk.com to see if they qualify for a complimentary trial. OpiaTalk works with any platform and any retailer. To see OpiaTalk in action, check out this demo.
OpiaTalk is currently looking to raise additional capital to fuel rapid expansion.
About OpiaTalk
OpiaTalk is pioneering "hyper-conversion" through its widget for e-commerce retailers. The OpiaTalk widget boosts conversion rates at four to five times the industry average, and OpiaTalk's social commerce component and in-platform checkout capabilities are engineered to convert organic site traffic into sales and decrease cart abandonment rates.
The OpiaTalk platform combines social commerce with time-sensitive offers to engage and convert online shoppers at a significantly increased rate. The software is both scalable and customizable, and retailers with above-average social media engagement and site traffic—typically mid-market and enterprise-sized vendors—can expect to see the greatest incremental return.
Contacts:
Daniel Waldman, Email
443-326-3444
Tia Thayil, Email
516-808-3962
OpiaTalk.com