Verishop, launched with $17.5 million investor capital, is a new marketplace for brands which aims to create an online retailer that better serves both customers and brands. There are no third party sellers on Verishop, they are evaluating and selecting only the brands that meet their standards and they say which will resonate with their customers.
“We’re building an online-shopping destination that will evolve to meet customers’ needs so our brand partners will thrive. We’re making a place that elevates our brand partners’ identities so customers will have more delightful opportunities to discover new products.”
– Verishop
Verishop point out that ecommerce was supposed to make shopping easier and it has for everyday commodity items. Search, add to cart, check out, done. But in making the experience more efficient, Verishop say that it has lost much of the joy of discovering something new that you truly love.
Brands, many share Verishop’s concerns according to the marketplace. They want to grow their businesses online to reach millennial shoppers but are being asked to pay for better placement, battling unvetted third-party sellers and counterfeit products with little recourse, all to the detriment of their brand integrity. It’s also worth noting that this is an upmarket venue, prices are on the high side and you won’t find cheap fast fashion on Verishop – great if you’re a mid-range or premium brand.
Verishop currently boast just over 120 brands with the likes of ALLSAINTS, Hudson Jeans and Levi’s. The business model is more akin to Amazon Vendor where Verishop actually buys the inventory directly from the brands – this they say eliminates counterfeits and third party sellers where the source of stock is unknown but does in some ways reduce Verishop from a marketplace to just another online department store retailer.
Verishop Co-founder and CEO Imran Khan comes from Snap, where he served as chief strategy officer and helped Snapchat grow from zero to an annual revenue run rate of $1.2 billion in just four years. Verishop co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Cate Khan comes from 8 years at Amazon, where she was most recently senior vice president of retail for the Quidsi business.
If you are a brand and would like to sell on Verishop you can contact them at [email protected]
