What is Violet?
Violet is the only unified e-commerce API that allows bi-directional connection between online merchants and online channels (apps, websites, social platforms). With our API, online shoppers can purchase any product from anywhere on the internet, without clicking out to a merchant's website.
The Current Landscape
Today, there are more ways to discover products online than ever before: we're seeing a growth in more niche, community and lifestyle focused shopping channels that are much better at attracting and keeping audiences engaged. But purchase and checkout remain sequestered to online merchant stores. With the exception of a few companies like Instagram, most online channels do not have the time or headcount to build the integrations required to checkout natively. That requires building a new integration for every e-commerce platform, and there are hundreds to date.
Instead, online channels are scraping data and product pages, manually ordering with merchants on behalf of customers on their site, and eating shipping and tax costs because they can't calculate them up front. Without a robust integration, both channels and merchants are losing a huge opportunity to acquire audiences and customers.
Company Birth Story
Violet began in 2017 after the co-founders had each spent years refining their skills at larger retail firms like Luxoft and Target. They knew they wanted to close the gap between discovery and purchase, and decided to do it themselves. After several years of tackling integrations with some of the industry's biggest e-commerce platforms, their Series A raised $10M led by Klarna in the fall of 2021.
The Solution
Violet is the only unified e-commerce API that offers a complete product catalog, shipping & tax information, and integrated checkout. We make it possible for any online channel to connect with sellers and add their products in a way that ensures a rich shopper experience, and allows more innovation in the way products are merchandised and presented to shoppers. In turn, merchants are able to find relevant, engaged potential customers without paying through the nose on CACs and advertising.
This is the true potential of what Violet is calling distributed commerce: commerce happens wherever the shopper is is. Our API is all about driving artistry & innovation on all sides of the marketplace: for those who create products/services, they can reach their audience more easily for less spend. And for those creating online experiences, through apps, publishing, live streaming, VR, you can enhance that experience by becoming a conduit for your audience’s shopping experience, enhancing your value. Violet is just the unifying conduit, the piping that makes this new relationship between merchants and channels possible, while maximizing agency, reach, and targeted audience on both sides.
Team Culture
We're a rapidly-growing team of engineers, marketers, and creatives who share a culture based on empathy, clarity, curiosity, rigor, and integration. We believe simultaneously in a very human-centered, empathy-led design and build process, coupled with rigorous, structured analysis and crystal clear, transparent communication. We integrate all those things into a single product that is based on building bridges and facilitating innovation through seamless connection.
Check it Out :
Follow on Social :