Every social media app put up a shopping function. Instagram has Instagram Shopping so that users can purchase goods without leaving the app. TikTok contains shoppable ads. YouTube has a Shopping feature for creators to include products. And despite the huge budgets, audience, and workforce that support these platforms, LTK – a social platform where all posts contain links to purchase – remains a leader in the social marketplace for shopping.
This, according to co-founder Amber Venz Box, is due to the app’s “shopping community,” which she defines as “a part of the entire (users) community, but really what marketers buy.”
The community is large with 20 million monthly active users (Instagram has over 2.3 billion), 6,000 brands on the platform, and more than 200,000 vetted creators—the forces in the game to drive $3.6 billion in retail sales annually. The lion’s share of LTK makers are women, and more than 200 of these users have made over $1 million pushing the brand’s merchandise on the platform.
Venz Box built LTK from her own experience as a personal shopper in Dallas who garnered a cult following from customers, and made no headway in the shopping fan club until she created a shoppable vlog called VenzEdits with then-boyfriend (now husband and co-founder) Baxter Box.
“I found out I was offering my services for free,” recalls Vinzbox during her conversation with the fireplace. luck Executive Editor Michal Lev Ram at the Next Generation’s Most Powerful Women summit on Tuesday. Realizing the power of Venz Edits’ shoppable platforms, the duo set about bringing the system to fellow bloggers and taking a break in the process.
This was in 2010. By 2017, creative people were being born More than 150 million dollars in brand sales through LTK. All of this helped Finns Bux and her husband, co-founder Baxter Bux, secure $300 million in funding from SoftBank in 2021, making Finns Bux one of the richest self-made women in America (according to my website report) Forbes).
Now, with more than 750 employees, Venz Box continues to think about how LTK can be the world’s digital shopping center led by creators. A big part of this is pushing and upgrading your short video content; LTK data shows that users are three times more likely to purchase from this type of content. “Video is how people are reached,” she sums up.
Although Venz Box is not opposed to going public with LTK, it says that LTK will not be acquired and is confident that the company will continue to offer the best for the big social players. “LTK is definitely the pioneer and innovator of trading creators,” she says. “Newcomers often underestimate the development of our industry.”
