To impact influencer marketing, shopstar is turning the traditional model on its head. 

Co-founded by Ori Simantov, the startup is pioneering a platform where consumers pay for products with social media posts instead of cash, transforming everyday users into micro-influencers.

shopstar integrates with existing e-commerce platforms, offering users the option to offset product costs by posting about their purchases and allowing individuals with smaller followings to participate in brand collaborations.

This approach democratizes influencer marketing and promises to unlock billions in untapped “social capital.” Ori envisions a future with a “shopstar accepted here” sign as common as credit card logos.

With a rich AI and data science background, Ori previously led data science efforts at First Media, a digital marketing agency. “My experience and a lot of the pain points I felt from the industry came from there and encapsulated into shopstar,” he says.

“The idea of shopstar is to enable anyone to pay with social media posts for products, services, or experiences,” Ori explains. He estimates that monetizing all social profiles could generate up to $180 billion annually in value for brands.

As the platform gains traction with small brands and individual users, it faces significant challenges in scaling its AI-driven valuation system and building trust among merchants. However, if successful, shopstar could set new standards in e-commerce and monetization, bridging the gap between brands and most social media users.

“We understood that things need to change,” he told us. “For the industry to scale, we need to reverse it. So influencers pay brands with a social media post.”

In an exclusive interview with Net Influencer, Ori discussed shopstar’s development, its potential impact on the creator economy, and the hurdles it must overcome to realize its ambitious vision.

Shifting Paradigms: The Two-Sided Challenge of Post-as-Payment

Ori and his team faced significant hurdles in developing and launching shopstar. The innovative concept of paying with social media posts required validating two fundamental hypotheses.

The first challenge was determining if consumers would prefer to pay with posts instead of cash. “At first sight, it sounds pretty obvious, but we weren’t sure wannabe influencers or regular people would take that stand,” Ori explains.

This led to both educational and technological challenges. The company needed to convince users that their social media presence had monetary value, regardless of follower count. Simultaneously, they had to create a seamless user experience for real-time post-valuation.

“From the moment that they show interest in ‘buy now, post later’… to the moment that they, in real-time, are being assessed, we’re putting the expected value of their posts in front of them,” Ori says.

The second major challenge was convincing merchants to accept posts as payment. This required shifting the traditional influencer marketing paradigm.

“We are coming to the merchants and saying, ‘Hey, this is not how to scale influencer marketing. You need to let customers/influencers/creators pay you with their posts,” Ori revealed.

To address this, shopstar developed tools to track branded posts and demonstrate ROI to merchants. The platform provides detailed analytics on impressions, engagement, media value, and resulting sales.

How shopstar Works

shopstar integrates with e-commerce platforms and is currently focusing on Shopify merchants. The setup process is designed to be quick and code-free, typically taking between 2 to 5 minutes.

“Like most historical industry disruptions made by novel tech, we make processes faster and therefore more affordable, expanding market size,” Ori states. “A collaboration via shopstar happens in real-time, while traditional marketplaces can take days to weeks.”

The platform offers automated tools to generate awareness about the post-as-payment option, including email flows and website buttons. When users pay with a post, they connect their social media accounts (currently Instagram and TikTok, with plans to add Facebook and YouTube Shorts).

An AI model learns from a large amount of data on the user’s social profile (texts, images, videos, previous brand deals, etc.) and the merchant (store data, social profiles, previous brand deals, etc.) to determine the expected value of each post in real-time. 

Based on that value, the user receives either an upfront discount or a discount after posting. After receiving the product, users create and share their branded post, which shopstar tracks and makes available to the brand along with analytics.

“The more they post and show results, their shopstar score essentially goes up and grants them better terms in this specific store that they bought, or in different stores that support shopstar as a payment,” Ori explains.

The Power of Authentic User-Generated Content in E-commerce

Ori emphasizes the importance of user-generated content (UGC) in today’s e-commerce, particularly from real individuals with established social profiles.

“UGC is crucial today, especially micro-UGC,” Ori notes. He distinguishes between standalone UGC content and UGC posts associated with specific individuals, arguing that the latter holds significantly more value.

The entrepreneur predicts that authentic UGC tied to real social profiles will become increasingly valuable as AI-generated content becomes more prevalent. 

“Seeing a friend recommending a specific product, a particular brand, specific hotel, specific yoga class, will have much more value than hyper influencers or content that I saw for brands that just leverage UGC,” Ori explains.

