Live commerce and the sports collectibles industries are both booming. There’s one place that sports fans are all going after work and no, it’s not the nearest sports bar. At night, fans are flocking to Loupe, where they can extend the game day excitement and connect with fellow sports fans for another live experience, but one like no other.
Long gone are the days of acquiring sports collectibles from faceless sellers on an online platform. Today, it’s not only about e-commerce, it’s about making a purchase in real-time, directly from trusted sellers that you can see and interact with.
The Loupe app provides both long-time, serious collectors and novices alike with a credible and seamless experience. The outstanding combination of entertainment-commerce has encouraged the average collector to spend an estimated $1,000+ a month, while Loupe’s power users have spent as high as $1 million. As Loupe capitalizes on this elevated form of e-commerce — bringing livestream technology into the age-old tradition of collecting — the app is making its name in the growing sports memorabilia industry, alongside Whatnot and Fanatics. Far from a niche hobby, the market value of sports cards is expected to reach a market cap of $51B by 2032. By the same year, the broader sports memorabilia industry is projected to grow to $227B.
Eric Doty, founder and CEO of Loupe, shares, “The phrase ‘live commerce’ sounds so transactional, but what we focus on is building relationships. When collectors become familiar with the various sellers on Loupe, we find that they find a home with a handful of channels that they enjoy the most.” Doty has been harnessing his own background in building platforms for video game livestreaming and his expertise in creating highly engaged communities to bring that same elevated and entertaining experience to sports card collectors.
To ensure the best live experience, Loupe is hyper-focused on quality over quantity. Doty explains, “We put every prospective seller through an extensive vetting process because we need to know they’re trustworthy and that they meet the standards on our platform.” With more than a third of Loupe sellers earning more than $100,000 a month, it speaks to that high quality bar. In fact, the majority of sellers on the platform actually have their own brick and mortar stores.
Loupe knows that you can’t put a price tag on trust. That’s why they’ve developed the infrastructure to ensure that collectors are able to purchase much-valued collectibles with confidence and to guarantee they have an exceptional experience every single time. Ultimately, present day collectors are discerning. They not only want to know what they’re buying, they want to know who they’re buying it from, and the instant they decide on a purchase, they want to immediately get their hands on it.
That exceptional experience doesn’t end after a purchase. Loupe has an exclusive patent-pending feature called Collector-to-Collector. Forget DTC and B2C. Loupe’s C2C sales means that two users are able to buy and sell a card to each other from within a livestream. Through this unique feature, the seller receives an instant deposit of Loupe credits to use toward more sports cards, and the buyer subsequently gets the purchased card shipped directly from the shop, hassle free. Loupe is continuing to expand its post-purchase offerings, understanding that collectibles can change hands quickly and that the platform can continue to be an important part of a sports fan’s collection journey.
Emphasizing the value of the Loupe community, Doty shares, “The community aspect is incredibly powerful, and it’s really similar to a sports bar on your phone.” He continues explaining, “The relationship between sellers and other collectors is the number one reason people come back every single night. It’s why live commerce statistics are so impressive. People want to spend their time and money with people that they like and trust.”
Loupe is available to download on iOS and Android.
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