Have you ever spotted something awesome on a website and thought, "I would definitely pay someone to make that for me"? Good news--now you can.
Today, local commerce platform Zaarly is launching a new feature called Zaarly Anywhere, which lets any website embed a button on its site that integrates with the Zaarly platform, much the same way Spotify's Play Button lets you add tracks to any website. Zaarly Anywhere is initially launching on seven partner publisher sites: Everyday Health, The Fancy, the Los Angeles Times, Cookstr, IKEA Hackers, Remodelaholic, and Simplified Building.
Now, when visitors to a Zaarly Anywhere-enabled site see something they like--perhaps a dish on Cookstr, or a cool desk on IKEA Hackers--they can post a request asking a member of Zaarly's marketplace to make it for them without having to leave the partner site. This is what the company is calling "the future of online to offline commerce."
Site partners using Zaarly Anywhere can also choose to either plug it in site-wide or tie it to specific pieces of content. The Los Angeles Times, for example, could connect Zaarly Anywhere just to the Lifestyle section, or the classifieds.
Zaarly Anywhere is the year-old platform's biggest expansion to date from its previously contained marketplace. At half a million users, it's still pretty small, but its user engagement numbers are impressive. The average Zaarly user receives 3-5 requests. 97% of transactions happen face-to-face. And power sellers earn in the thousands of dollars.
"People build things they find on The Fancy or help people get in shape because they’re passionate about it first, and then we gave them an avenue," CEO Bo Fishback tells Fast Company. "If we get that picture painted in a crisp enough way, we can let anything become local commerce-enabled."