Twenga

Twenga
Open shopping platform
Industry E-Commerce
Founded 2006
Founder Bastien Duclaux
Cédric Anès
Headquarters Paris, France
Website twenga.com

Twenga.com is an online open shopping search engine. In 2006, Bastien Duclaux and Cédric Anès created Twenga, meaning "straight to the goal" in Swahili according to the company's website,[1] as a unique website which would bring together "all online products and stores in one place." Twenga's 14 websites in ten different languages display nearly 300 million products for 200,000 online shops. The company states it is the "open shopping platform with the largest selection online."[2]

Business model

Twenga co-founders Bastien Duclaux and Cédric Anès met in 2000 at the École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications. Frustrated by the difficulty in finding good deals online, Duclaux was inspired to create Twenga. Explaining the mechanics of Twenga, Duclaux said, "We created a shopping search engine that provides access to offers of all the merchants on the Web, unlike the price comparison of first generation, which displayed only those of their trading partners. To do this, we have developed technologies for automatic indexing." The company's "crawl" technology enables Twenga to scan tens of millions of pages of the Internet every day, automatically categorizing hundreds of millions of products in ten languages including Russian, Japanese and Chinese. This proprietary technology allowed Twenga to raise nearly €7 million from venture capital firms 3i, Sofinnova and others. By 2010, Twenga employed 120 people, including 50 research engineers.[3]

From its headquarters in Paris, Twenga runs 14 websites for markets in the United States, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Poland, Brazil, Russia, Australia, China and Japan. The sites display 300 million products from more than 200,000 online shops.[2]

The websites do not sell directly; instead they redirect users to online shops where they purchase products. Twenga itself generates revenue primarily by "advertising and business partnerships which give interested companies and retailers greater visibility than that provided by organic listing."[4]

In 2011 Twenga joined other e-commerce companies and filed an antitrust complaint to the European Commission claiming that Google abuses its dominant position by promoting their own products such as Google Shopping while penalizing competitors in the search results.[5]

Product expansion

Since 2008 Twenga has been developing mobile apps to make all its B2C services available via smartphone and tablets.[6] The company currently offers apps for iPhone, iPad and Android.[7]

Starting in 2010, Twenga has launched its own merchant partner program Twenga Ready to Sell in seven countries including France, Germany and the UK. The program allows e-tailers to directly index their products on Twenga to gain additional visibility and traffic.[8]

In 2011 Twenga expanded its activities by creating affinitAD, a program that offers contextual monetization solutions for publishers.[9]

In 2012 the company launched Showcase, a social shopping platform that allows users to share their favorite products with others and follow the recommendations of fellow shoppers.[10]

Awards

In 2010, Twenga won the Red Herring 100 Global Award, the France Young Technology Leader Award and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for the "Company of the Future" category for France.[11]

References

  1. ↑ http://www.twenga.com/about.php
  2. 1 2 "About Twenga". Twenga. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  3. ↑ Chantale Houzelle (12 January 2010). "Twenga chasing deals on the Internet". Les Échos (in French). Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  4. ↑ "FAQ Twenga". Twenga. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  5. ↑ Aoife White (24 January 2012). "Google Faces EU Antitrust Complaint From French Shopping Website". Businessweek. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  6. ↑ "Twenga launches price comparison app for iPhone". Telecompaper. 23 December 2008. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  7. ↑ "Twenga Mobile". Twenga. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  8. ↑ "Twenga Ready to Sell launches for e-tailers in United Kingdom". Realwire. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  9. ↑ "Passez à la monétisation contextuelle avec affinitAD by Twenga" (in French). affinitAD Blog. 24 September 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  10. ↑ Flore Fauconnier (26 November 2012). "Twenga lance sa plateforme de social shopping Showcase" (in French). Journal Du Net. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
  11. ↑ "Twenga Announces One Click Access between Online Shopping and Social Networks". Internet Retailer. 15 April 2011. Retrieved 1 June 2013.
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