Just ahead of the holiday season, the fashion resale platform Basic.Space is introducing a new feature focused on gifting between users.
The move is meant to emphasize the social nature of the platform at a time when shopping and social media are merging. Social platforms are adding commerce options, like TikTok with TikTok Shop. Meanwhile, shopping apps are adding social features, like Etsy and Amazon with their TikTok-liked vertical scroll of videos.
Basic.Space is one of the shopping apps increasingly relying on social features to bring in new customers. The new gifting feature lets users buy from the platform’s high-profile sellers, like Sporty & Rich’s Emily Oberg and influencer and curator Justin Reed, and send it to someone else with minimal legwork. If the recipient of the gift is already a Basic.Space user, they receive a notification that they’ve received a gift. If they accept the gift, it will be delivered to the address in their profile. If they’re not a user of the app, the gift giver can put in their phone number and the recipient will receive a message with a download link for the app to receive their gift.
According to senior product designer Jack Riew, the feature takes advantage of the fact that users of Basic.Space can see what their friends on the app are up to.
“The saves tab on a user’s profile acts as sort of a wishlist or a space for curation,” Riewe said. “Here, you can see what others are into and gift them something. Alternatively, if you’re feeling opportunistic you can purchase it [for yourself] before they do.”
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Basic.Space has increased its seller count from 50 to 500 in the first year of its existence and has raised $23 million in funding from investors.
At launch, Basic.Space joined a rising tide of social commerce apps which includes Flip, the TikTok-like shopping social app that has specifically disallowed influencers and paid promotion of brands or products. Meanwhile, TikTok is currently seeing consumers spend $3 million to $4 million per day on TikTok Shop. Social commerce in general is getting bigger, with 98% of U.S. consumers saying they plan to make at least one purchase through social commerce this year.
In-app gifting in particular has emerged as a common strategy, particularly on apps like WeChat, which introduced the concept in 2021 in the form of digital red envelopes users could send to each other. Amazon also introduced in-app gifting in recent years.
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“Integrating social and commerce together is the core of what we do,” said Garrett Tacoronte, vp of engineering at Basic.Space. “It’s about being more than just a shopping app and being a place where you can trust real tastemakers.”
