Exclusive: Condé Nast to Launch Influencer Storefront Platform

Condé Nast said Wednesday it will launch a platform to host online storefronts for influencers, the publisher’s biggest effort yet to capture a piece of the booming creator economy.

Called Vette, the platform will allow creators to operate independent e-commerce websites, stocked with products of their choosing, which they can then promote across their other channels. Unlike affiliate marketing, where an influencer — or publication — gets a cut of sales if a reader clicks over to a brand’s website and makes a purchase, Vette will handle the transaction itself. Brands will then fulfil the order. It is expected to open early next year.

Condé Nast has made a major push into commerce content in recent years, viewing it as a new revenue source to help make up for declines in print advertising. Positive reception from readers — particularly to content with a more personal touch, like editor’s picks — sparked the idea for the new platform, according to Lisa Aiken, the executive fashion director at Vogue and the publisher’s senior vice president of commerce who is heading up Vette. The company’s commerce revenue has tripled in the last five years, though it declined to give a dollar figure.

“People shop from people,” said Aiken. “As soon as you see how those voices cut through and influence shopping and how people are discovering fashion … it felt like a very neat tie to what we do within Condé Nast.”

While the publisher has had some success with commerce content, operating what is essentially a dedicated e-commerce software platform is relatively unchartered territory. Past trials have faltered: The 2016 attempt to turn Style.com into a shopping website, for example, lasted less than a year.

To boot, Vette is entering a market with plenty of well-established competition. In addition to e-commerce sites like Mytheresa and Net-a-Porter, there are already two major platforms that help influencers monetise their followings, mostly through affiliate links: LTK, which launched in 2011 is the long-term incumbent in the space, while five-year-old ShopMy has rapidly gained popularity over the last year for its product gifting features and data transparency.

Condé Nast sees its marketplace model as a differentiating factor, as it removes the extra step of needing to go to a brand’s website to buy something an influencer is pitching, said Aiken. She said this will also give creators access to more data about their followers’ shopping habits and demographics.

Aiken, an e-commerce veteran who has held past roles at Net-a-Porter, Mytheresa and Moda Operandi, sees Vette as a tool not just for creators, but also a potential alternative to traditional wholesale. Creators will only be able to link products directly from brands on their Vette storefronts, not third-party retailers. And because brands fulfil the orders themselves, she said, they won’t have to deal with missed payments from retailers and can control prices. She also believes that incorporating creators will help create a more personal, differentiated shopping experience compared to most luxury e-commerce sites.

“If you walk into a store, you have a sales associate that’s knowledgeable about the product and will talk to you about it,” she said. “That doesn’t necessarily exist in the e-commerce space, but it can through a creator’s voice.”

Influencers as an Opportunity

Aiken said that having the backing of a company with a longstanding authority in fashion will help Vette stand out from its rivals. The plan is to start with a small, curated group of creators. The company isn’t yet saying who, but Aiken pointed to contributors to the Vogue app as a potential pool to draw from. There’s something to that idea — more influencers are seeking out legacy media coverage as a way to legitimise their businesses and stand out amongst countless others on people’s feeds.

LTK and ShopMy are finding other ways to attract talent.

This year, the two companies have introduced major updates. LTK has doubled down on the social aspects of its app, encouraging creators to use it the same way they do Instagram or TikTok, and as of last week, allowing brands to create profiles too. ShopMy is building out its retail services, including influencer-curated storefronts and “Circles,” which allow shoppers to follow a group of creators.

One weapon Condé Nast isn’t deploying is the Vogue name. Vette will have its own branding, and at least to start, its storefronts won’t appear on the publisher’s websites.

However, Aiken said that they’re open to evolving the platform.

“The beauty of growing a startup business within such an established organisation is that you actually have the opportunity to take this in different directions, depending on what our audience is telling us,” she said.