She said Paperless Post now has to manage inventory and compete with party supply players that have already established themselves in the category. After years of monetizing via ads, the company pivoted to focus on commerce last year and now says it’s Amazon’s biggest gift affiliate.ĭespite its growth opportunities, Minkow said developing an e-commerce business is no easy task. Evite, which also started as a digital invitation service, has also begun facilitating gifting. Paperless Post isn’t the only online invitation company that expanded into commerce. Instead of investing in features centered around the pandemic, the company instead focused on long-term goals like building out Party Shop as well as its text invitation feature. When the pandemic hit in the second quarter of 2020, Paperless Post lost 85% of its revenue versus the previous year. It “really builds that relationship almost at an end-to-end level.”Īdditionally, having a diversified source of revenue could also make a company less vulnerable to industry disruptions. “It’s also an opportunity to more deeply connect with your current customer and have more interactions or touch points with them,” Minkow said. Melissa Minkow, director of retail strategy at digital consultancy firm CI&T, said expanding to an entirely different category can give companies the opportunity to reach more customers and gain more customer insight. Party Shop offers themes like floral and safari as well as seasonal ones such as Halloween. The company has an in-house design team and has had over 40 designer and brand partnerships, including Oscar de la Renta and Rifle Paper Co., among others. Hirschfeld said the company has utilized consumer data to identify themes, color schemes and the types of events that people are celebrating. territories. So far, Hirschfeld said Party Shop is seeing a “high” average order value, with some customers spending over $1,000 on orders. ![]() The company also delivers to locations within the U.S. The prices of the products can vary, but a party kit fit for eight guests can run from $78.50 to $174.25. “The digital product drives towards people having more meaningful gatherings.”įrom tableware and decorations to costumes and full party kits, Party Shop offers products from brands like Meri Meri, Caspari and Atelier Saucier. “We’ve always been a digital company, but our focus is helping people get together in the real world,” Hirschfeld said. The company’s revenue, most of which comes from selling its online invitations, is up 50% this year from 2019. It has seen an influx of events planned on its platform even compared to pre-pandemic levels. Paperless Post boasts a total of over 175 million invitation senders and receivers since its founding in 2009 and has received over $50 million in funding to date. And it joins other digital invitation businesses trying to grow revenue via commerce. ![]() Paperless Post users have hosted about 19 million events since inception. By introducing Party Shop, the company hopes to facilitate the next step of the party planning process, especially now as in-person events make a comeback. Paperless Post said it wanted to win a larger share of the party market after learning how its customers spend an estimated $5 billion on events each year. ![]() “The invitation is the beginning of a planning process that kind of leads up to the event where people really are excited and shopping.” “After the invitation gets sent, it kicks off a whole period of planning,” said James Hirschfeld, CEO and co-founder of Paperless Post.
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