How Refinery29’s Simone Oliver is complementing content with commerce

As a publication specializing in fashion and beauty, Vice Media Group’s Refinery29 has its origins in commingling content and commerce. Now the outlet is looking to extend its expertise to live shoppable video.

“We’re going to start live testing [live shoppable video] in the spring. We’re considering YouTube as a our starting place, and we’re probably going to start with beauty because it’s a strong category for us,” said Refinery29 global editor-in-chief Simone Oliver in the latest episode of the Digiday Podcast, which was recorded in front of a live audience at the Digiday Publishing Summit on March 29.

With live shoppable video, Refinery29 expects to take a similar tact that it has adopted with its commerce content overall: Allowing its audience to experience products vicariously through its editorial staff. “We know for us creating that sense of community, having our editors out front, having their faces in front is really important,” Oliver said.As Oliver said of Refinery29’s overarching approach to commerce content, “we’re not gatekeepers. We’re here to experience the trends with you. Our audience is savvy as heck. They don’t need us to tell them the trends. What we do is we test-drive those trends for people. And that’s one of the ways we generate trust.”