Verishop Brings Group Video Shopping to Its E-Commerce Platform

The goal is to engage consumers with an experience that captures some of the social feeling of a trip to bricks-and-mortar stores with friends. “What we have been trying to do is making shopping more of a community experience, so live shopping is obviously the Holy Grail,” said Imran Khan, co-founder and chief executive of Verishop.

Verishop, a two-year-old company based in Santa Monica, Calif., also introduced several features last month such as allowing people to upload their own user-generated content, tag products in their posts and follow friends on the platform.

Verishop declined to disclose its revenue or the number of users it has.

The efforts come as e-commerce continues its long rise, given new impetus this year by the social distancing imperatives of the pandemic.

U.S. e-commerce sales are expected to reach $794.50 billion this year, up from $600.10 billion in 2019, according to research firm eMarketer.

Though the start of coronavirus vaccinations in some countries, including the U.S., provides optimism that the pandemic may soon be over, that doesn’t mean consumers will revert to old shopping behaviors, said Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis Groupe SA .

“Once a consumer learns a new experience and is forced to maintain that for 6 to 9, 18 months, that new behavior is likely to set and they aren’t going back,” Mr. Goldberg said.

Other e-commerce platforms including Popshop Technologies Inc., Livescale Technologies Inc. and iShopShops Inc. offer shopping events accompanied by live video. But the video usually comes from influencers or brands, and shoppers interact primarily with them instead of each other.

Live shopping experiences are also popular in China, with many streaming on platforms like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. ’s Tmall site or JD.com. For many people in China, the hours of 7 to 11 p.m. have become a time to watch these livestream shopping shows, which are often hosted by influencers, said Claire Fang, founder and chief executive of Yum Delight Inc., a plant-based nutrition company that has experimented with live-shopping in China.

But it’s unclear whether Verishop’s Shop Party will gain wide adoption from consumers, some e-commerce specialists say. While group shopping has found mild success in other markets, it remains unproven in the U.S.

People are shopping for themselves right now, not for each other or with each other, said Rachel Tipograph, founder and chief executive of Tipo Entertainment Inc., which operates MikMak, an e-commerce software company.

Verishop tried to maximize the appeal of Shop Party by making it as user-friendly as possible.

The shared checkout bag that friends fill during Shop Party sessions doesn’t display the price or size of any item in it, in order to keep sensitive information private, said Rong Yan, chief technology officer at Verishop.

The Shop Party feature makes online shopping feel more like an event, said Alexandra Rappaport, 25, who participated in testing for Shop Party. Shoppers can also schedule these parties late at night—a time when bricks-and-mortar stores would typically be closed, she said.

“We would never do that with online shopping, but now you can,” Ms. Rappaport said.

Other potential uses for Shop Party include working with brands and retailers to host shop parties, the company said.

While it remains to be seen whether group shopping will take off, it’s the right time to release new and innovative e-commerce features, said Ms. Tipograph, the MikMak founder.

“The reality is we’re all at home and we are looking for ways to be entertained,” Ms. Tipograh said.

Write to Ann-Marie Alcántara at [email protected]