CommentSold - $1.6Bn in GMV through Live Selling
A masterclass in social selling
In my last exploration, I had gone further up-market with HubSpot, so I thought this time around I'd explore a new and emerging area - Live Selling. I recently came across CommentSold, which lets people buy through a comment on social platforms. I was very intrigued, and not just because they claim to have processed $1.6Bn in GMV and 7000+ sellers!
Origin Story
There aren't many PR or news articles available about CommentSold - it's not a venture-backed company! It's the best kind - bootstrapped and profitable from day one. The founder, Brandon Kruse, started it to help his girlfriend (now his wife) sell clothes online, built a bunch of software, and it just took off! This video was fascinating to watch - it talked about how he saw his wife's business take off and it was clear to him there was a product-market fit. It's incredible to see how this company is reshaping live commerce from Huntsville, Alabama!
How does it work?
At its core, CommentSold is pretty straightforward. It provides sellers the ability to create and manage a product catalog as well as invoicing and payments. It's got all the regular integrations for catalog and cart management (with Shopify and other syncing tools), as well as payment integration with a host of providers like Stripe, Paypal, etc., coupon management. I also saw some advanced features like loyalty points, a branded mobile app, etc. For the curious ones, this video was a great introduction to how the seller portal works.
The fun part is that most of the selling happens through live video selling. Most of the sellers run a live video - and during the video, they show products with an "item number" and the size/color options. If you want something, you comment "sold <item number> <option>" and it gets added to your cart, which you are informed about immediately through a message. You then check it out through CommentSold's interface. The buyers have to jump through some hoops to get set up for the purchases - so there's some initial friction to get going. See this video on how a buyer needs to start engaging and how the purchase process works.
They have a tiered pricing model with $49/mo + 5% of revenue, or $149/mo + 3% of revenue (presumably over and above the credit card fees).
What I found fascinating about the product
All sounds straightforward, but I felt that CommentSold had nailed a few things that helped it create so much value for sellers:
Create a Community - It provides an ability to do all of this through Facebook Groups. The creator or seller is motivated to build a community of highly engaged VIPs who want to buy from them. It also encourages more commerce since people in the group start to know each other and learn from them.
Create Social Proof - As the live video rolls, it's fascinating to see other orders roll in, and as consumers, it primes others to be less inhibited. It's the same reason we go to a crowded store when there's a line out front.
Create Urgency - CommentSold does this well. For starters, the product is shown only for a short period, so you have to make up your mind quickly. The sellers are also small businesses with limited inventory, so they will likely run out of inventory so you have to act swiftly esp if others are ordering. Lastly, the cart CommentSold automatically creates is only valid for a certain number of hours (configurable) and the system automatically sends out reminders before the cart expiry, forcing action.
What do customers think?
I was pretty fascinated when I went in to check the reviews. It's got 52 five-star reviews, 2 four-star reviews, and no 3, 2, or 1-star reviews. CommentSold is not the best commerce tool - but the things it does well, it nails and has led to tremendous growth in revenues. No wonder sellers rate it so highly.
The Company
In the interview linked above, Brandon and Adam mentioned that the company was profitable from day one. They are also fully remote! It's done two rounds of private equity investment - one from ZMC Partners and the second one from Permira, a $50Bn PE shop, which also bought out ZMC. They made three acquisitions in quick succession - including a business intelligence suite and a social media marketing (post creation) platform called Vizzlie. Brandon continues to run the company.