Build, Buy, Borrow… or Partner?

Which Social Video Commerce Model is Right For Your Brand?

By Matt Wurst, Genuin CMO

Is your retail business straying from its core competency by venturing into the media business and building a Commerce or Retail Media Network (RMN)? Are you risking your core KPIs in the process?

As social video commerce continues to grow, it’s crucial to choose the right model to balance innovation with business stability. Unfortunately, many SaaS and vendor models are outdated, unimaginative, or skewed in favor of the platform.

To navigate these options effectively, you need to understand the pros and cons of each model: Build, Buy, Borrow, or opt for a true Revenue-Share Partnership:

1. Build Your Own

In this model, your team designs and develops a custom social video commerce platform from scratch. You control everything, from the tech stack to the user experience, tailoring it to your brand’s unique needs.

Pros:

100% Ownership & Control: Complete autonomy over product development, data management, and customization to align with your brand and business strategy.

Cons:

Resource Drain: Diverts team focus from core business operations and can be costly in terms of time and money.

Longer Time to Market: By the time your custom solution is ready, the market could have evolved further.

Maintenance & Scaling Issues: Ongoing investment in updates and scaling can strain internal resources.

2. Buy / Acquire a Company

This approach involves acquiring a company with an existing social video commerce platform. You gain access to their technology, talent, and market presence, accelerating your entry into the space.

Pros:

• Talent & Expertise Acquisition: Gain specialized technology, talent, and processes, accelerating your market entry.
• Long-term Solution: Provides a near-ready solution, cutting early development time.

Cons:

• Cultural & Integration Challenges: Merging teams and tech stacks can be disruptive.
• High Acquisition Costs: Expensive and risky, potentially draining capital better used for growth initiatives.
• Internal Resistance: Teams may push back, slowing innovation and creating inefficiencies.

And let’s be real. Most companies aren’t in the position to just go out and buy a platform or solution. Which is why the traditional go-to has been to…

3. Borrow (Rent) with 3rd Party SaaS Solution

Here, you rent a pre-built social video commerce platform from a SaaS provider. This option allows you to quickly implement a scalable, feature-rich solution without heavy upfront investment.

Pros:

• Feature-Rich & Scalable: SaaS platforms offer a wide range of features and quick scalability.
• Reduced Time to Market: Enter the market quickly without lengthy development cycle.

Cons:

• Limited Customization: Built to serve a broad audience, which may not align with your unique needs.
• Vendor Dependency: Reliant on the provider’s roadmap, which can hinder your growth if priorities misalign.
• Data Ownership & Security: Limited control over data privacy and security.

Why Each of the These Models Fall Short

While each of the first three models — Build, Buy, and Borrow — offers potential pathways into social video commerce, they come with significant drawbacks that can hinder your long-term success:

• Build requires massive resources and time, delaying your market entry.
• Buy risks high costs and disruptive integration challenges.
• Borrow leaves you dependent on vendors, sacrificing flexibility and control over critical data.

Each model has trade-offs, and none fully aligns your business goals with your partners’ in a way that fosters collaboration, innovation, and sustainable growth. Most importantly, these models risk diverting focus from your core KPIs, leaving you with fragmented systems and rising costs.

Introducing the Genuin Partnership Solution

This model is designed to address the shortcomings of traditional approaches while providing a seamless, scalable, and low-risk solution that directly aligns with your business objectives.

Pros:

• Tailored Solution, No Upfront Cost: A true partnership allows for a custom-built solution that aligns with your specific business needs without the heavy upfront costs associated with building or acquiring. The shared investment model mitigates risk while still allowing for innovation.
• Aligned Business Goals: Partners are incentivized to ensure your success, as both parties stand to gain from revenue generation. This alignment fosters collaboration, quicker problem-solving, and a vested interest in maximizing media monetization.
• Shared Expertise & Resources: You benefit from the partner’s technological expertise while retaining focus on your core business. The partner can innovate and iterate based on evolving needs, ensuring the solution stays cutting-edge.
• Singular point of contact: Product and tech teams want to work with one partner/vendor that limits touchpoints and streamlines efficiency. Less back and forth, better technical documentation reduce friction.
• Media Monetization from Social Video Commerce: In addition to technology, you can unlock media monetization opportunities without needing to invest heavily in infrastructure.

Con:

• Unfamiliar Model: Brands may not be accustomed to this type of revenue-sharing partnership, which can require some initial focus and negotiation.

So What’s Right for You?

A true partnership model with Genuin offers a compelling, all-in-one solution that minimizes upfront risk while providing a tailored, scalable platform that directly aligns with your business goals.

Unlike other options that require multiple vendors for different capabilities, Genuin delivers everything you need in one place, including:

• A robust video player fully integrated into your owned digital channels
• Social features that foster authentic community interactions
• Video community capabilities to build, engage, and grow your audience
• Cross-platform native embedding for seamless integration across web and mobile
• A complete monetization stack that unlocks new media revenue through shoppable videos and branded content
• Generative AI for community engagement: automation, ensuring continuous, personalized interaction at scale

Most brands rely on multiple vendors for these functions, leading to fragmented experiences, reduced agility, and higher costs.

Genuin’s partnership eliminates these inefficiencies, providing a unified platform that drives growth, engagement, and revenue.

Why settle for piecing together solutions when Genuin offers it all under one roof?

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Learn more about Genuin’s Community Media Network solution.