StylHunt gets funding to bring Amazon-style ease to shopping on social media

Ecommerce is a driving force for business throughout Southeast Asia. That, however, doesn’t mean it’s exactly the same all around the world. Where US online shoppers will happily use Amazon for a myriad of purchases with their credit card or PayPal, Thais are more likely to shop through Facebook groups and pay via bank transfer.

Thailand’s StylHunt wants to offer locals the type of experience that someone using an established, large-scale ecommerce portal gets. Its mobile app enables search and discovery of online vendors based on the trust they enjoy on social media. The startup says that this way, shoppers can find what they want faster and more easily, and enjoy peace of mind as well.

Shoppers can find what they want faster and more easily, and enjoy peace of mind as well.

The startup has been doing well enough to score a pre-series A funding round worth close to US$500,000, led by CyberAgent Ventures and joined by 500 TukTuks, Expara Ventures, Singapore Angel Network, and Thai TV personality, author, and entrepreneur Paul Pattarapon Sinlapajan.

StylHunt CEO Surawat “Sam” Promyotin tells Tech in Asia that personal chemistry and communication were critical factors in the startup’s relationship with its investors – as with any relationship. But more than that, CyberAgent’s ecommerce expertise, 500 TukTuks’ Thai market focus and connection to the wider 500 Startups community, and the mentorship and support of the other investors, are the major benefits for StylHunt, he says. Paul, on the other hand, lends some of his Thai celebrity-side understanding of social media and ecommerce.

The funding, which is immediately available to the startup, will be used for recruiting for senior and junior staff in software development, community management, and business development. The goal is to scale within Thailand, leading to a series A that will allow the startup to expand to other countries with “similar ecommerce behavior” like Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. That’s expected about 18 to 20 months from now, Sam says.

StylHunt was founded by twin brothers Phiraphon and Pitchapol Penmas and Kongkiat Supagitjongjaroen, all of them experienced sellers on eBay. The company subsequently brought on board Methee Treewichian as a software developer and UC Berkeley-schooled engineer and Groupon Thailand co-founder Sam Promyotin as CEO.

Paradigm shift

When it comes to the state of ecommerce in Thailand, Sam describes it as “under the radar.” The western-centric view we have of ecommerce is just the tip of the iceberg there, he says. “[Concepts like] a website, add-to-cart, and credit card payment exist, but are relevant to an elite market segment in Thailand. If you randomly ask 100 students or office workers on a given day, you will quickly find that nearly all of them shop through social media, not ecommerce websites. Their needs are largely overlooked, undervalued, and unaddressed,” he adds.

The western-centric view we have of ecommerce is just the tip of the iceberg in Thailand.

The startup was part of Singapore-based accelerator JFDI Asia’s 2014 A cohort. According to Sam, the most valuable lesson learned there was the application of usability testing to its product. “Without this, our lean startup build-measure-lean cycles would have been purely quantitative,” he says. “Usability testing gives the qualitative feedback necessary to understand why users behave the way they do.”

StylHunt put those insights to good use during the past year, concentrating its efforts on field usability testing, customer development interviews, and user experience experiments. “One of the key measures of success was our ability to increase engagement about four times from 50 to 200 averages swipes per user per day – with some serious users swiping as many as 3,000 times a day,” Sam says.

In Thailand, the startup faces competition mostly from consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplaces. However, what sets it apart is the convenience it offers to both shoppers and sellers, Sam says. “[Our] user experience is much more effective for discovery shopping, social proof ranking reduces trust issues, and the automatic feed from merchant social media pages eliminates significant admin work for the shops,” he explains.

(This story has been updated with comments from StylHunt CEO Surawat “Sam” Promyotin.)