Despite a slow economic recovery, online retail sales are growing and showing no sign of slowing down. But with the explosion of flash sales, sale aggregators, and local / group deal offers springing up in the wake of continued economic turmoil, shoppers are becoming increasingly savvy. Product and price comparisons across different retail channels and platforms are common practice. However, this glut of information often leads to shopper indecision and inaction.

Two exciting start-ups presenting at Under the Radar in November are capitalizing on the opportunities created by shifting online shopping behavior and revolutionizing the way online retailers can manage their businesses. Both companies seem to have mastered the art of matchmaking between eTailer offerings and potential buyers through real-time shopper behavior and pricing data – solving shopping cart abandonment, competitive pricing, and sales conversion issues.

SteelHouse CEO Mark Douglas, who previously ran engineering at eHarmony, knows a thing or two about matchmaking. Mark is taking the personality trait-based matching technology he built at eHarmony which pairs love-seeking singles on compatibility metrics, and is applying it to dough-digging eTail marketers. The technology segments shoppers on an eCommerce site by behavior, giving marketers the ability to pair specific types of customers with the perfect incentive to influence buying behavior – pulling shoppers back to their shopping carts, and increasing sales conversions and revenue. @steelhousemedia

BlackLocus plays matchmaker on a different plane. Plenty of online retailers sell the same products, but to woo sales, online retailers needs the right marketing strategy and the right price. BlackLocus’ technology makes this possible by providing eTailers a real-time view into their competitors’ pricing strategies on identical products and then automatically recommending a pricing strategy that is current and competitive. @blacklocusCEO

The core of these companies’ businesses revolve around personalizing online retailers’ pricing and product offers around potential customers’ interests and needs. Each provides a real-time solution to eCommerce marketers for courting, then sealing the deal with would-be customers. But as SteelHouse and BlackLocus begin to scale their respective solutions, they must be cognizant to address one of the biggest shifts in online shopping behavior that is helping to fuel overall industry growth – the increase of social shopping. Both companies can amplify the attractiveness of their online retail clients’ mating calls by incorporating social elements. As consumers begin to rely more heavily on shopping recommendations provided within their social graphs SteelHouse should consider developing functionality which harnesses real-time information gleaned from a consumer’s social network to proactively recommend products to a consumer across online retailers. Similarly, because of the growth in popularity of comparison shopping engines to distill massive amounts of information, which often mute the effectiveness of an online retailer’s marketing message, BlackLocus must partner with its clients to help differentiate their products and effectively market to end consumers.

Thank you for this guest blog from  Emily Boyd, follow her on Twitter @emmboyd See both SteelHouse and Black Locus present at Under the Radar November 10th, 2011.

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