marketing budgets, haulers became invaluable spokespeople.
That’s because video has become the virtual fitting room. There are about 700,000 haul videos on YouTube today, up from 150,000 in 2010, according to a recent study by Google. Four out of 10 shoppers visited a store online or in person after watching one of its products on video and about 34 percent of apparel shoppers were more likely to purchase an item after viewing an online video ad, versus just 16 percent after watching an ad on TV.
Haul approached haulers already on YouTube and asked to represent them. The startup aggregates their YouTube channels, Instagram accounts, and other outlets, and provides video-editing tools for haulers to use. “We sign them to sponsors and get contracts from retailers,” Muse says.
Each hauler video features a full suite of e-commerce bells and whistles, with embedded UPC codes and a “Buy It Now” button.
It works the other way, too. Haul approaches retailers who have new product lines and are looking for exposure to their demographic. “Advertisers can do a filtered search—find a group of young women who live in a house between the ages of 15 and 18,” Muse says.
The startup is doing this all with an eye to create HaulTV, an online portal where viewers can search for haulers using specific products. This portal could then be connected with outlets like Netflix or AppleTV.
It’s not the only startup that’s zeroed in on haulers as a potentially lucrative market. Los Angeles-based HaulerDeals last year raised $1 million in seed funding from Intelligent Beauty, a parent company to a number of fashion-related e-commerce sites.
HaulerDeals features as many as 20 haulers with existing audiences on social media sites. They are mostly young women who have their own “boutiques,” showing how to apply their favorite new eye shadow or modeling how they paired a new series of necklaces with a particular blouse.
Muse says the market potential goes beyond young fashionistas. “Most haulers don’t know they are a hauler,” he says. “There are a lot of men who are haulers. Toys are the biggest haul category. There’s extreme sports, hunting, anything that relates to a product. Anything that is creating a marketplace.”
