“We wanted to explore a new way to turn social media impressions into sales and speed up the purchase process drastically,” said Co-Founder Esosa Ighodaro. “CoSign has levels of influence, which increases the revenue percentage in each level and motivates users to work harder ”. The social media app aims to change the way we shop online by improving the purchase process and cutting out the extra steps and as well allow consumers to view posts within multiple social media channels and immediately purchase the items with just one click. The “Buy” button takes the user to the product page on the retailers website where they can confirm and checkout within seconds. The free iOS and Android app transfers social media content into commerce, rewarding users with cash for endorsing and cosigning products like clothing, beauty items, baby stuff, toys, home goods, technology and more. CoSign’s aim is to incentivize the consumer while bringing more exposure to a brand or company. Ighodaro and Abiodun, developed the app in 2013 and have been working with firms such as Luxury American designer, LaQuan Smith, of LaQuan Smith New York, Harlem’s Fashion Row and Hannan Saleh. CoSign gives users analytics for each product that keeps track of the likes, clicks, shares and buys, which users can access on the “Bank & Rewards” pages. If followers purchase items tagged, then users receive a monetary reward up to 35%. The percentage is based on the users influence status: newbie vs. icon. Retailers benefit from increased traffic, higher average purchases, reduced marketing spend and a foray into mobile commerce. Within three seconds, users can tag an item to upload and share with followers. Users can tag up to 13 million products from over 1200 retailers who are partnering with CoSign such as Lord & Taylor, Macys, Nordstrom, BlueFly, THE OUTNET.COM, Mark & Spencer, Wal-Mart, Ted Baker, Bloomingdale’s Australia and Sephora.  Johnson is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CoSign and leads multiple software and web development projects. As the tech expert, his role includes overseeing quality control throughout the software development life cycle, defining project objectives for iOS, Android and web applications, evaluating licensing and direct sales models. Johnson graduated from Dartmouth College with a bachelor of arts degree in engineering sciences.

These Two Africans in the Diaspora Want to Change the Way the World Shops Online - 15