“The future of live streaming is set to grow, with technology getting cheaper and more accessible.”
- Chris Thomas
During the pandemic, several social activities were restricted, and people felt disconnected. This forced people to look for other ways of connecting, so they moved towards live streaming.
The retailers were even heavily dependent on eCommerce solutions as brick-and-mortar stores closed down. Businesses have invested more in digital advertising and have brought Livestream shopping to their marketing mix. We have observed a huge trend in Livestream shopping that makes shopping more appealing and convenient. As a result, it may help to boost sales and enhance conversions.
Livestream shopping is the next thing to enter the world of eCommerce and has even taken place in the particular industries of China. Some people might be a shopaholic and enjoy buying things. For such people, Livestream shopping provides an opportunity to purchase the items they wish for quickly, and such a platform makes it easily accessible and more affordable.
Online store owners take advantage of technology and search for better ways to boost sales. Businesses with a well established online presence can create a strong relationship with the customers. Store owners share their knowledge and expertise with their audience through live streaming platforms. Brands post informative and engaging videos on various social media platforms to stay ahead of the competition and to get engaged with the customers.
In one survey conducted by Statista in 2021, 80% of respondents emphasised the convenience of buying during Livestream shopping, whereas another 70% preferred Livestream as compared to other social media platforms.
So, it is crucial to find where your potential customers hang out the most, or else you will lose a great deal of business. You can show your products to your potential customers hanging on online platforms and make the products available to them at your fingertips. It also provides another added feature, such as Facebook live, to broadcast real-time video. Going live facilitates real-time engagement, helps increase exposure and creates strong relationships with the audience.
What is Livestream shopping?
In simple words, Livestream shopping refers to the capability to showcase and advertise the products to an online audience that can easily interact and make purchase. Livestream shopping is also known as live eCommerce, live shopping and live selling.
It is an online shopping event where the customers can make purchases in real time, whereas a video presenting products is streaming live. This event takes place on a third-party platform that can either be a social media or a mobile app.
As it is live, it easily facilitates the customers to build trust on the brand. Brands can develop good interpersonal relationships with customers, similar to brick and mortar stores. Thus, brands help make relationships that boost sales and help to engage the audience effectively.
The Benefits of Livestream Shopping
Besides sales, there are multiple reasons brands should consider Livestream shopping as a part of their online business strategy. It is one of the most affordable and prompt ways to create brand awareness and find new customers.
Here are some of the top benefits of Livestream shopping:
Greater Audience Potential
One of the significant disadvantages of brick and mortar stores is their limited space. Whereas for Livestream, you can invite limitless people to watch your stream.
So, it becomes easy to connect with people anywhere across the globe. The only thing you need to take care of is to have a good internet connection.
Builds Brand Awareness
Influencers or celebrities usually host live streaming events. These people have considerable followers, and people opt to purchase once recommended by them. Advertising your products through well-known influencers helps to build brand awareness among potential customers.
It is essential to choose your host wisely because the audience that watches live selling will be your returning customers.
Enhances Sales Volume of Underperforming Products
Sometimes, it may happen that certain products might be good. But, because of several reasons, they might not be gaining popularity and are piled up in your storage rooms. In such cases, live streaming by popular influencers can help increase the sales of such products.
Live streaming provides an opportunity to boost the selling process of such items and boost your sales volume. By doing so, you can get instant results than other marketing strategies and can increase revenue.
Thus, it also helps to free up space in your storage rooms. There are high chances that those underperforming products may become top-performing ones after being recommended by an influencer.
Real-Time Engagement
The major advantage of livestream shopping is the high engagement rate. The audience can stay connected with the influencer representing your brand, and they can even stay connected through messages. As a result, it would help audiences to gain brand knowledge and build trust.
Thus, it facilitates direct interaction with the customers and also aids in increasing customer value for retailers.
Ways in Which Live Commerce Creates Value
Live commerce helps brands, retailers and marketplaces in mainly two ways:
Escalates Conversion
Live commerce aids customers to push towards online shopping and attracts customers and viewers to watch for a long time. It constantly keeps a watch over customers’ journey from brand awareness to making a purchase.
Improves Customer Attraction
Live commerce facilitates quickly attracting the customers to the brand, distinguishing it from other competitors in the market and even helps to increase traffic. It is also possible to strengthen position among existing customers and attract new customers from the market.
A Rapidly Growing Channel
Live Commerce has proliferated in China, taking less than five years to develop into an innovative sales channel. According to Statista, the live-streaming eCommerce in China was expected to reach about 1237.9 billion yuan in 2020 from 120 billion yuan in 2018. And the market size is estimated to grow to 4.9 trillion yuan by 2023.
The largest Chinese marketplace, Taobao, reported a 400 billion yuan revenue in 2020 from the live-streaming eCommerce business. The Chinese online shoppers used it effectively as a shopping channel. Western users associated live streaming with gaming and entertainment.
While shopping online, fashion-related products such as apparel appear at the top and are purchased online by 57% of people. Similarly, footwear ranks second with a 47% online purchase reach.
Types of Livestream Shopping Platforms
Mainly, there are three types of Livestream shopping platforms, which are:
Social Media Platforms with Shopping Capabilities
Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are some of the famous social media platforms leading the way when it comes to live stream shopping. When talking about video shopping, these social media platforms make sense of where their potential audience lives.
It is even possible to grow and shape your business with social media platforms. Instagram is very effective in marketing and facilitates creating a beautiful Insta shop. Instagram Live is an excellent way to communicate with followers in real-time.
In the United States, social media networks are the most popular platforms for Livestream eCommerce. As per one study, YouTube ranks as the top channel, followed by other social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Marketers often even repurpose their live streams on various social media platforms to drive sales and gain maximum efficiency from existing customers.
Dedicated Commerce Platforms and Apps
Top eCommerce sites like Amazon are actively using Livestream shopping games that facilitate users to interact and provide a personal aspect to their existing platform. People move to dedicated eCommerce sites to satisfy their shopping needs.
Shoppers are highly benefited by using a live stream component that helps drive more sales and make smarter decisions. Several other dedicated Livestream shopping platforms like TalkShopLive and Buywith are also growing, providing brands with more excellent options to experiment with live selling.
Self-hosted Shopping Platforms
Many top companies even think of building their streaming platform. They have complete control over all the aspects of the shopping experience. Making it from scratch facilitates brands to customise every part of the experience and should ensure that they aren’t distracted with any other featured content.
Brands would also find several other ways to attract customers to a new self-hosted shopping platform.
Livestream is expected to be in trend and become mainstream within the next couple of years. Using Livestream shopping, brands can build trust among potential customers more valuable than social or digital commerce alone.
Conclusion
The possibilities of evolution and expansion of live stream shopping are expected to grow further enormously.
Brands will continue to reach more and more customers using Livestream. With the massive change in shopping habits and push towards online shopping expected to grow, live-stream shopping is likely to expand in the post-pandemic world.
Hence, live streaming is how effectively brands communicate with people. It has made it effortless for people to connect easily with anyone and live stream from their smartphones.
Thus, combining the best of eCommerce, video streaming and social media, live streaming facilitates people to shop anytime, from anywhere and encourages real-time communication appealing to the customers to make a purchase just by sitting at home.
