Cityblis is an interactive, multi-platform social eCommerce website that allows consumers to shop and interact with friends, store owners and other consumers. The site is a combination of personalized web stores and an online mall. Launched in April 2012, the international platform was developed for small businesses to reach out to new markets around the world through a community based infrastructure. The current headquarters are in New York City with satellite offices in Sweden and Australia.
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Development
Cityblis was founded in April 2010 in Gothenburg, Sweden. The site has received grants and support by business and government organizations. In Europe this includes the European Union’s Development Association, Swedish Growth Organizations and UK Trade and Investment. In the U.S. this includes the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles World Airports and the U.S. Small Business Development Centers.
Cityblis is currently only available to clothing and apparel businesses. Requests have been made from government groups to make the platform available to businesses in other industries. The site curates designers and brands for women, men and children with an emphasis on Be Unique. There are no fees or commissions for designers to use Cityblis, but they must be invited. Brands are invited based on, uniqueness, professionalism and brand story. Every invited brand is assigned a graphic designer who creates a personalized web store in the Cityblis mall. There are currently 200 brands on Cityblis with another 700 to be added. Cityblis currently includes brands from the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia.
Website
The website is free and allows everyone to join as a shopper. Cityblis has a number of features with which users may interact. Users can create an account to add Favorite Shops, add items to their own Wishlists, rate stores and products, search brands in the fashion center, comment on brands and share products to external social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. The platform provides tools to simplify business barriers and communication such as language translators and currency converters. Users can also communicate with brands directly through private messages or write ‘Status Update’ messages on public streams. Cityblis implements 3 different streams. The Trend Forecast Stream displays Cityblis’ highest rated stores, products and news based on users’ ratings and engagement to predict trends. The Cityblis Stream is a time based stream which shows all the activities of the entire Cityblis community and the My Stream is a time based personalized stream which shows each user’s private activities.
The media has compared Cityblis to Lookbook and Polyvore, but one significant difference between the Websites is the level of personalization of each brand. Inside the Cityblis virtual mall, brands can create unique web stores that are fully personalized. It is claimed that the community structure will give small businesses more visibility and higher search rankings.