Consumerhaus: The Online Marketplace Created by Gen Z, Puts CPG Founder Narratives at the Forefront

In January 2023, Consumerhaus, a centralized marketplace offering digitally native products with a focus on health and wellness, went live. The platform may serve as a barometer for what Gen Z consumers are seeking.

The e-tailer was initially conceived as a way for 25-year-old Harvard University alumna Claire Spackman to vent her irritation with the difficulty of finding health items online. Spackman, a Gen Z customer and a former competitive tennis player who grew up in a health-conscious home, observes that despite social media becoming the go-to buying place for her generation, there are few aggregators of their preferred brands.

Customers can navigate either by categories, such as superfoods & adaptogens or functional beverages, or by specific brands and their corresponding propositions, such as female-founded, clean label, sustainable practices, etc., through Consumerhaus' custom-built interface featuring interactive product images and texts. Additionally, there are sections devoted to items at a discount and highlighted companies.

One of the primary goals of Consumerhaus is to forge a deeper connection between the consumer and the value behind each brand through storytelling, according to Spackman.

"Founder and brand storytelling are the foundation on which Consumerhaus is built," she explained, and this storytelling, which includes founders' entrepreneurial journeys, interviews, and photos, does not currently exist on any other major e-commerce players, including AmazonAMZN +3.8%. 

"We carefully build relationships with each founder to make sure we appropriately share their tales. Many people are unaware of the fact that many of these businesses were founded by individuals who mixed ingredients in their own modest kitchens and shipped parcels from their living rooms, as well as the fact that a brand's values are frequently closely related to its origin narrative.

This strategy is specifically designed for Gen Z consumers since research indicates that they are more inclined than other generations to buy from companies with which they identify in terms of values and lifestyles.

Spackman said, "We have started a "Featured Founder" series on our social media, including Instagram, with informal one- to two-minute video introductions from the founders themselves so that customers can truly meet the faces behind our businesses and listen to founders share their stories. The main objective of all of this content development is to improve the emotional bond between customers and companies.

Consumerhaus has so far hand-selected 120 companies, or about 700 goods, for its wheelhouse, including the extra-virgin olive oil beloved Graza, the confectionery firm Behave, the soft cookie manufacturer Mmmly, and the internet-frenzied sauce creator Fly By Jing. According to Spackman, there are no formal requirements that these businesses must achieve in order to be eligible; the goal is to continue onboarding more "genuine, trustworthy, and mission-driven emerging brands" in the upcoming years.

She stated, "I believe it's crucial to maintain a healthy mix between existing brands and new businesses, since the presence of established names may boost customer familiarity and confidence while simultaneously giving young brands additional legitimacy by association."

Consumerhaus employs the dropshipping business model, whereby all of the items on its platform are shipped straight from the brands' warehouses to the customer without the need for a shipping charge, regardless of the quantity of the order. According to Spackman, because the majority of our businesses are digital natives, they have invested extensively in their unboxing experiences, and we wanted to retain that enchantment for the end usergardless of the quantity of the order. According to Spackman, because the majority of our businesses are digital natives, they have invested extensively in their unboxing experiences, and we wanted to retain that enchantment for the end user. For this reason, we determined that dropshipping would make the most sense for our marketplace. But she has much bigger plans for Consumerhaus than just an online store.

In the near future, she continued, "we want to provide subscribers-only, limited-edition drops of items in partnership with some of our companies and establish a loyalty program for customers to receive incentives for buying at Consumerhaus." "I also envision a number of alternative directions Consumerhaus may go in the future, such as being a resource center for entrepreneurs, a launchpad for new products and brands, or a priceless resource for data, trends, and market research," the author continues.