UK marketplace Add to Cart wants to take on the big boys

Add to Cart is a new ecommerce marketplace from the United Kingdom. It wants to compete with other online marketplaces by focusing primarily on supporting small scale businesses. The marketplace works alongside sellers’ existing sales platforms.

Add to Cart was founded by Tej Randeva, a British entrepreneur who is also behind Anythingforhire.com, a price comparison website for hire services. With Add to Cart he wants to take on the big boys of the ecommerce world. “By giving thousands of small, independent retailers a major post-pandemic boost.”

Focus on supporting small vendors

The UK startup wants to gain market share by focusing on supporting small vendors. “But we don’t want to take away any of the autonomy that makes these ventures unique”, it explains. The ecommerce marketplace thus works alongside existing sales platforms, such as Shopify.

Over 100 businesses and 60,000 products are listed.

Currently, over 100 businesses and more than 60,000 products are listed on AddtoCart.co.uk. The marketplace generated hundreds of online orders for retailers, which include giftware specialists, boutique crafts, grooming experts and food suppliers.

‘The last 18 months were tough for small businesses’

“The last eighteen months have been extremely difficult for small businesses, with Covid-19 restrictions causing chaos and restricting traditional footfall”, Randeva says. “Most of the popular marketplaces like Amazon and eBay are not geared towards small sellers and make it difficult for them to succeed without spending lots on listings and ads.”

Amazon and eBay are not geared towards small sellers.

He continues: “With Add to Cart, we have developed a platform that is easy to use, has no subscription fees and, most importantly, leverages all of our back-end marketing expertise and support to get sellers’ products to the top of the online rankings.”

No subscription fee, but a commission of 10%

Online sellers can sign up to Add to Cart free of charge. They don’t pay any monthly subscription fees. “If you don’t get any sales, you don’t pay us anything”, the company says in its FAQ. The fee is currently 10 percent or a minimum of 0.50 pound, for each order.

Signed up users can import all their product details from their existing ecommerce platform through a single-step interface. Once they have signed up, users benefit from several services, including SEO marketing, paid advertisements, social media campaigning and more.

“While many of the big online marketplaces do not release customer details to their sellers, Add to Cart will make all data available, allowing users to remarket and build lasting relationships with their client base.”

Search by locality

Soon, a new feature will be launched, allowing shoppers to search by locality. This should encourage them to support businesses within their communities. Randeva thinks his new ecommerce business has the potential to scale-up very quickly. “We’ve got exciting plans to cement our position in the UK and then move overseas, potentially starting with Canada and then moving on to the US, Australia and Europe.”