Update: Please note that Polyvore no longer exists (sad face). You can try ShopLook as an alternative which is pretty good as a user, but as a marketer, you’re more limited.
What is Polyvore?
Polyvore is a “community powered social commerce website” that has been around since 2007. For users, it’s a great way to discover and shop for things in a different and engaging way. For brands, it’s a great way to drive referral traffic while engaging with a demographic that is likely to spend big online!
The thing that really makes Polyvore stand out is how users interact with the site by building collages, and by grouping their favourite items into collections. Collages (known as sets) can be built from a huge library of items including fashion, beauty and home decor products. Users can also ‘clip’ items, adding them to their set and therefore to the library.
Each item added to the library is priced and tagged. Adding items is quick and easy with a browser add-on called the clipper tool, which allows users and brands to add items to Polyvore from any webpage they’re currently browsing. Each item can also be tagged to help other users find these products to be used in their own sets.
Users can then choose these products to create sets by pulling together clothes, shoes, accessories, homewares and more, which they can then share with the community, and via other social media channels. Polyvore’s global community has shared over 80 million sets so far.
In addition to sets, there are also ‘collections’, which provide a simple way of grouping similar products, themes or trends together.
What’s so great about it?
I’ve been using it regularly for a few years for a number of reasons; it has an easy to use interface, and the choice of products that you can use in your ‘sets’ is unlimited. You can literally build a whole outfit in minutes and share across social channels or via email so that you can easily drop massive hints about which items you’d like people to buy for you if you can’t afford to buy them for yourself.
It’s easy to shop on too – each product page has a price, description, and related items, along with a link to buy the product. And for cheapskates like me, when you save a product, you can receive email alerts to let you know that the item has gone on sale.
It’s also a great source of inspiration. I’m not a ‘girly girl’ so planning a wedding outfit had me in a right old panic, but I was able to play around with some different outfits and don’t *think* I ended up looking like a total dog’s dinner thanks to Polyvore.
So, from a user’s perspective, it’s easy to use, fun, creative, and a nice way to shop.
Why should a brand consider using Polyvore?
Polyvore has a over 20 million unique visitors per month, with more than 7.5 billion product impressions each month. Its collages (or ‘sets’) get over a billion impressions each month.
The Polyvore demographic is comfortable shopping online – in fact, the average user is 84 per cent more likely to have shopped online for clothes, shoes or accessories in the last 30 days than the average online consumer. Referrals through Polyvore generate an average order value of $383 (that’s around £250); the highest of any social network and way above the average for Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.
Polyvore caters to shoppers with all budgets with a diverse range of products; however, luxury brands such as Farfetch, Net-a-Porter and My Wardrobe have a huge number of followers, which will certainly appeal to Polyvore’s affluent user base, as the average users household income averages £48,000!
It can be great way of driving more referral traffic, and as demonstrated by the high average order value and demographic, it can also be a good way of generating revenue.
How can I use it to promote our brand and products?
Setting up a brand is easy – and free! Polyvore provides a guide to setting up a profile if you’re a business, and you can claim your page by contacting them and providing a company email address as proof that it’s you. This will add an ‘official’ stamp on your brand’s profile.
An unlimited number of items can be added, and it’s quick and easy to do so. Sets can be created with limited design skills being required, and this content can then be published to blogs or used for online lookbooks with minimal cost to the business.
Sets and collections can be used to:
- Promote new products and trends
- Demonstrate how customers can style an item multiple ways
- Show how your products can be used or styled on certain holidays and events
- Endorse your products (or a similar one) by showing celebrities using it
- Align your products with brands you’d like to be associated with
Because Polyvore is compatible with all of the major social networks, any content you create (such as sets or collections) can be shared across other social channels.
As soon as you have 30 followers on Polyvore, you can set up a group and run contests that encourage followers to make their own sets out of your items. Interacting with users who have used your brand’s items in their sets and collections through follows and likes is a great way of boosting your brand presence.
You can also add the Polyvore ‘like’ button to the product pages on your website – it’ll act as a social proof booster, as well as enabling users to quickly share the product with their followers.
For brands that want to build a presence on Polyvore even further, there is the option to advertise in the ‘Shop’ section of the site, as well as using promoted item advertising. This will be better suited to brands with larger marketing budgets, as inclusion in the ‘Shop’ section comes at a cost.
For more information on the benefits of Polyvore, get in touch with Browser Media today!
