Verishop Works With Westfield To Open Stores

To open 14 locations through next year, brand incubator and shopping website Verishop made a deal with U.S. mall owner Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. The companies said it would include a combination of permanent locations and pop-up shops, CNBC reported.

Aside from being an online marketplace where consumers can buy from trendy apparel brands such as LoveShackFancy and Vince, the company has chosen to roll out some of its own brands. Billie the Label, Ghost Democracy and Lett are among the first. More are said to be in the works.

Former Snap exec Imran Khan and his wife launched the company. Khan told the outlet in an interview, “At Verishop, we like to execute at a fast pace on things that work, and we saw our partnership with Westfield as a great opportunity to introduce customers to our incubated brands.”

Verishop’s first space, for Ghost Democracy, opened at Los Angeles’ Westfield Century City in October. Other stores for a mix of in-house brands are set to move into Westfield World Trade Center, San Francisco Centre, and Garden State Plaza, among other places. According to the outlet, “Westfield’s malls tend to be highly trafficked and in urban metro areas.”

Verishop is targeting mainly younger, affluent and millennial shoppers. It has website tabs for picks from fashion and social media influencers as well as sustainably sourced products. Consumers can buy a Diane von Furstenberg coat for $1,498 on the site as well as Calvin Klein underwear.

Khan, who spent three years at Snap as chief strategy officer, created Verishop, which aims to “bring joy back to online shopping, and do it at scale with the ease of online purchasing and fast delivery we’ve all come to expect” per past reports.

The company wrote in a blog post in February,  “When we talk to brands, many share our concerns about the current state of e-commerce.” The company continued, “They want to grow their businesses online to reach millennial shoppers, but few platforms align with their values. They’re being asked to pay for better placement, battling unvetted third-party sellers and counterfeit products with little recourse, all to the detriment of their brand integrity.”