Shopcastr is Pinterest for people who want to know where to spend money—in Toronto
The battle for aggregating user-generated content is waged daily between Pinterest and Tumblr, but it seems that recently the two sites have cornered their niches effectively: Tumblr has staked its claim on time-sensitive memes and photos of hipsters and naked gay men, and Pinterest has cornered soft-lit inspirational images and product shots. Never the twain shall meet. Now Toronto-based Shopcastr—founded by Matt O’Leary, Aron Jones and Judy Sims—is joining the game, using Pinterest as inspiration for cultivating a series of boards that showcase stock from local stores. It’s sort of what Pinterest would be if it were at all practical.
The objective for Shopcastr is for people to see the item and price and go to the shop to buy it. Since it launched in November, 300 local shops have signed up—including purveyors of clothing (GotStyle, Pretty Freedom, Buckler), food (LPK’s Culinary Groove, The Dog Market) and decor (Cry If I Want To, Jaime Alexander)—and they remain fairly active. Unfortunately, despite the great price listings and product shots, there’s no option to “buy it now,” a functionality that would set it miles ahead of Pinterest—but at least you can search by category and neighbourhood. Even if it doesn’t get bodies into stores, it’s always nice to have more pretty things to look at on the Internet.
