Trendio Live Inc., founded by Alex Perez-Tenessa, former VP of US Prime Video and startup veteran David Olmos, today announced the launch of Trendio, its innovative video shopping app that enables customers to engage with personalized content and purchase beauty products with a single click. Perez-Tenessa’s background overseeing US Prime Video for Amazon, coupled with his previous role as Head of Beauty for CVS, provided him with unique insight into the untapped potential to leverage innovations in video technology, including video AI, to radically enhance the beauty shopping experience. Perez-Tenessa and Olmos enlisted Amazon Live alum, Julie Novak and former Glossier Head of Make-up Category Management, Leah Grubb and together they set out to create a platform that would reimagine the future of beauty e-commerce by delivering the quality of personalized advice traditionally only found in-store with the efficiency of digital shopping. With seed round investment from venture capital firm Madrona, an early backer of Amazon, the Trendio team compiled an advisory board of industry experts including former Member of the Board of QVC Michael Zeisser, founder of Amazon Live Munira Rahemtulla, and former CEO of Zulily Jeff Yurcisin. Trendio is grounded in the belief that the modern consumer wants more out of the beauty discovery experience and that AI-enhanced video is the best avenue to meet that need – in addition to iOS and Android, the Trendio app can be downloaded on Roku, making it the only startup to seamlessly merge content and commerce on connected TV.
“We’re reinventing shopping entertainment for a new generation,” says Alex Perez-Tenessa. “We launched Trendio because traditional e-commerce wasn’t working for customers who wanted to discover new beauty brands and products in a way that felt personal and that they could trust. Our technology roadmap not only enhances the shopping journey, it reinvents how people experience video altogether – we are creating the first ever personalized video experience.”
Trendio meets the customer where they are, on mobile or connected TV starting with Roku; users are able to interact with creators via live or pre-recorded videos, pin their favorite products to their dashboard and purchase items from a variety of brands directly through Trendio with a unified checkout process. Among Trendio’s ever-growing roster of prestige beauty brands are Merit, Philosophy, Fig1, Ursa Major, Nudestix, Kjaer Weis, Joanna Vargas, Coola and Avene among others. Committed to providing users with unbiased recommendations and reputable products, Trendio implements stringent criteria when considering potential brand partners. This rigorous selection process also extends to the content creators featured on the site, all of whom are hand-selected by the platform’s team specifically for their expertise, reliability, and relatability to create honest content that consumers can trust.
“We want Trendio first and foremost to be entertaining. We work with creators who make our customers feel like they are receiving beauty advice from a knowledgeable and fun friend or big sister,” says Julie Novak, Trendio VP of Content. “We appreciate the responsibility of recommending products and brands in our videos, and we put great care into the quality of our selection to ensure we only feature brands and products we genuinely love and believe in.”
Video content yields significantly more data signals and conversion per session vs. traditional e-commerce, providing Trendio and its brand partners with invaluable insights into their consumers’ preferences and purchasing behaviors. Trendio’s introduction of video AI capabilities in early 2023 will enable the site to automatically edit videos to suit each user’s unique preferences, further boosting relevance and conversion and setting a new industry standard for personalized shopping. Video commerce is already a scaled business in China representing over $132B in sales and +155% growth YoY[1]. In the US it is anticipated to reach $35B by 2024[2]. With 50% of customers saying they find product discovery frustrating and 72% saying they want to learn about product through video, Trendio delivers on what the beauty space has historically lacked – a seamless, personalized video experience that users can trust.
