Bindo To Boost E-Commerce Sales For Small Brick-And-Mortars
By Hannah Ash, contributing writer
Legendary entrepreneur, best-selling author and wine connoisseur Gary Vaynerchuk, who used the power of social media — particularly YouTube — to transform his family’s liquor store into an empire, has a lot of capital and he’s not afraid of throwing it around. A look at some of Vaynerchuk’s recent investments show, to some extent, what the man credited as a marketing genius thinks about the future of e-commerce.
Most recently, Vaynerchuk helped fund Bindo, a startup focused on putting omni-channel and e-commerce capabilities into the hands of smaller brick-and-mortars. Bindo has created an iPad-based POS system that it beta-launched within the Manhattan market in March 2013. Currently, Bindo boasts 180,000 sales from customers within its test market; plans are in effect to launch an app that will empower smaller retailers to offer online inventories and sales. As same-day delivery ramps up, Vaynerchuk clearly sees a niche in alcohol sales; the entrepreneur recently invested in the on-demand alcohol delivery courier Drizly. Drizly is set up as an app that allows consumers to buy alcohol that is then delivered to their locations; the app provides recommendations and promises to deliver the alcohol order within an impressive 40 minutes. Vaynerchuk also recently invested in Niche.co, a startup that focuses on connecting social media celebrities with the brands that want to leverage their influence.
In a recent interview, Vaynerchuk said that what matters, when it comes to success in the landscape of new technology creations, is the quality of a product. Vaynerchuk states, “I would also ask you the question — and the audience — of what's the difference between Yahoo, Google, and Bing? The answer's nothing. In theory, if none of them existed, if we all sat here and said 'what are the differences?' The difference is product.” Though other companies, including industry giant Amazon, may pose competition for the companies in which Vaynerchuk is choosing to invest, he clearly believes that the products are worth his money.