Trendio, a brand new video buying app co-founded by a former Amazon Prime Video government, is aiming to boost the sweetness buying expertise. The buying app permits prospects to interact with customized content material and seamlessly buy magnificence merchandise via dwell and recorded movies.
The app is the brainchild of Alex Perez-Tenessa, the previous vp of Prime Video U.S. and Head of Magnificence at CVS, and startup veteran David Olmos. The pair enlisted Amazon Stay alum, Julie Novak and former Glossier Head of Make-up Class Administration, Leah Grubb with the objective of making a platform that reimagines the way forward for magnificence e-commerce by delivering the customized recommendation historically solely discovered in-store with the effectivity of digital buying.
“I had the privilege of working Prime Video and I noticed a variety of new applied sciences associated to content material creation,” Perez-Tenessa advised TechCrunch in an interview. “I noticed modifications in expectations and behaviors of audiences around the globe and that made me see there was a chance to leverage all of these applied sciences to unravel an issue I’d seen once I was working magnificence at CVS, which was that magnificence merchandise are advanced. They must be demoed to ensure that prospects to actually perceive their worth. And the way in which that the digital retail setting has developed has not gone within the route of creating that simpler, for each manufacturers and customers. So I noticed a chance to leverage video applied sciences to create a a lot better technique to uncover and store magnificence merchandise.”
Trendio gives each dwell and pre-recorded content material from creators to assist customers make knowledgeable choices about merchandise and types. Amongst Trendio’s rising roster of magnificence manufacturers are Advantage, Philosophy, Fig1, Ursa Main, Nudestix, Kjaer Weis, Joanna Vargas, Coola and Avene.
Picture Credit: Trendio
The app incorporates a TikTok-like feed the place you may swipe via brief previews of various merchandise. In case you come throughout a product that you just’re excited about, you may faucet to look at the total video. You may as well watch a dwell video the place you may chat with a creator and different viewers about particular merchandise. Customers can browse Trendio’s catalog of movies to see new objects or featured manufacturers, together with creator channels and model shops. Once you discover a product that you just like, you may try instantly within the app. Trendio then makes a fee on each product that’s offered on the platform.
At launch, Trendio is offered in the uson iOS, Android and Roku. Perez-Tenessa says one of many insights that he took from his time at Amazon Prime Video was that buyers are transferring towards linked TV, which is why it was so essential for Trendio to be obtainable on each cellular and Roku. Though Trendio is initially solely obtainable within the U.S., the corporate plans to launch the app in further international locations sooner or later.
The entire content material on Trendio is presently manually edited, however sooner or later the corporate says the content material shall be mechanically edited utilizing AI. Trendio is presently coaching and constructing AI fashions that can be capable to be certain that the app surfaces content material that’s attention-grabbing for every particular person.
The thought of dwell video buying has taken off in Asia, but it surely’s nonetheless a reasonably new and experimental idea within the U.S. Perez-Tenessa believes that to ensure that the idea to take off within the U.S, it must be totally different from the mannequin in Asia.
Picture Credit: Trendio
“I believe the expectation concerning the content material that folks come throughout may be very excessive within the U.S.,” Perez-Tenessa stated. “It additionally needs to be a mixture of dwell and recorded content material. I believe that’s true to some extent in Asia, but it surely needs to be much more the case within the U.S. Individuals have simply tried to only copy the Asian mannequin and replica paste it into the U.S. I don’t that’s going to work as a result of the connection to video within the U.S. and and in Asia has alway been totally different. You must be there for the shoppers the way in which they wish to eat the content material. We predict we can provide prospects that high quality and expertise that they count on.”
When it comes to funding, Trendio closed a $3 million funding spherical in Could that was led by Madrona. Half of the funding went towards product growth and creating enterprise relationships. The corporate will use the opposite half of the funding subsequent 12 months for continued product growth and advertising. Trendio can also be planning to lift a Sequence A in 2023.
Though Trendio is launching within the magnificence e-commerce area, the corporate plans to increase past that class sooner or later. Perez-Tenessa says there may be potential for the corporate to naturally increase into wellness and equipment e-commerce, and past.
