iAmLife Champions Struggling, Smaller Sellers with New Social Selling Marketplace

Owning and operating a small business is no easy feat. Many small businesses, from independent resellers and startup brands, to direct marketing consultants and homemade side-hustle sellers struggle with finding ways to boost their profile, attract customers and find new sales channels, with 50 percent of small businesses struggling to stay operational past the five year mark.

One driving force behind these failures is a lack of online presence, more specifically, the ability to sell online. A sixth of small businesses have no online presence, and 71 percent are unable to accept online sales - this is more harmful to a smaller business’ bottom line than many realize, and potentially means thousands of dollars in lost revenue for smaller sellers per year.

“The main reason behind this failure to have the ability to sell online remains an accessibility issue,” says James Conlin, the CEO of social selling platform iAmLife. “Many smaller businesses are simply too time and capital poor to set up an online store or sales-enabled website. Many who do have a sales-enabled website lack the digital and social media presence, or additional sales channels to make more sales, and this is something we wanted to rectify by developing a platform that enables these smaller sellers to quickly and easily build an online store, for free, while integrating the capabilities of social media as a selling tool.”

iAmLife is a social selling platform that enables anyone, from big businesses and smaller sellers, to creators and startups, to make money from their content, creations, products and social connections. The platform gives users the ability to quickly set up their own online store and start making sales within minutes, while enabling users to harness the power of their social networks through social media integration - and operating as a standalone social channel itself.

“Our premise is simple, iAmLife removes barriers and gives smaller sellers an effective marketplace to not only sell, but also market their goods through their social channels,” says Conlin. “iAmLife is integrated with Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, pooling the total number of followers on iAmLife. Those followers can then be reached through iAmLife’s ‘Power Post’ function, a purpose-built capability that enables users to post to all of their social networks through the iAmLife platform, attracting potential customers to their online stores.”

With these capabilities in mind, iAmLife is set to champion the smaller seller, not only through enabling them to easily make sales online and capitalize on their existing followers, but also by opening up the world of influencer marketing to businesses who don’t have the budget to contract influencers in the traditional sense through their affiliate sales capability.

“iAmLife is enabling smaller businesses to partner with influencers like never before. Our affiliate sales capability gives sellers the option to enable sales through other iAmLife users. This option enables influencers to post about and offer other sellers’ products in their own iAmLife store, and when the influencer makes a sale, they make a percentage of the purchase price for themselves. This not only enables sellers to attract more customers, but provides a measurable ROI on what is usually an unattainable sales exercise for budget-poor smaller sellers who previously couldn’t afford to contract influencers in the ‘per post’ way,” says Conlin.

“It also gives smaller influencers, or micro-influencers, a shot at making money by partnering with brands they believe in, enabling them to make sales from their smaller social networks while boosting sales for both parties. Usually, an influencer needs to have more than 25,000 followers before they’re considered for paid brand partnerships. iAmLife removes the barriers for the previously-ignored smaller influencers to make money from their engaged, but not outrageously huge, social networks,” adds Conlin.

Unlike other affiliate sales platforms, payments are processed and quickly delivered through iAmLife’s robust payment system, enabling store owners and affiliate sellers to access their money as soon as the sale is processed. At the time of purchase, the payment is split between and paid to the seller and affiliate, reducing the amount of manual accounting for the seller in working out the affiliate’s percentage, and the wait time to receive payment for the affiliate seller, this enables both to access and invest their money back into their businesses faster.

iAmLife also offers a subscriber option, enabling followers to support content creators through monthly, or single time donations. This function also gives early-stage startups the ability to share their business ideas and progress, while receiving backing at a grassroots level, similar to the way early-stage startups are supported through crowdfunding platforms.

“Our subscription feature enables not only startups to share their ideas and receive backing, but also content creators, like writers, bloggers, artists and podcasters to be supported for their work, a known struggle for creators just starting to build their following,” Conlin concludes. “Essentially, we’re doing everything in our power to champion and create money-making avenues for smaller sellers, influencers and creators by opening up the online marketplace.”

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.