Verishop launches social media feed

Verishop, the luxury e-commerce site created by former Snapchat chief business officer Imran Khan, is launching a social network within its app on Monday, Khan told Axios.

Why it matters: Verishop's aim is to create an online experience akin to a digital shopping mall. To do that, it needs to create a shopping experience that's much more social and curated than what's offered via eBay or Amazon's shopping experiences.

Yes, but: Adding user-generated content to Verishop's curated feed poses some risk.

• Khan told Axios that the company will filter for potentially misleading or harmful content using both artificial intelligence and human review.
• Users will be able to report bad content. Content which is flagged by users will automatically be removed once flagged by a user until it is manually reviewed.

Details: Starting Monday, the company will allow brands and users to upload photos and videos of merchandise and lifestyle content, with the idea of creating a social shopping network for people tag products in their posts, share curated collection boards, and follow people and brands that inspire them. 

• Users will be able to save collections — groups of photos and videos — to their personal shopping profiles and follow influencers and brands that can do the same.
• Users will receive profile and product recommendations via a "For you" feed. A separate "Following" feed will show brands, influencers and users they chose to follow.

Be smart: Chinese tech giants like Alibaba have pioneered incorporating e-commerce and payments with their their social media and video apps.

• American tech giants, like Instagram, Facebook and Google are pushing aggressively into shopping amid the pandemic, as more retail business moves virtually.
• These companies started out by accruing mass user bases, and then later pushed to monetize those loyal users via advertising and now, commerce.
• Verishop is doing the opposite by launching a shopping marketplace first and a social media experience around it second.

The big picture: The company, which launched in July 2019, has been boosted by the transition to e-commerce during the pandemic.

• It now houses nearly 1,000 independent and direct-to-consumer brands across all lifestyle categories (home, fashion, beauty, etc.), including household names like Madewell and AllSaints.
• In July, Axios reported that the company was expected to sell $50 million worth of goods by the year's end.
• About two-thirds of its shoppers are under the age of 35.

Go deeper:

• U.S. e-commerce adopts a social network strategy from China
• Imran Khan launches Verishop as "Amazon" for luxury goods
• Ex-Snap exec Imran Khan raises $17.5 million for new startup