According to him, this shift is driven by changing consumer behavior, particularly during the discovery stage of the shopping journey. 

Ori anticipates a significant expansion of the influencer ecosystem. “I believe that we’ll have a lot more influencers,” he states, tying this trend with shopstar’s mission to empower everyday users to monetize their social media presence through authentic product recommendations.

shopstar’s Impact: A Small Brand Success Story

Ori shares insights into the platform’s performance and highlights a success story demonstrating its potential, particularly for smaller e-commerce brands.

shopstar has engaged tens of thousands of creators, with 85% having fewer than 10,000 followers and 10% boasting over 100,000 followers. The platform serves over 500 merchants and has generated more than $1 million in value across sales, earned media, and impressions.

Ori dissects a small brand’s experience to illustrate shopstar’s effectiveness. The merchant, processing around 500 orders monthly with an average order value of $50, had previously tried multiple influencer marketing platforms but failed to succeed.

“80% of the small brands we’re talking with have already tried three, four, or five different platforms in the last few years. And none of them made sense,” Ori reveals.

After two months with shopstar, the brand saw impressive results:

• 400 people signed up to pay with posts
• Nearly $7,000 in sales generated
• Approximately 50 branded posts were created, with more pending and each getting usage rights
• $2,000 in discounts provided
• Average order value increased from $50 to $80 for users paying with posts

“We’re talking on an ROI of almost 20x in two months,” Ori states. He notes that the discounts offered through shopstar (25-35%) are comparable to typical promotional discounts yet yield significantly better results.

Beyond Traditional Marketplaces: shopstar’s Call for Industry Change

Ori sees a future where paying with social media posts becomes as commonplace as using a credit card. 

“I can envision sitting at the bar with friends, getting the check to pay the bill, seeing the bar accept shopstar, paying with a credit card, posting an image of my friends and me at the bar, and getting cash back of $25-30 directly,” Ori explains.

He believes this approach is crucial to bridging the gap between big brands and hyper-influencers, as well as the vast majority of businesses and social media users. 

Current AI technology, Ori argues, makes it easier than ever for anyone to create quality content, presenting an opportunity to standardize influencer marketing.

Challenges and Necessary Changes

To realize this vision, Ori identifies several key areas for development:

E-commerce: The Digital Frontier for Social Commerce

The digital nature of e-commerce makes it the ideal launching pad for shopstar’s payment model. Ori explains, “I think it should come from the e-commerce industry because it’s the easiest place to scale it compared to the physical industry.” 

Online stores can quickly integrate new payment options, track user engagement, and measure ROI more efficiently than brick-and-mortar businesses. This digital-first approach allows for quick iteration and refinement of the post-as-payment model before expanding to other sectors.

AI-Driven Underwriting: The Engine of Post Valuation

At the heart of shopstar’s innovation lies sophisticated AI algorithms that assess the value of individual social media posts in real-time. 

These algorithms analyze a vast array of data from the user’s social profile and the merchant’s information to determine the expected value of each post and accurately predict and determine a post’s monetary value.

Based on this comprehensive assessment, the system generates an upfront discount or a post-publication rebate for the user. 

Once the product is received and the branded content is shared, shopstar tracks the post, providing the brand with access and detailed analytics.

Ori acknowledges the complexity of this challenge: “We are putting in a lot of R&D effort, but we’re not even close over there.” 

Cultivating Brand Trust in Automation

For shopstar’s vision to succeed, brands must be willing to embrace a more algorithmic approach to influencer marketing. This shift requires companies to relinquish some control over their marketing strategies and trust in data-driven decision-making. 

“I think it’s on the algorithmic side, which is more like the ability to data crunch huge amounts of data in real-time to decide the estimated ROI on this specific person paying my brand with the post,” Ori notes. 

By demonstrating consistent and measurable results, shopstar aims to gain the confidence necessary for widespread adoption among brands of all sizes.

Empowering Consumers: Recognizing the Value of Social Profiles

Fostering consumer self-belief in the value of shopstar’s social media presence is the most crucial element in realizing its vision. 

Ori emphasizes, “From the consumer side, I think the belief in themselves is the key.” Many users, particularly those with smaller followings, may initially be skeptical of their ability to participate in this new economy. 

Education and successful case studies will be vital in helping users recognize that their social profiles have tangible monetary value, regardless of follower count.

Ori concludes by inviting competitors to move beyond traditional marketplace models and embrace letting people pay with posts.