Lyla Biggs, a Pacsun customer, wearing the brand’s Casey jeans.
Pacsun is leveraging TikTok and its fans and creators to mint viral products on the platform. A case in point is the brand’s Casey jean in the Astrid wash, which in 2024 generated $20 million in sales on TikTok, making Pacsun one of the top fashion labels on the platform.
Casey’s success was driven by a member of Pacsun’s TikTok affiliate creator program, Lyla Biggs, who posted a video for her 5,000 fans of the low rise jeans she made in her bedroom, which went viral.
Pacsun ended up selling 11,000 pairs in a 48-hour period before Black Friday in November 2023 due to Biggs’ video and from there sold 60,000 pairs of the Casey jean in the Astrid wash on TikTok.
“It created this amazing halo effect where when our audience and following saw it had sold out we started to see this incredible impact on our stores,” said Brie Olson, CEO of Pacsun. “People were rushing into our stores asking for the viral Casey jeans in the Astrid wash. We couldn’t get after our demand quickly enough and we aired in more goods. Pretty soon, we’d sold 60,000 pairs of those jeans on TikTok alone and hundreds of thousands of pairs in our stores.”
Pacsun has sold 200,000 pairs of jeans and counting to date on TikTok alone for an over 100 percent comp year-over-year in denim, a case study of the power a micro influencer can have in terms of a macro effect.
The retailer has tried to repeat the success with other products such as leopard jeans, various men’s jeans, camo fleece styles and a Metro T-shirt that sold more than 40,000 units on TikTok.
“We’ve noticed that the virality really is in the hands of the creators and leveraging this open platform,” Olson said. “A lot of brands don’t have an openness to using an open creator platform because they kind of lose control over who is going to be promoting the brand.
“At Pacsun, we’re big champions of diversity and inclusion and anyone who loves the Pacsun brand is welcome to be a part of this program and then be an advocate,” she added.
Having been early adopters of TikTok in 2019 with an organic following that grew to 2 million followers by 2022, Pacsun has an advantage from an algorithm perspective and overall reach perspective of having a strong following that’s been established over many years.
Pacsun leverages social validation through reviews, likes and social generated content. “One of the things we love about these different social platforms is the ability to have that one-on-one conversation and get live feedback in the moment,” Olson said. “Usually when we post across platforms, we can get a really good initial sense about the virality of a trend and how large a trend can be based on these initial likes and the dialog we’re having with the consumer. This allows us to have the ability to react to trends as they’re occurring.
“We’re so excited about the creator economy because it involves creating a lot more accessibility for younger generations and also giving them an opportunity to participate in the economy and to earn commissions off of the type of content that they’re creating.,” Olson said.
