There are a couple of clear and magical signs that the era of smart money and the establishment of a proper ecosystem have finally arrived than the groundswell of support and interest received over the last few months during the Shopin Private Presale and the commencement of our Public Presale.
Prior to winning the “Best ICO” award at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami, we had already raised $4.6 million in the Private Presale since its start on September 1, 2017, and three days after the conference, we closed at $10 million, oversubscribed by four times the amount we had anticipated.
The Private Presale concluded on January 27, 2018 at 8 a.m. as a major milestone for a dream that began last year with Eran Eyal, Shopin’s CEO, and Divakar Rayapaty, CTO and CoFounder. And the distance we have travelled since that inception could not have been possible without the enthusiasm and caring of our crypto brothers and sisters.
Shopin hit the ground running with our Public Presale in January with unexpected momentum, and the journey officially began toward innovating the future of retail, online commerce, and user data rights. It has long been the Shopin vision to revitalize and improve the antiquated, broken relationship between retailers and shoppers. It’s a model that needs a reboot. Badly. In a world in which every merchant or outlet seems to be tracking everything about you, it’s insulting how many companies seem to forget shopper’s personal information when it matters most.
The experience of shopping should be easy, streamlined, and convenient. When you go shopping, the store should offer to use information about you to save time and show you the sort of products you want — in your size and preferred style preference — that are available at price points of interest.
If you own your data, it naturally follows that anyone who wants to use it should ask for permission. And if they are going to profit from that data, they should pay you fair value for the privilege. Putting the control and ownership of personal purchase history data back in the hands of shoppers and empowering retailers to reconnect with their customers in a more meaningful and personalized manner are Shopin’s core tenets.
We believe strongly in the right of shoppers to be treated with personal attention everywhere they want it, the right to earn rewards that are honest and actually rewarding, and the right to give and receive gifts that are appreciated. And for retailers, we believe they have the right to advertise to real people with real interest in their products, the right to respectfully offer personal service to every consumer, and the right to deal directly with consumers, exchanging value for their data.
With a shared commitment and belief in a secure, decentralized economy of data built on the blockchain to transform not just the future of retail but the future of all industry sectors for a more intelligent future — we are all on this journey together!
As we enter the final stretch of the first quarter of the New Year, we are in the process of whitelisting participants for our Public Presale, which is still open for those who want to join. We are currently sending out confirmation emails in small batches on a first-come-first-serve basis, and we are on target for the Public Token Sale in mid-March.
In the meantime, we invite all of our Public Presale participants and supporters, even those of you who are just starting to learn about the Shopin vision — who we are as a company and our talented team — to join our Telegram group and be part of the lively, ongoing discussion, and even chat personally with our CEO Eran and other Shopin executives for updates, information, and general conversation.
If you want to learn more about Shopin, please join our Telegram group or Telegram channel for official updates, or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. You can read all about our communities in our recent blog post or find us on Reddit.