Platform Makes Any Online or Offline Media a Checkout Point, Reducing Paid Advertising Costs Ahead of Holiday Shopping Season

TAGS Commerce, which generates instant checkouts (Tags) that turn all online and offline media into checkout points, announces a new name and $3.5 million in pre-seed funding.

TAGS enables transactions to take place where and when purchase intent is highest. When a buyer activates a Tag, they experience a pre-loaded shopping cart with one-click functionality, eliminating several traditional purchasing steps. Each Tag is encoded, like a transactional barcode and comes in different formats to support all media types.

QR Tags can be used for instant purchasing at physical locations, on products for repurchasing or onprint materials, like magazines or brochures. Link Tags can be used on social media as link stickers or as bio links. Text Tags are great for live shopping, podcasts and other types of conversational commerce. Tap Tags are fast and easy for consumers to engage with via websites, AR, VR or the metaverse.

Retailer & Brand Benefits

• Tags are distributed checkouts that can be placed on anything – like an instant buy button for everywhere.
• They generate organic traffic and instant conversions without advertising spend.
• Tags average 64% order conversion rates as they complete a transaction instantly, rather than sending buyers to a landing page or website.
• Once a sales transaction is complete, order data is instantly populated with the retailer or brand for seamless fulfillment and processing.
• The platform unlocks unprecedented transactional, marketing, product and customer data.

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Consumer Benefits

• When a consumer activates a Tag, they experience a pre-loaded cart with single tap-to-buy functionality.
• There are no websites or landing pages to visit and no apps to download.
• No more logging into a specific retail or brand account to purchase.
• Customers who do not complete their transaction can choose to save it for later.
• Consumers can also generate Tags for the products they love to share and earn commissions as affiliates.

Creator, Influencer & Affiliate Benefits

• Affiliates are able to share omnichannel Tags to drive conversions and get paid commissions.
• Creators and influencers can curate products from across the web and add them to their own “Dropshop” pages, where their audience can buy directly instead of having to go to the brand site.

TAGS has worked with customers like the Los Angeles Lakers, Foot Locker, Roc Nation, Parade, Young & Reckless and influencers Kall Me Kris, Guap and others.

The startup is also in the process of closing its seed round with $3.5M raised to date with key investors, XRC Labs, Gaingels, Not Boring, Tiny Capital, Vibe Capital, Unpopular Ventures and others.

“Boost distributed commerce starting with hashtags that consumers could text to buy. Today, TAGS introduces a new layer of commerce, pollinating the world with transactional opportunity,” says Founder & CEO, Daniel Abas. “According to the Baymard Institute, shopping cart abandonment on mobile devices skyrocketed to 85% in 2021, and Insider Intelligence reports U.S. ad spending per person will rise more than 8% next year. Brands need a more organic solution that doesn’t require the injection of advertising as we approach the holiday shopping season. They can save their dollars by leveraging our Tags to reach audiences on new media platforms.”

“TAGS is pioneering a new category in the future of commerce,” says XRC Labs General Partner, Al Sambar. “We welcomed them into our Opportunity Fund earlier this year, and we believe they’re the missing link between advertising spend and monetization for retailers and brands.”

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