Cartonomy aims to revolutionise social commerce with shared shopping carts

Cartonomy intends to answer the demand for a smarter, hassle-free approach to group shopping online. Its social shopping cart is enables you to create, coordinate and order shopping lists for you, your team or your family at the best price possible.

cartonomy aims to revolutionise commerce with shared shopping carts ZDNet
cartonomy aims to revolutionise commerce with shared shopping carts ZDNet

The New York based start-up has raised $1M from angel investors in 2014. It enables you to make group purchases with family, co workers and friends by creating groups and carts to organise your purchases.

More about e-commerce strategies

Cartonomy has access to over 10 million products from Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Staples and Drugstore.com.

The site enables you to place a group order online, connect your social communities and save time and money on purchases.

Admins create carts and users contribute to the list of items to purchase.

The site lists the lowest price and advises the admins you when someone has added something to the cart. Admins can move items to other carts.

On checking out, admins can review the list from each retailer. The site reroutes to the secured checkout on each retailer's site where the purchase can be finalised.

Cartonomy does not process the transaction. Instead it passes the secured data to the retailer for processing.

Cartonomy claims to be the only social shopping platform to allow price comparison across multiple online retailers.

Behind the product is a platform that integrates APIs from major retailers across the US. It consolidates their product catalogs into a standardized format, embedded within the platform.

Read this

E-commerce will make the shopping mall a retail wasteland

Search algorithms allow you to find anything you are looking for and add it to your own -- or someone else's cart. Shared items can be viewed by anyone in the cart and there is an option to add items that only you can see.

So why would you need social shopping carts? This product enables users to collaboratively search for exactly what they want, and add these items into a group shopping cart.

The cart can then be reviewed, and purchased directly from retailers in a few clicks. The whole process is collaborative.

CEO and Founder Jack Lowinger founded Cartonomy in order to fill a void of viable social shopping options online.

He intends to "turn tasks laden with disorganisation and frustration to streamlined tasks shopping as a group".

Lowinger saw a gap in the social commerce market and created the platform to target busy families and the SME office supply business. In public beta since September 2014, he anticipates that the site will launch in late February. He also plans an iOS app at launch.

"Social shopping is poised to guide the future of commerce, especially online. More than ever, folks are looking to shop together, for items they actually need.

From office furniture to gift baskets to everyday household items, we provide access to the full catalogues of today's top retailers." he says.

A father of four, responsible for his family's purchases, Lowinger discovered that Cartonomy could be an efficient solution for family collaboration as well.

Any tool that replaces the messiness of group ordering and enables you to get what you want for your home and office will ease our busy lives.

The Cartonomy philosophy could be used across a variety of different industries to make group shopping and e-commerce easier. That could be a very cool thing indeed.

Related articles: