monica-michelle_full_length nov 13, copy
===
Monica: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome back to inside the click. I'm Monica. I'm Michelle. And we are your go to resource for data driven insights into the creator economy.
In one of our last episodes, we talked about flip and how it's this new ish platform that's really focused only on social selling. It's different from Instagram and social media that it's less entertainment content or it's only social selling every post has something tied to it that you can purchase.
Michelle: Yes, as this space evolves and as different platforms emerge, if you go back to intent behind using the different platforms, when you open up Instagram or you open up Facebook, you're not necessarily.
Looking to buy something, right? Or tick tock. You just want to like, browse, be inspired, be entertained.
Now, LTK, [00:01:00] right? They're the big one in the industry that has a consumer facing. The difference between the LTK app and Monica, I like how you phrased it in the flip episode. I like how you like talked about it, but the LTK app, when someone opens it. They are looking to shop.
And even in like eCommerce and the marketing industry in general, intent is such a big driver of getting people to do what you want them to do. In this case, purchase, it's going to be really hard. To drag someone out of the Instagram app, if they are not necessarily in a, I want to buy something state, but someone that goes into an app where they have the expectation of okay, I'm ready.
I want to find some things I want to purchase. This is where now the social selling apps and [00:02:00] experiences are capitalizing on that. Because you're going to open the app and by social selling, it's really like you can add your friends from your contacts on it. It's basically like virtual reviews, which reviews that's another separate thing.
Reviews are so highly utilized anyway. I always look at reviews. And so it's combining both of those where you have video reviews. In a more like peer to peer experience, but now influencers are getting in on that. And for example, Addison Rae is in it. There's not like a ton of people, like she only has, it was between like 10 followers.
So this is very new, but you can look under the hood and be like, what's this product like, what's going on here? But then going back to the intention, it is a high intent audience that's using it. [00:03:00]
Monica: And not only are people already coming into the app knowing that they're probably ready to shop, the way that they've built it.
So as you're scrolling and engaging with people in the right hand corner is the amount of credit that you're earning. So as you're scrolling, you're just seeing it go from 20 and then all of a sudden you spent five minutes on it and now you have 40 and it's like, okay. Now I suddenly have this magic money now.
I'm definitely gonna buy something. Yes
Michelle: It's so one thing with that. It's a little confusing because When I did my first purchase, which I'm still waiting on and then I'm gonna make a video but Monica was from what you sent me and I could use that up to 95 percent of the purchase Okay, the, the weird thing is that even if you have all of those credits, you [00:04:00] can only use it up to 30%.
So that's where it's like it's a 30% discount every time and you're racking up money. . But, so for example, man, I cannot believe you went from a 25 to $40 . That short of time I have $15. I feel like I'm engaging with it a lot, but I can only use that up to a 30% worth of my cart.
Right.
Monica: Okay. So it's a mental game that they're playing. They're tapping into girl math real
Michelle: hard. I know, because I'm like, oh so that technically means I could buy like 45
Monica: worth of stuff and then I use the
Michelle: whole 15 but now for creators, though, there's more incentive and I have to figure out how this works because it's something like, there's like a 60 thing, 120 thing, [00:05:00] like I don't fully know what that is, but I think it's if you are, if you're making videos and people are buying from it and you make, you get like 60 worth of maybe commission or something, then you get a free product.
And
Monica: that's, and then that's also where it's like actual cash that you can like transfer to your bank account. Because if you go into your account, there's there'll be a bucket where it's like store credits, so to speak. And then one that's like actual, cash, but yeah, I think you have to create content to get into that cash category.
Yes,
Michelle: So. 1 thing and Monica, we talked about this briefly, but right now, if you go and you use flip, it is all single. Brands um, so for example is it elf or ELF?
Monica: I say elf. I have
Michelle: [00:06:00] no idea. Yeah. Okay. That's what I see too. So elf has been like a huge one for me and that's actually, I bought three elf things because I could get the most like paying for my fun.
But they have a ton of other like, Hourglass, Anastasia they have a bunch of brands. I did see Barney's Skincare, right, like Barney's New York. But they do suggest Yeah. Yeah, it was like Barney's Skincare.
It's trying. I'm so
Monica: confused. What? Yeah. So why didn't care? Come back to
Michelle: life. I think it was Barney's. Hold on. Let me just, I
Monica: thought they were just goners.
Michelle: Well, So while I'm looking this up, uh, yeah, Barney's New York Beauty. What? They have 121, [00:07:00] 000
Monica: views.
That's right. Whoa. They sell it at Saks. They sell
Michelle: it. Okay. So this is what's interesting is. Right now, when I look at the brands that are in here, because I scrolled through a lot of them last night, it seems like it's all of these you don't see a Nordstrom on here, right?
It's all of these. Single brands. And there are some brands that are missing I wish drunk elephant was on here. Cause I use basically all of their stuff. And Fenty beauty, right? Like I love them. They're not on here, but I think that if like these multi brand retailers were to get on here, it would expand the catalog, but then how would.
If there is a drunk elephant. If drunk elephant dot com is on [00:08:00] it, but then Sephora gets on it and they sell drunk elephant where is it coming from when you add it to cart? Because when these items are delivered, they are from flip. Flip has some sort of inventory or direct line to these brands where it's like, that's the 1 that's shipping from you.
Something that's kind of annoying is. Delivery time is a bit longer.
Monica: At least they do free returns. That was going to be like a very big question mark for me. Yes. But no, to your point, yeah. I would think that if they ever did that, it would just have to be kind of like it is for an influencer creating links, where you have the product catalog and then you're just like, oh most of Sephora anyway, so I'm going to choose the Sephora one.
Michelle: Oh, it's on the, the influencer decide which, or would they put it? Would they let the customer choose? [00:09:00] Oh,
Monica: that's true. Like those websites like list where like you'll go to the product and then it says you can shop it at Bloomingdale's Sacks or. And yeah, that makes sense too.
Michelle: And so we could, it will be interesting to see how this evolves.
So Monica and I did look it up and the general manager came from tick tock live streaming. Was it live shopping? Live
Monica: shopping and marketplace.
Michelle: Yep, and he has not been there very long, like eight or nine months. So I feel like they have a very strong person at the helm because, and I haven't looked too much into this yet, but they have, oh, okay, if you go, oh wait, yeah, sorry, I'm like all over the place.
If you go into the shop magnifying glass and you go in the [00:10:00] looking for At the top, and there is something that's called lives now, when you click on it, it says, oops, we don't have anything to show you here yet. Please come back later. They are going to be doing something with live shopping, which is like.
All the rage right now, but I think this is super smart. You have this highly invested audience, there's a ton of incentives. And they're going to be doing live shopping.
Monica: It'll be really interesting. And I think there's so much to it where it's a destination to shop. It's like turning on QVC or turning on HSN instead of just turning on NBC and then you get one infomercial.
Like it's very different. It's crazy how in so many ways, all of this seems so brand new, but it's really not at the same time. I guess it is [00:11:00] for Gen Z who never turned on NBC and then had to sit through a two minute infomercial on duct tape. But... Or the
Michelle: thing where the guy like, Slaps the thing on like water,
Monica: it's like a boat and
Michelle: he just like, Oh my gosh.
Oh, one other thing that I was just thinking about too. We shared in one of our TLDRs, like there was a podcast episode of basically. It was like one of the Wall Street Journal ones saying how like Amazon is imitating TikTok and TikTok is imitating Amazon and they're like Amazon is trying to do some more basically like flip content where it's like people are reviewing and shopping and then TikTok we know is adding their own marketplace.
But I do think that there is a common issue with both of those, and it's much more predominant in TikTok, where it's just like a load of [00:12:00] crap. Like, Don't know if the products are good. Amazon has been known to have some dupes out there, even if it says it's from wherever, like you don't fully know. This, there's no spammy stuff on here.
It's only legit products. So because it's like why would I use this instead of. Those things, and that's a huge reason why on top of that, you have the opportunity to get in on more of the ground level because there aren't a lot of influencers on here yet.
Monica: Exactly. Another thing I really like that they're doing is they're showing the return rate. On an item, so if you click on the product from someone's video, it'll tell you the percentage of returns on that product, which I think is incredible. Imagine if every [00:13:00] influencer link recommendation came with that information because I think so many times.
A creator will say so many of y'all purchased this and then that makes more people want to buy it because it was such a big hit and this is all coming from a genuine place. I'm not saying they're doing it to like. Trick people to buying more, but how. Interesting would it be if you're on the fence and you see that there's 100 percent keep rate or there's a.
