Dallas-based rewardStyle continues to make a big splash in retail with its cast of social influencers.
By the end of 2017, the company is expected to influence $1 billion in retail sales, according to the Dallas Business Journal.
Amber Venz Box [Photo courtesy of rewardStyle]
Amber Venz Box and her husband, Baxter Box developed the platform in 2011 to drive up online retail sales using people with considerable social media and blog followings.
The platform is mutually beneficial for customers, retailers, and the influencer, Venz Box calls “the new salesperson.”
RewardStyle influencers point their followers toward products in their posts, which in turn can impact retailers’ online traffic, and, hopefully, translate into sales.
The influencers are making bank as well. According to the Business Journal, influencers who make at least $100,000 has increased 83 percent this year.
“We’re trying to make our influencers more productive and more able to drive sales through technology and education.”
Amber Venz Box
“I didn’t expect to ever be in tech, and Baxter — my husband, co-founder and CEO — never expected to be in fashion,” Venz Box told the Business Journal. “It’s sort of funny the way our worlds have intertwined to be able to create this.”
The company started with three employees in a small Mockingbird Station office. Now, it has 250 employees worldwide with about 140 working in its custom built space at the newly remodeled The Centrum in Dallas.
Earlier this year, Fast Company named rewardStyle as one of the “World’s 50 Most Innovative,” companies. It also launched a new app enabling users to create shopping lists by simply taking a screenshot of the items. It’s an add-on to the company’s popular Instagram tool, LikeToKnowIt, which sends users an email with information and shopping links to products portrayed in photos they like on the social media platform.
“We’re trying to make our influencers more productive and more able to drive sales through technology and education. And then we’re trying to create tools for our customers that make it super easy to shop the things that they want to shop,” Venz Box told the Business Journal.
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