PW Daily’s Lynn Adriani takes a close look at the Manhattan-based company ShopText, which lets people buy products instantly using SMS and has just started selling books. Jeff Larche, who bought HP7 using ShopText told PW, “This is a system that deserves to succeed, and it probably will, considering what big, pampered kids I and my fellow boomers have become.”
Like Twitter, a simple registration process allows the system to send a confirmatory text message receipt to the user’s cellphone. includes a short password, necessary to avoid ordering fraud. Then, the person sends a text with a keyword – e.g., “HARRY” for HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – in the message body to ShopText. ShopText sends a message confirming the product’s price and requesting the security password. The person approves this, ShopText sends the product to the customer and the transaction is complete. Although ShopText has partnered with magazines for special advertising initiatives, it is looking to partner with bookstores but has not done so yet. Ideally, Adriani explains, a bookstore would run ShopText codes in its book advertisements, and either ShopText or the bookstore would fulfill the order. ShopText founder and chief marketing officer Mark Kaplan said he is interested in partnering with book publishers on co-op advertising. He declined to say how many copies ShopText has sold of any of book so far.