This is one of the newer topics in crowdfunding. In my recent research I have found that there many missed sales with startups and business selling higher priced products. By higher priced products, I mean anything generally over a $1000.00 in value. Just some classic examples are; cars and specialized equipment. If you look at cars and students for example, not many young people have the cash or ability to finance a new purchase. So they look to the parents for a loan.
If the parents don’t have all of the funds, then they are stuck. But this is where crowdfunding comes in with it’s pooling effect. It gives us another element, they can run a crowdfunding campaign through the car dealer store for free. In attempt to raise the funds needed from all friends, family and even strangers. This graphic illustrates statistics of purchases made by different generations of people. Similar stats are found across retail sales as well.
| Characteristic | Gen Y | Gen X | Boomers |
| Birth Year | 1977-1994 | 1965-76 | 1946-64 |
My other research, covered specialized equipment. There are many examples of expensive equipment that cannot be purchased directly. It could be cases of existing businesses, schools, or regular people looking to purchase these products. For example a device that will be used by a classroom.
If it cannot be purchased directly because of lack of funds and loan approvals, crowdfunding is an viable option. So this is where many ecommerce stores can integrate crowdfunding into the mix. Not only will the customer benefit, they will as well. Because it will generate more sales in the end. This is what I was referring to in the beginning of the article about missed sales. There are many opportunities that exist and with crowdfunding you can capitalize on them.
Right now Thrinacia Atlas allows for various crowdfunding models which include; presales, rewards, donations, recurring subscriptions. You can integrate Atlas very easily with your existing ecommerce store. Just by offering an alternative link directly to a private or public crowdfunding portal on the checkout option. This portal can be dedicated to your store front. Also direct sign up to a private crowdfunding campaign would be another option on the checkout for the customer. Just to illustrate the checkout flow;
Pay for the Item in full or checkout with crowdfunding. If checking out with crowdfunding, refer to sub options below.
Option A) Enter store front’s crowdfunding portal to assign a campaign publicly.
Option B) Head to single campaign signup process directly, which can be created as an private campaign.
Everything is built on top of flexible REST API. It can be further customized as well. Very soon as well, Thrinacia Atlas will expand and offer truly hybrid crowdfunding + ecommerce models through its ecommerce additions. This will be available in the short term and will be announced once launched. You can follow our roadmap on the following link.