WeShop Picks Warner Music Veteran to Head Social Commerce Platform

Social commerce platform WeShop has picked Warner Music veteran Maria Weaver as its CEO.

The U.K.-based company, which bills itself as the “first community-owned social commerce platform,” announced Weaver’s appointment Wednesday (June 17), saying she would oversee WeShop’s expansion into the U.S. market.

“Maria’s appointment represents the start of our journey to build a substantial presence in the United States which is the cornerstone for our global growth strategy,” John Foley, chairman of WeShop, said in a news release.

Foley added that Weaver’s experience with consumer-facing eCommerce platforms will let her “fully develop and lead a team that will be able to scale WeShop into a significant presence for the enduring benefit of our community of share owning users.”

According to its website, WeShop rewards its users with shares in the company each time they shop at any of its 500 participating stores.

Weaver joins the company from investment bank Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips, where she served as a managing director advising on mergers and acquisitions in the media and music space. She has also held leadership roles at companies including HBO, Comcast and Warner Music, and founded her own eCommerce jewelry company XO, Maria Louise.

Weaver replaces WeShop CEO Paul Ellerbeck, who will continue to serve on the company’s board, the news release added.

“I’ve spent my career building platforms at the intersection of community, content and commerce, and WeShop is one of the most original ideas I’ve encountered,” Weaver said. “WeShop doesn’t just reward loyalty, it replaces it with something more powerful: ownership. That creates a genuinely differentiated value proposition for consumers, retailers and shareholders alike.”

In other eCommerce news, recent PYMNTS Intelligence shows that while consumers are adopting AI shopping tools, mobile commerce and digital payments, retailers are becoming more cautious about digital innovations.

The number of digital features merchants said they have “no plans” to offer has climbed to a four-year high. Just 37% of retailers surveyed said they plan to add or improve AI shopping assistants within the next three years.

And only 16% said they intended to invest in stored credentials or biometric authentication, in spite of increasing consumer demand for frictionless checkout experiences.

“At the same time, nearly half of online shoppers globally said they used AI as part of their most recent purchase journey,” PYMNTS wrote. “This growing mismatch may become one of the defining tensions of the next phase of commerce.”