Side-Hustle Series: Interview with Randomly.Shop

I am enjoying interviewing professionals and mom bosses about their line of work or their side hustles. Today I am sharing an interview with Randomly.Shop.

Tell us about yourself and Randomly Shop.

I’m Luke Palder and I’m the founder of Randomly.Shop. We aggregate the best, coolest, most innovative products online and make them easy to discover. You can think of it as StumbleUpon or Tinder for shopping.

Every day, you can check Randomly.Shop for new, high-quality products to explore. Use the app on our homepage to browse random finds in the categories of your choice, or peruse our blog for different products we uncover.

We make it easy to find the best the internet has to offer in a fun and fast way, and with new products daily, you’ll never run out of great new finds with Randomly.Shop.

What inspired you to start a shopping business?

I noticed that too much choice is overwhelming.

When you search for a product on Amazon, you get hundreds of results. There’s no way you’ll look through all of those. Most likely, you’ll only look through the products on the first page of results, and maybe the second page, if you’re really dedicated.

But the best find might actually be hidden away on the seventh page… and you’d never know it. So, through fancy code and some sweat, we try to surface those hidden treasures you wouldn’t normally discover.

If you just see one product at a time and can make a simple yes-or-no decision, online shopping also feels much less overwhelming.

Why do users prefer using your app rather than going to Amazon directly?

The sheer selection on Amazon can be overwhelming. You can find just about anything, and it can take a long time to sift through the search results to pick the right product for your needs.

Many users prefer to use Randomly.Shop because it presents them with curated options that they can easily make a judgment on. Like what you see? Click the link to go to the store page and buy it. Don’t like it? Click the arrow or use your arrow key to check out the next product.

Randomly.Shop is particularly useful for people who aren’t quite sure what they want. For example, if you know you want to update your wardrobe, but you’re not sure what style you want to adopt, Randomly.Shop allows you to peruse Amazon’s best fashion options (try it with blouses). You’ll get a diverse range of options, which is easier than figuring out specific conditions to search for yourself.

Give us some examples of what users will do or expect to see.

Since user convenience is what Randomly.Shop is all about, we designed the interface to be as simple as possible. The homepage presents users with a collection of category checkboxes, and all you have to do is select the categories you’re interested in and click “start.”

Then, you’ll see a random item from your category. If you like it, click “see details” to go to the Amazon page. If you don’t, just click the arrow to see the next one. It’s really that simple.

We also have a special category for books, where users can select their preferred genres and discover new finds. This is perfect for parents who love to read during their “me time” but don’t have a lot of time to find new reading material.

Then, we also have a blog, which introduces the best items on Amazon in particular categories. Checking our blog frequently can help you save big on great finds.

Tell us about the job you’re hiring for.

We’re hiring for a really fun work-from-home job that we think people will love. We’re looking to grow our team of people who search for fun/cool/strange products on Amazon for us to add to our site.

Basically, working on our team is an opportunity to get paid to window shop. You get to check out the latest products in whatever category you’re interested in, possibly finding awesome new things that will improve your life, while earning money.

How does your biz help busy moms?

The benefits of Randomly.Shop for moms are twofold: On one hand, busy moms can use our simple interface to quickly and easily search for the products they want, saving them all the time of sifting through Amazon search results. This allows you to shop while fitting in all your essential day-to-day mom activities. One of our categories is toys and games for young children, which is a great way to find fun, creative new toys for your kids, especially when you have no idea what to get them.

On the other hand, Randomly.Shop is an opportunity for stay-at-home moms or moms working part-time to earn a little on the side without leaving the house. You can work casually with us, browsing Amazon for the best finds, but you determine your own schedule, so you’re always available to tend to your kids. It’s the ideal side gig for moms who always put their kids first.

What are some of your favorite things about running your business?

I love that it makes people’s lives easier. It helps people find items that can improve their lives or make them happier in a way that also conserves time and energy.

I also love that I’m helping small businesses and creators reach new customers. The products stuck on the seventh or eighth search result page won’t get a lot of sales organically, but Randomly.Shop brings these hidden gems to the forefront. This is particularly rewarding when it comes to book sales, since it’s hard to monetize artistic creativity by default.

Another plus for me is that Randomly.Shop gives people a cool, fun way to make a little money on the side. It’s rewarding to know that Randomly.Shop allows busy moms to add to their family finances in a way that doesn’t detract from childcare.

And then, of course, there’s the fact that I also have easy access to the best, coolest, most innovative Amazon products thanks to Randomly.Shop!

What were some challenges you ran into when starting your business?

Putting together the right team is always a major challenge when launching a new business. I struggled to find the right people who would make Randomly.Shop a hit. But the key is persistence, and with enough time and effort, I was able to build a great team that I’m proud of.

A good team needs a diverse mix of people with different skill sets, experience, and ways of thinking. I needed great programmers and designers to create an attractive and easy-to-use interface, I needed skilled marketers to help promote the service and make a splash in the vast world of the web, and I needed passionate product curators to pick out the best products on Amazon. All my team members have helped make Randomly.Shop what it is today, and I’m grateful to them.

Any advice you want to give moms?

Take time for yourself. An important part of being a good parent is to take care of yourself, so I encourage all other parents to deliberately allocate some time to recharge.

Of course, I know it’s hard to strike a balance among all the things you have to do in your life. I’m a father myself, so I get it. So, my advice to parents is to continuously look for ways to enhance your life and live more efficiently so you have more time for your children. There are generally little ways you can improve your time management, and the little things can really build up over time.