50 percent return rate. I feel like that also gets you to convert so much faster. If you see it as a 95 to 100 percent keep rate, you'd be like, Oh, now this is a no brainer.
Michelle: Yes so in browsing through some things, I'm seeing that if the keep rate is like 93. Or 94 percent or higher, that's generally pretty good.
That's like even the standard, but [00:14:00] I did see something with it was like, maybe in the high 70s or in the 80s for the keep rate. And I was like, oh, that one's not super kept.
Monica: I'd be curious too if eventually their algorithm does something with that return rate information where videos get boosted if they have a higher keep rate.
Wouldn't that be interesting? Because then it's 1 more metric to make sure you're pushing the best content,
Michelle: but then you always have the classic problem of when new products come in. And then how do you in your way? They could just. They could just put some modifier on products that are, like, 30 days or less old or they still get the normal treatment.
Yeah. Good point. So here's the thing, though, and actually last night when I was browsing through, I saw the 1st. Negative review, where this girl like bought these like pore strips for her [00:15:00] nose. She was like, eh, these aren't good. Like they come off and she like recorded a video. But I'm kind of like, what is the incentive to record a bad video?
Monica: bEcause she's still, because well, this is why I think Flip is good. Compared to the others when it comes to this, because she's still getting credit for people engaging with her content and for liking her content, even if they're not purchasing, she's still getting something out of it versus a creator who is sharing links on Instagram.
And if they quote unquote de influence something, they get absolutely nothing monetary out of sharing that link because no one's going to buy it, right? They get the like, no, trust, that whole thing. But if we're talking about just like monetary incentives, on Flip, even if you post a negative review, as long as people like it [00:16:00] and engage with it, you're still getting part of the puzzle when it comes to your earnings.
Cause it's engagement plus. Like sales.
Michelle: This, I think that this could be huge. Yeah,
Monica: and I think it plays into the de influencing thing if they are truly motivating people to be honest and giving them an incentive to be honest even though on its surface it's a consumption app to buy It's also hitting the, you don't have to buy piece.
It's like really doing both.
Michelle: The one drawback is loyalty programs are not hooked in. That is like the... Only thing that I'm just like, I know,
Monica: but if you think about it, if you're a Sephora shopper, [00:17:00] Sephora's loyalty programs already garbage and we talked about this and the 30 percent off you get is more than the highest discount you would get during a Sephora sale.
Michelle: Yeah. 30 percent off. That's like a third.
Monica: Because the highest you can get off during Sephora sale for non Sephora brand products I think is 20 percent rouge. Yep. That's wild. Yeah, that's so
Michelle: true because that's the whole reason why we
Monica: use it year round. You don't have to wait for Sephora sale to get that percentage off and you're getting more.
So it's like that kind of is a loyalty program in of itself.
Michelle: So true. It will be interesting though, to see how they do evolve. And also if this is widely adopted, our multi brand retailers. Would they be in trouble a little bit
Monica: they'd be at a disadvantage because [00:18:00] their biggest thing is you can add everything to that one cart and Flip lets you add everything to your cart where well, I guess where they'll always have is the fast shipping until flip Shipping there's always gonna be yeah,
Michelle: actually Let's look quickly and see.
Oh my gosh. This app like automatically starts. My orders. Yeah, so I purchased this on Halloween and today is November 2nd. It is still preparing. Which, after this, it's ready to ship, then flip box ship, then flip order delivered. Yeah.
Monica: And with Sephora, Ulta, Nordstrom, everyone else, you can even do same day pickup if you really needed it.
I've been doing [00:19:00] in store pickup for so much lately because my packages keep getting lost. I'm like, oh, for three on Sephora packages actually showing up at my door and same with revolve. Yeah, it's like a does it actually show up to my door with Revolve?
So I'm just trying to do pick up often. Wow. Amazon is like an 100 percent rate. Amazon's been able to figure out where I live, but everyone else... Whether it's U. S. P. S. U. P. S. well, U. P. S. is a 0 U. P. S. has never found my house. FedEx is pretty reliable. D. H. L. is 1 of the better ones because the courier texts you.
If something's D. H. L. I'm like, great sign me up. But sometimes U. S. P. S. they'll say they attempted to deliver it. And that the address doesn't [00:20:00] exist and so then they take it to the post office and I have to go to the post office and then a really weird part of Dallas in fair park where the state fair is and there's nothing else other than, like, where the state fair is.
