ChatGPT is gaining ground on commerce publishers
And more in the content-to-commerce news round-up #4
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Welcome back to another Delivered news round-up, where I share headlines from the content & commerce space that I think are worth discussing and sending to your colleagues.
ChatGPT is gaining ground on commerce publishers 😬:
OpenAI rolled out new shopping features to ChatGPT last week, including product carousels and direct purchase links that make it easier for users to find, compare, and buy products from across the internet. I conducted a little experiment of the new functionality by using both ChatGPT and traditional Google search to build a retinol-free anti-aging skincare routine. The experience on ChatGPT was more seamless and saved me a lot of time—it took me more than an hour and multiple search queries on Google to get the same product recommendations that ChatGPT gave me in just a few minutes.
GenAI chatbots can handle a lot more complexity per query than traditional search. That, combined with their conversational nature, give them a competitive advantage that research-intensive shoppers like myself value. I know it’s easier said than done but publishers who rely on high-intent, detail-oriented users like me would be wise to figure out more complex licensing or affiliate deals with ChatGPT because if/when its shopping tool sees mass user adoption, traffic from traditional search will plummet.
Mytheresa has risen to the top of online luxury retail by fostering relationships with its top spenders:
The Wall Street Journal recently profiled the CEO of Mytheresa on how he’s turned the German retailer, which started as a single boutique in Munich, into a global luxury e-commerce behemoth that now owns one-time rivals Net-a-Porter and Yoox. Digital is a notoriously hard channel for multi-brand luxury retailers for many reasons, one being that it’s hard to target and build rapport with high-value customers. Mytheresa has cracked the code—first by identifying big spenders based on what they buy, the credit cards they use, and devices they shop from, then by building relationships with them through exclusive in-person events, like a private viewing of a New York City Ballet rehearsal or a pizza-making class in Naples.
I think the event strategy is really fascinating. Events, particularly in-person ones, are a category of content that’s especially able to strengthen a customer’s engagement with a brand and build a sense of loyalty that keeps her coming back. Though Mytheresa targets an extremely affluent demographic, all digital-first brands can take cues from its playbook of identifying target customers then cultivating relationships with them in real life.
ShopMy has acquired Thingtesting, a brand discovery platform that crowdsources reviews of direct-to-consumer products:
First reported by
in Puck, the acquisition will give ShopMy users access to Thingtesting’s robust brand database, further differentiating it from its main competitor, LTK. I asked my friend Margaret Cohn, an affiliate expert and Thingtesting user, for her thoughts: “Compared to LTK, ShopMy really emphasizes the connection between creators and brands, and I can see why Thingtesting would be helpful for driving that connection. Not only are there a ton of DTC brands on the platform, but they’re curated and tagged with attributes (like female-founded or sustainable), and all of the reviews for a given brand are aggregated on a single page. So the whole experience makes it easy for creators to learn about brands through consumers.” We’ll see how the acquisition rolls out, but it could be impactful for ShopMy as it seeks to broaden its partnership network.More brands are jumping into the Substack pool:
American Eagle has entered the Substack chat with its new newsletter, Off The Cuff. It’s the most mainstream brand to join the platform as of late, where fashion and beauty brands like Rare Beauty, The RealReal, Tory Burch, Saie Beauty, and Kule are already experimenting.
American Eagle’s Substack is guest edited by Casey Lewis, who writes her own popular youth culture newsletter, After School. Its CMO told Digiday that it hopes to replicate a “group chat mentality” and increase engagement with Gen Z, who he believes seek more in-depth content than the mindless social scrolls of other platforms. I’m curious how he came to this conclusion, as I was under the impression Gen Z spends more time on TikTok than any other platform. I also didn’t take Substack to be a Gen Z platform. (According to SimilarWeb, the 25-34 demo makes up 24% of Substack’s audience, and the 18-24 demo makes up 11%; Gen Zers, who range from ages 13-28, span both groups.) We’ll see if American Eagle actually reaches Gen Zers through its newsletter, or just more millennial marketers who want to learn how to talk to them.
Generally, it’s been interesting to see how each brand approaches Substack, as it’s still so experimental and there’s no clear playbook. My favorite brand Substack is actually from
, the founder of Loeffler Randall. It’s not like the others in that it isn’t a pure marketing play and is more focused on Jessie’s life outside of her business (she writes about her family vacations, at-home DIY projects, etc) but reading it does make me want to shop from Loeffler Randall, which is the end goal of any brand-adjacent Substack.David Protein has sold over 50k units of its high-protein, zero sugar bars on TikTok Shop:
The founders of the niche protein bar talked through their TikTok Shop strategy in an interview with Rachel Karten for her newsletter, Link In Bio. They shared a lot of interesting tidbits that any brand looking to get started on TikTok Shop will find useful, like that TikTok’s algorithm rewards creators who supplement traditional video posts with livestreams. I’ve been David Protein-curious for a while and almost bought a bar at my local bodega the other day, but it was $5.49 and spending that much on a protein bar is against everything I believe in. Another time.
That’s all for today. Here are some past posts you may have missed:
