BuzzFeed has a new plan for making money: selling you clothes
After a successful internal test run, BuzzFeed opened Shop BuzzFeed to the public this summer. The site sells things like wacky socks, tee shirts with slogans on them, and lots of apparel emblazoned with AF (as f***).
Shop BuzzFeed might look like a swag shop only meant for superfans, but Tessa Gould, BuzzFeed's head of commerce, told Poynter that it's actually an important part of BuzzFeed's money-making strategy. Gould described the effort as part of a new "proactive" commerce strategy, in contrast to a "passive" one which simply relies on revenue-generating links to sites like Amazon. Gould and a small team have been pursuing this since January.
"It's fair to say that commerce is currently a small but fast growing revenue stream for BuzzFeed," she told Poynter.
Here is what you can currently find in the BuzzFeed store: