New Startup Seeks to Empower Shoppers [INVITES]

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Quick Pitch: Shwowp helps you gather your purchase history in one place.

Genius Idea: Say you need a new winter coat but would rather research good deals before buying online. Where do you go?

You could turn to your Facebook and Twitter friends for suggestions or page through online and print magazines, but private-beta startup Shwowp exists to help you surface better buys by harnessing the power of your own purchase data and from your friends.

At launch, Shwowp is a purchase-sharing site where you can input product purchases, share items with Twitter or Facebook, follow friends' purchase activity and start conversations around products.

Users can also categorize their purchases by type -- indicating that something purchased was because "I Need It" or "I Deserved It," for instance. These categorizations are handy when revisiting your past purchases but will also factor into future features and services offered by the startup.

Yes, the first iteration of Shwowp does resemble the Blippys and Swipelys of the world, but that's a side effect of Shwowp's status as a very early-stage startup.

Right now, Shwowp is in the "data-in" phase, explains co-founder and CEO Tara Hunt; the company is working to build better tools to help people gather their shopping history. Today, you can e-mail in receipts and add purchases on the site, but the goal is to soon make this a more automated process with mobile applications (with RedLaser integration for barcode scanning) and numerous integrations with third-party retailers through available APIs.

The idea behind Shwowp, however, is much grander than what you can you see during the data-in stage and includes two additional key pieces that more clearly show why the service is important.

The next piece, says Hunt, is the analytics phase. Shwowp will work to provide users with tools so that they can view who their purchases influence and how. The ultimate aim here is to identify micro-influencer niches based on past purchases, so those with the most influence can reap discounts and deals from merchants and marketers.

It's like Klout scores as applied to shopping -- though Hunt plans to eventually tie her micro-influencer data with Klout scores for a more complete picture.

The final piece in the puzzle is what Hunt calls "data out." In the data-out phase, Hunt envisions users sending out personal RFPs to merchants to get back bids for their purchases. For example, a user would indicate that she is interested in purchasing a new pair of black patent leather pumps, include her influence metrics and then solicit bids -- with prices discounted based on influence -- from online retailers.

It's a grand vision that Hunt can certainly deliver -- if investors take interest in the idea. Hunt tells Mashable that Shwowp has raised money from friends and family to the tune of $125,000 and is actively looking for seed funding at this time.

Even in its bare-bones state, Shwowp is a compelling product, especially for bargain-hunters looking to surface product recommendations and gather shopping insights from friends. In fact, women are the exact audience Hunt hopes to reach with the site, which is why she's opted not to go the route of automatically pulling in purchase information from credit cards.

With Shwowp, Hunt hopes to create an environment where female users feel safe, empowered and ultimately rewarded for their influential shopping habits.

Five hundred Mashable readers can signup to get early access to Shwowp here.

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Image courtesy of Flickr, Romana Correale