Successful eCommerce case: Hypebeast

Like so many other projects that eventually earn a place, Hypebeast began by taking advantage of a niche that was its creator´s passion. 

At the beginning of 2005, Kevin Ma, a young student born in Hong Kong who was obsessed with sneakers and urban fashion, decided to create a web page on the subject. In fact, Hypebeast did not have a clear commercial intention initially: it was rather a blog to express all that knowledge. 

Ma, who today is a celebrity in his home country, was not just passionate about a particular subject, someone with a great curiosity who devoured everything related to it and a great capacity to communicate even though he had no specific training as journalist or writer. 

Sometimes the border is diffused. There are blogs whose growth and popularity are so high that they end up crossing the border. 

This is the case of Hypebeast, which initially published 4 or 5 articles a day, which obviously is not bad, but is very far from the nearly 80 posts currently performed every day. 

An online media which was capable of generating so much interest in the audience, had necessarily, find one form of monetizacionque out a little beyond display advertising (although eventually ended up being native). 

This is how Hypebeast eCommerce was born in 2012, an online store that was named as HBX. 

The beginnings were quite modest, since it was hardly able to capture 10 brands. But the good work made by Ma and his team, together with the media prescription´s capacity, made this eCommerce be more and more attractive and achieved to concentrate 300 different brands, among which are some of the most notable references for its audience: AdidasOriginals, Nike... 

At the same time, the case of Hypebeast is one of the clearest evidence of how important content is in the digital strategy. It is not the only store that has emerged from publishing specialization, but it is, for sure, one the best using it. 

First, because you could see the trend before many others did. 

Currently, we all know the importance of adding a blog in our store´s corporate strategy: it is good for SEO, it generates engagement and strengthen the scope of the brand. 

But nearly 15 years ago it was difficult to find such a consistent bet. In fact, it is surprising to see how it still stands out in its segment today, for example in Instagram. 

The bet, which was well resolved thanks to quality content, also supposed a support that Hypebeast did not expect initially: influencers. But in this case, I mean personalities with a brutal specific weight for their audience, not instagramers with many followers. 

First, it was the rapper Lupe Fiasco and later was followed by other specific heavyweights like Kanye West, who spoke of the brand in their different social networks organically. 

Another key point in Hyperbeast business model is the specialization led to a very high level. 

It is true that, at content level, the range has been opened up to cover all that lifestyle. But, on the contrary, the eCommerce is hyperspecialized: it does not sell the same things you can buy in any retail or marketplace, but it focuses on products from exclusive, limited edition, luxury products, honouring its name: Hypebeast means something like "beast of the hype, what it is more fashionable". 

This is the case of Hypebeast, which is especially inspiring to show you the importance of betting on content and hyperspecialization as part of your eCommerce strategy.