99 percent of the year.
Michelle: You know what I do that, too, if they do have a buy now, then you can pick up option. I'd like to do that because I do think if it's not. Amazon or maybe like target I have paid sometimes for expedited one to two day shipping, but there's a caveat where it's like once the carrier gets it, it's one to two days, but they take like.
Five days to actually put the package together and give it to the carrier. So exactly. It's like some of those shipping things with the single brands are still
Monica: weird. Yeah. It's maddening sometimes. Yeah. Yeah.
Michelle: You keep refreshing and you're like, okay, why did I just pay? [00:21:00] 15 for this shipping. The other thing
Monica: that gets me is how FedEx scans their packages as delivered before they deliver them.
And so if you get the notification, it says delivered, and then you contact them and they're like, Oh they can do that up to 24 hours before it actually gets delivered. And then I'm like, so then you're just not tracking my package at this point. Because, yeah. Between you saying it's delivered and there being 24 hours, this is why the package is getting lost.
like, how does that make sense?
Michelle: Oh yeah. So it will be interesting to see what Flip ends up
Monica: doing. Yeah. I hopefully they have a good logistics department. Yeah. Or at least like that's a huge portion of just making sure this works is making sure they have a good logistics team.
Michelle: Yes. It's like those behind the scenes.
It's the things that you only notice when they're bad, [00:22:00] but you don't notice when they're good. That is what needs to be super solid. And the only reason why, so I worked for an ad agency that when we did a pitch for an internet and cable provider, that was like, the big insight is that people only think about their internet when it's not working.
Yeah. I'm like. So true, but that's also true about shipping
Monica: It's so true. Yeah. Shipping and internet. That's right. Or in appliances. Appliances. You don't think about your dishwasher other than using it until your dishwasher breaks or like something like that. Like your . Yeah, like utilities.
Michelle: Yeah. . aLl of just the things that need to work to make your life smooth. . Exactly. . So flip. Be interesting to see how you evolve. I'm hoping that next week I'll get the package and I can make a video.
Monica: Yeah, if it takes [00:23:00] longer than next week, then that's concerning. That's just
Michelle: I'll just be like, okay what am I going to need in the future?
And I'll just buy it now.
Monica: Especially because you can't create content until you buy the product, so you're at a standstill, which could hurt adoption because momentum is so important when it comes to someone new joining a platform to then use those links or be an active person.
If that person decides, okay, I'm going to sign up. I'm going to do content, but then they can't do that for 20 days there. If they don't do it in 30 days, they're probably never going to create content on that platform. So that is one thing that kind of does need to get figured out. I think,
Michelle: I think that for their outreach, they could always proactively send.
Content to people and set it up, right? And then they basically just need to scan a QR code and everything's in for the products that they've sent them. Yeah, and so then [00:24:00] technically they could start, it's interesting. It's the same experience for creators and.
Shoppers, and that's like rarely the case so true, because if you're a shopper using it, that doesn't really matter to you but your creator, that's really important. When they're courting people, they can just like, proactively send packages and be like, now you can use it.
Yep, and they could have influencers. sEnd a package proactively to their friends. So then they wouldn't necessarily let to their friend influencers, like the referral program, because then it's not like, they're downloading the app and they're exploring and they can't do it and they feel like they're missing out.
It's like that package would prompt them to open the app.
Monica: Yeah, that's true. Another thing I think they could do is like for your first three videos while you're waiting for your product to arrive you could [00:25:00] Upload a receipt that shows that you purchased an item So you just upload your like sephora receipt or whatever that has the item that you're going to talk about on it I think you use ai to just scan that receipt and make sure I don't like that Right and then like you get to do three videos that way And then, by then you've already started to use it, decide if you enjoy it or not.
And that just like, increases tremendously the chance of someone sticking around. It'll be interesting to see.
Michelle: So that was our deep dive on flip. We're probably going to be talking about this more since this was literally the 2nd time that we've talked about it in a few weeks.
so If you have any questions, shoot us a DM, you can email us at hello@insidetheclick.Com and get to what's it called? Social commerce, social selling. Yeah. They're [00:26:00] really valuable.
Monica: All right. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to like rate and review all of that helps us so much in growth and making sure that we can get you the latest when it comes to the creator economy.
Michelle: Thanks everyone.