Meet Anand Jagannathan

CEO of www.istorez.com

The Sunnyvale, CA-based site is funded by venture capital firm Norwest Venture Partners but despite its Silicon Valley roots, says Jagannathan, it “brought in people with a strong retail background and online retail as well as technology”.

The aim of iStores is to mimic the way people shop in a physical mall, using Adaptive Filtering techonology to provide “store windows” for quick visual search. This caters to shoppers who have a general theme in mind and are looking for suggestions, rather than doing an apples-to-apples comparison for a specific product.

However, says Jagannathan it is as if “the mall can change its focus and the entire store of windows in the mall match your shopping themes. Based on what a consumer is looking for we will show them the right store window that matches the consumer intent.”

iStores taps into retailers’ email marketing program; “we have a patented engine that creates these store windows”, says Jagannathan. “In addition, they can upload store windows that are about specific topics and sales and specials”. Tetailers pay either on a commission basis or a click basis, depending on whether they are part of an affiliate network.

So far iStores offers 18,000,000 products across 15,000 stores. But while so far those are mostly big chains, that doesn’t mean independents aren’t welcome. “To get started we started we went to some of the bigger names but we actually work in some areas we will actually work with specialty stores,” Jagannathan told Gifts & Decorative Accessories. “If you have something that consumers like, we would like to feature your store. Initially we started with the bigger stores and brands but we want to be a comprehensive solution.”

As for the price, he says, “We have programs where literally they can start with us on a few hundred dollars a month basis. We don’t go down to the level of eBay sellers. We do want them to have an online retail presence.”

Users can also create a personal mall of favorite retailers; shop by built-in personality or category, or by fun features such as splurge of the week or Fashion Scopes by horoscope sign.

iStores initially partnered with Yahoo! Shopping, Westfield Malls andThe Find! The company says click through rates were 69 percent in beta, with a high browse-to-buy conversion rate.