Short-video app Roposo plans to launch influencer commerce at scale towards the end of this year, said Naveen Tewari, founder and CEO, InMobi, whose mobile content platform Glance houses Roposo.
Currently, Roposo which has close to 100 million users and 55 million monthly active users, is in talks with beta partners to integrate payments and logistics services on its platform. Through this, it will allow creators and influencers to sell their products on the platform. Creators on Roposo will also be able to upload brand-led product reviews, which brand partners can then embed on to listings of mainstream e-commerce platforms.
“No one can build a large business in India by pegging their revenues on just advertisements. The second category of monetisation for us will be what we call ‘influencer commerce’. on Roposo, we will be leveraging talent of our creators and influencers to convert them as entrepreneurs. In a post pandemic world, efforts around retail are especially towards replicating offline commerce, online,” Tewari said in a recent interview.
He added that at present Roposo is training and leveraging existing video creators for influencer-led commerce on its Roposo platform (for the launch), and is targeting 10-15 well-known celebrities for the same.
The best performing and trending content and commerce on Roposo will get featured on Glance, said Tewari, which is InMobi’s lock-screen advertising platform.
“Social commerce platforms are an easy way for traditional retailers to move online, since they are investment light, simple to use and have the ability to build trust with consumers.,” said Harsha Razdan, partner and head, consumer markets and internet business, KPMG India
Even upstarts like Chingari and Mitron are in talks with brands to collaborate with creators on their platform to help build revenues, and are looking to enter the social commerce space as soon as the coming quarter.
“Chingari will foray into social commerce in the next 6-9 months. But as a company, we are focused on making it the best short-form video app platform. We see a lot of brand interest towards partnering with Chingari content creators. Gone are the days where brands used to collaborate only with the top Hollywood or cricket stars. This is a massive boost to both the content creators and the brand.,” said Sumit Ghosh, CEO and co-founder, Chingari.
Mitron co-founder, Shivank Agarwal said social media apps have an inherent advantage over e-commerce platforms, as users tend to spend more time on these apps, unlike shopping platforms, where users just log in to make a purchase.
Through interesting videos, social media apps can also build a differentiated buying experience for users, online.
“The good thing about social media is that users are generally inclined to watch content, and interact on these apps. While, they open e-commerce apps, only when they want to buy something. So social media apps already have the user’s desire to spend time on the platform,” added Agarwal.
Indigenous short-video sharing app Mitron, which raised around ₹37 crore in a funding round led by Nexus Venture Partners, plans to launch social commerce on its platform in the next quarter.
“A part of our last funding round was to not just help creators create better videos but also to create sustainable revenue models from them through building e-commerce capabilities on our app, and building an ecosystem of brands collaborating with our creators, Hence we will help small entrepreneurs create ,” said Agarwal.
Earlier this year, social networking platform, Sharechat acqui-hired Elanic — a fashion peer-to-peer marketplace, to enter into the social commerce space.
In July, Flipkart also forayed into social commerce through its 2GUD platform in a bid to tap Tier-II cities and beyond.
“What is critical for social media platforms is quality content creation, since they cater to a wider audience seeking relevant content. Thus all content needs to be curated as per the target audience. If retailers focus on selling products with the right quality with enhanced data security measures over payments and a worthy post-sales service, then we could expect social commerce to be a game changer,” added Razdan.