Qoof Bridges Gap Between Online Shopping and Video [Israel Media Tour]

An article by Ayelet Noff    2 Comments

Company Name: Qoof
Founded in: 2006
Location: Bet Shemesh

Qoof is a video commerce startup that offers a widget eTailors and publishers can use to publish product videos on their sites. Founded by Richard Kligman in 2006, Qoof’s operations and team of over 10 employees are based out of Bet Shemesh.

Kligman first came up with the idea after watching the home shopping channel. With TV, you never know who’s watching and what to offer them. However, with Internet, you can target your products to exactly the right audience. In essence, Qoof is a fusion of direct response TV and e-commerce.

The Qoof Widget offers eTailors a fully customizable video interface that focuses consumers’ attention on making a purchase. The widget turns videos into selling tools, incorporating product information, customer communications, and purchases. Customers can search products by category, make SKYPE, VOIP, and landline calls, chat, search top sellers and hot deals, and read product reviews.

Additionally, Qoof offers a Smart Widget that helps eTailors and publishers target niche audiences. The Smart Widget automatically downloads videos to a website based on the response that other videos on the site are getting. If a certain product is popular, videos of similar products are automatically downloaded. Qoof’s vision is to give eTailors the ability to target customers and to present the right product to the right customer on many channels.

It is important to note that Qoof is not a destination site. The Qoof Widget can be installed directly to eTailors’ product pages and publishers’ sites. eTailors can use the widget to distribute to affiliates as well, allowing affiliates to embed the video content and sales tools directly to their affiliate sites. The widget also enables publishers to create home shopping channels easily on their own sites. The Qoof widget is fully customizable with features that allow eTailors to post customer reviews, banners and more.

Qoof’s revenue model is based on monthly hosting and per video view fees. For the hosting fee, eTailors and publishers receive detailed analytics of the views and sales data of each of their videos on each site that the video appears. Qoof’s analytics allow eTailors and publishers to see what customers are responding to and make changes to their product offerings based on this customer response.

Qoof is currently working on a new widget with more functionality that will be released in December. Additionally, the company plans to begin connecting eTailors with publishers in the future.

This post was originally posted July 1st on Mashable.com