Movylo Shop describes itself as “an easy mobile commerce solution”. It aims to help merchants sell via mobile, whether that’s via a mobile store, or via deals and coupons delivered to mobile phones. These deals can also be delivered in the form of QRcodes, via Facebook or Twitter, or sent via email.

The platform has been live for a year, and has attracted clients in the US, UK and India. Partners include Paypal, Authorize.net, Shopify, Roam Data and MailChimp, and the platform is also available as a white-label solution. After a free trial period, users pay a monthly subscription, starting at less than £10 a month, plus a fee per transaction. As the subscription price rises, the fee per transaction falls. The company behind the platform, Dynamic Fun, has spent the last eight years developing mobile software for big brands, and is active in more than 100 countries.

“We have merchants selling everything from diamond rings in India to spare parts for laundry machines in the US,” explains founder Stefano Colonna. “Mobile commerce is a massive channel and is growing steadily, but eCommerce software vendors tend to see it as a Lite version of their eCommerce software, adapted for the smaller screen, but engagement on mobile is different, and this is where Movylo Shop comes in.”

Mobile store
Using the platform, brands can create anything from a single deal – perhaps offering a product at a discount for the next two hours – to a complete mobile store. The claim on the website is that you can create a deal in under five minutes, and a mobile store in under 15. This seems unlikely, until Colonna walks you through a demo of the platform. Sure, he’s familiar with it, so can find his way round more quickly than a novice user, but watching the demo, it’s not hard to believe the twin claims he makes, for both its simplicity, and its sophistication.

“The platform is optimised for all kinds of devices, from smartphones to the old Nokia feature phones that are prevalent in India,” says Colonna. “It is also designed for merchants with close to zero knowledge on what mCommerce is, how to attract traffic, and how to create campaigns. Wizards guide them through the entire process.”

When I ask Colonna to name any well-known brands that are using the platform in the UK, he concedes he doesn’t have any as yet, but in Italy, the retailer, ePlaza, and the publisher, Mondadori, are customers. Bizformobile.com and RomaData’s roamoffers.com are two customers who use the platform on a white-label basis.

So is Movylo Shop a full-service platform, or can it do anything for brands that already have a mobile site? “It is full service, but we always say that mCommerce is about three things” says Colonna. “The first is presentation – uploading products, selecting the look and feel. The second is promotion, creating engagement with consumers. And third is the checkout process, making this as smooth as possible, so in the UK, for example, we are integrated with SagePay.

“We think presentation will become a commodity, with lots of companies that can create a mobile store or app. So promotions come next, and when we approach bigger merchants who have their own mobile store, we act as a mobile revenue-booster for them, creating unlimited deals and impulse promotions to attract new users. We work around their existing mobile store and we don’t touch it. So they might have 30,000 products in their mobile store and just a couple of deals with us at any one time.”

The idea of creating a mobile store in 15 minutes or a mobile deal in less than five may seem unlikely, but sign up for the free trial and you’ll see for yourself how easy – or otherwise – you find it. But suffice to say, we were impressed.

Movylo Shop is ofering Mobile Marketing readers a free additional months subscription (60 days instead of the usual 30). To take advantage of the offer, just click here.