Being entrepreneurially oriented, we love when a startup looks to change the world. SHOP.CA, launched a few months ago to become “the Amazon of Canada,” has the potential to be transformative. With a broad product catalog, competitive prices and a talented management team, the company is in a position to do well. With their unique blend of Social Commerce and Social Loyalty, they’re in a place to explode.

SHOP.CA fundamentally takes an intelligent and highly integrated approach with their Social Loyalty Network(tm). They foster trust through authentic participation (via Pluck Social Sign-On). They encourage category discussions for early stage consideration (through Pluck Forums). They foster consumer ratings at appropriate touch points (with Pluck Reviews). And they actively promote sharing throughout the site at key shopping stages (via Pluck Sharing and Pluck Reactions).

As Trevor Newell, SHOP.CA Co-Founder & President, indicated recently at his Keynote Speech at IBM’s Smarter Commerce Global Summit, “Canadians love to shop. They love to earn. And they love to share online.”

Key to SHOP.CA is their approach to Gamification. They leverage the Pluck Reputation Engine to award points and badges for both contributions and the impact that those have. Further, they take a sophisticated approach to holistic rewards, encouraging altruism, expertise display, and financial benefit. For example, referred new members receive a $25 credit. And trendsetters, who have collected the full family of SHOP.CA badges, earn 2.5% in SHOP.CA Rewards towards future purchases!

To learn more, visit the Social Loyalty Network Section on the shop.ca site. And definitely check out Trevor Newell’s Keynote from the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit. There, he shares history, strategy, best practices, key data points and more. Further, he discusses how Pluck, integrated with IBM Websphere Commerce, helps SHOP.CA grow traffic, engagement and conversions.

As always, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line if you have any questions or comments.

Steve Semelsberger

SVP & GM, Social Products Group

Demand Media

@semels

LinkedIn