Influencers are turning into retailers. Now what?

21 Oct 2025

In the age of algorithms and AI, a new crop of tech platforms are betting that creators will become our most trusted point of sale.

You likely already do it, if you spend time scrolling TikTok or Instagram. Shopping influencer recommendations for a new lipstick or a pair of trousers has become a social media pastime, though the experience — through links in bio and affiliates — is clunky.

Now, a new crop of storefronts want to make it easier to shop what we see on our favourite creators’ feeds by positioning them as the curators of their own online stores. As the traditional wholesale model falters, it’s shaping up to be the next creator economy battleground.

In the last three months, ShopMy launched direct-to-consumer (DTC) creator storefronts on its platform, which currently provide affiliate links to creators to tag their recommendations. Vogue parent Condé Nast announced the upcoming release of its creator storefront platform Vette, while Sephora launched My Sephora Storefront, a new creator-powered affiliate platform. A fresh wave of startups including District, Fflow and Vylit have also entered the space to help creators build the infrastructure they need to sell products directly to shoppers.

By moving beyond reliance on affiliate links that redirect consumers from creators’ social profiles to retailers’ sites, they’re promising reduced friction in the buyer journey. This leaves further room for creator storytelling — and, hopefully, increased sales.

This push to turn influencers into their own storeowners comes as the traditional wholesale model is breaking down, with bankruptcies and consolidation across the industry. Meanwhile, the global creator economy is still growing. Goldman Sachs predicts the market will reach $500 billion by 2027, eclipsing projections for global luxury goods, which will sit at around $360 billion (per McKinsey).
Despite algorithm changes and regulatory threats to the social platforms that birthed the creator economy, brand appetite for creators as a marketing vertical is accelerating. Marketing departments’ creator budgets grew at their fastest pace in three years in the 12 months ended August 2025, up 171 per cent from the same period a year earlier, according to research by influencer marketing tool CreatorIQ. Almost two-thirds of those increasing spend pulled directly from their paid advertising budgets.

Brands are making the connection between creators and consumers, who are seeking out peer-to-peer recommendations before they purchase. This comes with its own risks — by introducing a third party to each sale on a shared revenue model, the storefronts need to deliver on their promises to drive more sales for brands and creators. There’s also a risk that if every creator becomes a merchant themselves, their followers could feel alienated by this new commercial paradigm. But if successful, these storefronts could redefine what DTC actually means for fashion.

“These spaces are less about efficiency and more about intimacy: a return to curation, discernment and human interpretation,” says Cherry Collins, global strategy partner of marketing agency Havas Media’s luxury division.

Authenticity inflation
As social media users grow disillusioned with their algorithms and savvier at detecting what’s generated via AI, Collins says creator commerce’s cultural weight will become even more essential for the luxury sector. Already playing out in adjacent sectors like luxury travel, it’s what Collins calls “authenticity inflation”. The harder it becomes to tell what’s real, the higher the value of verified human judgement, which will become the justifier of both attention and price.

It’s this human touch that forms the guiding principle of Condé Nast’s Vette platform, whereby “people shop from people”. The publisher’s entry into commerce is informed by the fact that editor wishlists, guest curators and curators at large have been outperforming content series across Vogue, Lisa Aiken, Vogue’s executive fashion director and Condé Nast’s SVP of commerce, who is leading the launch, tells Vogue Business. (Vogue Business is also owned by Condé Nast.) “There is no curation online anymore — everything is just a very broad assortment of product, and curation comes from having a point of view,” Aiken says.

Analysts say these platforms hold the potential to simplify discovery for shoppers, who are fatigued from scrolling and overwhelmed by the sheer amount of affiliate partnerships in traditional social commerce. “The storefront has the capacity to become a modern mood board: slower, more intentional and emotionally resonant,” Collins says.

Creators become hubs for product recommendations, much like traditional storefronts, in what Thomas Walters, chief innovation officer and co-founder of creator-first social agency Billion Dollar Boy, has dubbed “relationship-driven commerce”.

“The creator becomes the curator, stylist and salesperson — guiding purchase decisions through the power of identity and cultural connection,” he adds. “This not only helps consumers tap into influencer recommendations based on whose style they typically like, but it can streamline the decision-making process from a consumer perspective.”

Storytelling is key
But by turning creators into merchants, these platforms risk undermining the ethos upon which they’re built.

“Social commerce works so well because it’s more than just selling, it’s about integrating commerce into conversations,” Walters says. “But without the ‘social’, it’s just commerce. If brands and creators fail to recognise that, they might miss the chance to tap into what people are buying and for what reason.”
By operating on a shared revenue model, these platforms are an additional stakeholder for every sale — a business model that requires a certain economy of scale to succeed. If ‘creator’ becomes synonymous with ‘retailer’, the burgeoning sector could become a victim of its own success.

“I don’t think scroll fatigue is about consuming less content; it’s about wanting more meaningful, curated, human-filtered discovery,” says Collins. “Creator storefronts reframe ‘shopping through people’ as a shortcut for taste and trust. But if every creator launches a storefront, consumers will feel the same fatigue, just in a different packaging.”

The model will also require a more hands-on approach from brands than the current affiliate marketing model. Rather than playing a numbers game with discount codes and tracking links, success will hinge on creative integration as well as the alignment of brands with each creator-retailer’s taste, so that editorial curation is front and centre, rather than feeling like just another product listing.

“Strategy is absolutely paramount — it’s about co-creation and highly selective partnerships. Luxury brands need to view creators as extensions of their brands, not just marketing channels,” says Ellie Bamford, North America chief strategy officer at advertising agency VML. “Creator storefronts should feel like a trusted recommendation from a friend.”

Creators vs AI
As generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI race to roll out commerce-focused features that accelerate mass personalisation, these platforms are pitching themselves as the antidote to machine-powered recommendations. Although these new platforms use AI behind the scenes to help creators select products with available inventory and see which products and prices are selling best, their frontend is strictly human over AI.

Their model stands in direct opposition to the recent proliferation of AI shopping apps like Alta, Daydream and Doji that are betting that consumers will want to buy from AI-powered stylists and product recommendation tools in the frontend. It’s too early to say which of these 2025 e-commerce inventions will be a match for how consumers actually want to shop — but experts say that the storytelling potential of tastemaker creators is a natural fit for luxury’s aspirational ethos.

“For now, the creator’s world offers aspiration, relatability and a narrative that an avatar — no matter how personalised — can’t quite match,” says Collins. “It’s about the story and the vibe they project. Creators are more for inspiration.”

While these platforms are placing more trust in creators’ hands, however, market researchers say consumer scrutiny over creator content is growing, as it becomes increasingly difficult to discern what’s been made by the human versus what could be AI.

According to Billion Dollar Boy’s annual research, 32 per cent of consumers believe AI has negatively disrupted the creator economy. It also found that consumers are much more comfortable with the concept of creators using AI in their content production processes, compared with an overall AI-generated look or feel.

For now, analysts say creators’ biggest defence against distrust is their own creativity.

“As generative AI floods feeds with synthetic influencers and AI-assisted recommendations, human creators will have to signal realness more overtly — showing process, imperfection, behind the scenes,” says Collins. “Ironically, being visibly human will become a differentiator. Authenticity used to mean ‘relatable’, soon it will mean ‘verifiably human’.”