The Fancy - Taking on Pinterest and Social Commerce?

Many people continue to spend much of their time interacting and engaging on Facebook and Twitter, more and more individuals are also turning to sites such as Pinterest and Fancy for sharing and inspiration.

With over 11 million reported users, Pinterest seems to be on its way to becoming a highly popular social networking site. In fact, just this Monday, Forbes reported that they were now the “number three” social network joining Facebook and Twitter at the head of the class.  Pinterest is all about making highly visual and creative boards about the things you like and enjoy, and then sharing them with your friends and followers. Majority of its users are women, who enjoy pinning and re-pinning the content they find.

Getting a little Fancy?

But have you heard about Fancy? This site is actually quite similar to Pinterest, but with a couple of differences. The main difference is that unlike Pinterest, which is more about creative pictures and inspirational boards, Fancy is geared toward ecommerce, and has recently allowed users to buy products directly from the site.

Fancy started as somewhat similar to Pinterest, where you can “Fancy” the gorgeous products that are found in the site. It’s a social photo-clipping service that’s very popular among people who like looking for unique and rare things.

Interesting to note is that unlike Pinterest, Fancy’s users are 60% male and only 40% female. They are often seen posting high fashion clothes and accessories, consumer goods, and pictures of lovely and exotic places. And even though its current 250,000 users is a long way from Pinterest’s 11 million, it seems that Fancy users are more interactive in the site, as they fancy over a million products in just a week.

It joins the ranks of Google+ (another predominantly male social network – at least having more active and social males in their population) as being a network that reaches more men than women.

It first began its venture to ecommerce by offering coupon codes to users who fancy images from certain merchants. But now, you have the option of purchasing right on Fancy, without the hassle of having to leave the site.

How do you Fancy?

How exactly does it work? Well, whenever a user fancies an item, brands and retailers can then bid to sell that specific product. Once approved, they set the price and quantity for the item, and Fancy gets a percentage of the cost paid by the buyer.

It’s actually a different way of doing social commerce. Instead of brands and businesses trying their best to connect with consumers through special deals and other marketing strategies in social media, Fancy users are the ones who look for products they like, while brands and businesses bid on those products to determine who sells them.

The idea is quite new and innovative, and CEO Joe Einhorn is confident that it will soon appeal to the masses. Backed by some serious investors, Fancy seems to be set on taking ecommerce by storm.

The challenge, however, is getting more users to sign up in the site and start fancying things. Fancy’s 250,000 users is still a long way to go from where Pinterest’s 11 million users are standing.

So will Fancy be the next big thing in social commerce? We’ll just have to wait and see.