Even with customers back in physical stores this year, Tyler Faux, founder of beauty shopping app Supergreat, is bullish on the future of livestream shopping — for good reason.
The platform onboards between 6-8 official brand partners every month, with names such as Ulta Beauty, MAC Cosmetics and ColourPop among those joining in 2021. And along with big brands have come celebrity hosts: Hailey Bieber has appeared on the app with Bareminerals, Jenna Lyons has hosted a livestream for her lash brand Loveseen, and Jonathan Van Ness represented JVN Hair in a November stream that sold a product per minute.
And it’s not just brands that are optimistic about beauty video shopping. In July, Supergreat received a $10 million funding round led by VC firm Benchmark.
“Video — both short-form and live-streaming video — is such a compelling mechanism to really understand a product or brand that you’re considering purchasing or learning about for the first time,” said Faux.
Supergreat first launched in 2018 with its TikTok-style short video feature. Anyone can log on to use the feature and film reviews of products they’ve purchased. The app currently houses over 300,000 videos by 20,000 users, featuring over 5,000 beauty brands.
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But it has amped up its livestreaming programming this year, currently only allowing approved accounts to host streams. The app has expanded its number of official live hosts, or accounts approved to livestream, from six at the beginning of the year to nearly 100, counting both influencers and brands. Influencers are incentivized to join by receiving commission on items purchased via links in their videos.
Product listings are starting to appear in the app’s new marketplace that it’s currently operating in beta, with a select group of brands invited to join. Brands will handle their own fulfillment for the products.
To attract users, the app promotes its strict ban on filters, in order to ensure viewers’ trust that what they see is what they get. This has gone over especially well with Gen Z, who make up 65% of the app’s users. Currently, 94% of them are women.
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The app also attracts users with its gamified approach to a loyalty program, allowing reviewers to earn coins for reviews that can be redeemed for full-size products.
Overall, Faux is confident that the new video app-based format of shopping will catch on in beauty, regardless of the pandemic situation.
“Brands are really focused on finding new ways of engaging and building community,” he said.
