IMshopping is a new "human-assisted" shopping website and Twitter shopping service where knowledgeable shopping guides respond to product questions and provide personalized recommendations for users. Prashant Nedungadi is CEO and founder of IMshopping and previously co-founded the largest third-party tool provider on eBay and led the merger of Andale with Vendio.

IMshopping delivers a mix of recommendation technology and real human assistance, aiming to create a more efficient way to find products online. Twitter users can directly ask questions by messaging @imshopping. The shopping guides in the community and trained experts offer detailed responses within a short period of time. Shoppers can use these responses to instantly make purchases or save to their own folders before making a product decision.

Online shoppers can instantly look for specific products, search IMshopping's database for product questions that have been already answered, or pose their own shopping questions.

"We believe human assistance will create a deeper level of e-commerce satisfaction that doesn't exist on the Internet today," said Nedungadi. "There is a lot of information out there, but very little help when online shoppers need specific answers that will make or break their purchasing decision. At brick and mortar stores, human experts fill such a void, but on the web, it doesn't exist. We developed IMshopping to bring the same level of personalized assistance to online shoppers. Twitter is the ideal medium for having a conversation; Online shoppers have the option to communicate privately with the expert on Twitter, or publicly so others can benefit from the right choices."

The company also announcing it has closed a $4.7 million Series A round of funding from SK Telecom with Min Park and Soo-Hyuk Lee, both SVPs at SK Telecom joining the board.

http://twitter.com/imshopping

http://www.imshopping.com