Video Commerce Network HaulerDeals Launches Its Own Fashion Brand, Local Socialite

If you don’t know about HaulerDeals, you probably should. The network of YouTube personalities has more than 5 million subscribers and a billion video views in total, and is quickly establishing a new model for social commerce based on recommendations from its panel of fashion experts.

So what is a hauler? And how is HaulerDeals tapping into this fashion culture? HaulerDeals is a bit of a niche network for young women interested in fashion. These “haulers” go out, buy a bunch of stuff, and then showcase their “hauls” to a video audience. HaulerDeals has designated a view of these girls as “gurus,” promoting them within its video network.

So Haulers, gurus, whatever. The point is these ladies make videos about where to find great fashion styles at a fraction of the price that one would pay at designer stores. And they offer up links to those styles, where viewers can actually purchase the stuff that they’re suggesting. In other words, it’s a whole new model for making money off of YouTube, that’s not linked to advertising, but instead, commerce driven by recommendations of these fashion influencers.

That’s where Local Socialite comes in. Local Socialite is an exclusive fashion brand that HaulerDeals launched in conjunction with StyleSaint. The HaulerDeals ladies will promote and sell items from the collection, with each choosing their favorite items and highlighting them during their videos. HaulerDeals is even running a contest to see which styles are viewers’ favorites. So HaulerDeals isn’t just making affiliate revenue in partnership with existing fashion brands, but pulling in revenue off its own brand of clothing.

HaulerDeals can even go one step further by creating clothing that leverages its haulers’ own personal brands. While the company found that it was able to push sales of brand merchandise suggested by its gurus, articles of clothing that included the guru’s name had even higher conversion rates among users. The whole thing is an interesting new model for social commerce, and one I expect to see more companies follow as time goes on.