TikTok unboxing: Luxury fashion’s low-cost marketing tool

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This is the second in a new series lifting the lid on Gen Z’s social media habits and their impact on fashion consumption. Read the first instalment on social media shopping hauls here.

Back in March 2020, Audrey Peters started out on TikTok like many others, posting comedy videos. Her content comprised witty sendups of New York boroughs and hotspots, a concept that eventually ran out of steam. She first experimented with a luxury unboxing video in March this year following a shopping trip to Italy. It garnered 1 million views, she recalls. “Now unboxing content is my best-performing content on TikTok,” she says. “So, I ran with it.” Since June, her views have pushed up by 160 per cent, with engagement up 140 per cent. Her profile has 37.2 million likes.

Unboxing features creators unpacking a newly purchased product and showing it to an audience online. The concept first emerged in the early 2000s on YouTube, notably in the gaming and electronics sphere. Today, it’s been adopted by a new generation of TikTok creators: #unboxing has had 44.3 billion views on the platform since its launch in 2018.

For luxury brands, unboxing is a low-cost way to gain endorsement from leading social media creators. However, getting their products in front of creators isn’t easy —and experts point out that it’s not possible to influence the output in the same way brands can through paid partnerships.

Similar to hauls (which usually showcase multiple products), unboxing allows social media users to live vicariously through creators. While fast fashion and thrift clothing dominate haul videos, many of the most popular unboxing videos are focused on luxury fashion and products — an online trend led, perhaps inevitably, by Kim Kardashian.

“I started watching unboxing videos back when I was a kid,” says 20 year old Dallas-based student Khandon James. “The first unboxing video that I remember was when the new Apple iPhone and iPod Touch had just come out. Seeing those gave me a feel for the product and made me want it.”

“It’s about the experience,” agrees Gabrielle Ragsale, also 20, based in San Francisco. “I love the process of unboxing, it’s kind of like Christmas. Back in the day, you would [be inspired by] reviews or maybe even pictures someone submitted, but now you can see a whole video of someone’s first impression, debunking the entire product in detail.”