ITHR Launches nToklo Social Shopping Engine

ITHR Consulting has announced the launch of its Social Gateway and Recommendations Engine, nToklo, which combines customers’ online social behaviour and communities with a retailer’s store. nToklo creates a social shopping experience which drives more personalised recommendations and which, the company says, is more fun and engaging for users.

According to the 2009 Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, recommendations from personal acquaintances are the most trusted forms of advertising, with 90 per cent of consumers acknowledging some degree of trust in these. nToklo enables retailers and mobile operators to integrate this social activity and recommendations into their existing stores to extend audience reach, increase sales and boost customer loyalty.

The nToklo Social Gateway allows a brand to combine its customers’ community with its retail store, creating a window on its site through which customer can invite friends from their social networks, email and mobile address books. The Recommendations Engine then uses the power of customers’ social network connections to create promoted recommendations that will be more tailored to each customer.

“The explosive growth of social networks has led many ecommerce companies to look at how they can harness the power of social media to boost sales,” says nToklo CEO, Gareth Mee. “Incorporating a successful social commerce offering into the online sales strategy is a challenge many will face in 2011, as growing noise levels on social networks make it increasingly difficult to gain meaningful return from things like fan pages. Companies that sell online can differentiate themselves by integrating this social experience into their own sites, and nToklo will plug into existing stores to help offer an engaging social commerce experience.”
nToklo is available immediately as a hosted or dedicated service and, the company says, is easy to integrate into existing stores.  It has been developed by ITHR Consulting, a company responsible for leading operator content portals, including My Web for Vodafone Internet Services.

nToklo has also developed a custom-built Android App called Myphonehas, which showcases the full potential of the Social Gateway and Recommendations Engine through any Android phone. The company will be exhibiting at Hall 2, Stand 2C101 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, 14th-17th February 2011, where it will be running a competition to win a Samsung Galaxy Tablet. Visitors can enter by downloading the Myphonehas Android app, befriending nToklo and inviting two friends to join.