What is so attractive about live stream shopping?

This new social shopping format allows brands and retailers to make BIG sales in real-time. But the shoppable technology's reception has been 50:50.


While some brands are jumping on live stream shopping trend, others are doubting its effectiveness and questioning whether the novelty will wear off.

Let us break down the key aspects of live stream shopping that make it a winning and attractive format for brands.


LIVE SHOPPING CREATES AN INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN BRANDS AND CUSTOMERS

2020 and 2021 starved us socially with brands feeling the pressure of not being able to reach customers in bricks and motor stores. Thankfully, advances in technology meant that brands were able to sell successfully online.

Live stream shopping platforms offered a life saving solution to brands bringing them together with customers in real-time experiences....


  • Chat bars allow viewers to ask stream hosts questions creating a personalised way to shop online
  • Bespoke, ticketed events created a sense of exclusivity for customers encouraging impulse purchases
  • By harnessing the power of the influencer, brands posed key industry figures as hosts to increase customer confidence and trust in their brand

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STREAMING COMMERCE SHORTENS THE PATH TO PURCHASE

You can demonstrate your products clearly using video. Whether this is showing how it is made, how it is worn or how it works, you can display to your customer exactly why your product is the answer.

Clickable popups to featured products within the stream direct the viewer to sizing information, pricing, colour options and more. These popups provide immediate answers to questions alongside the call to action button to buy. This moves the viewer quickly down the purchase funnel and boosts conversion rate massively with the possibility to measure this metric with tracking links.


LIVE SHOPPING BY MARKET: CHINA, EUROPE AND THE US

China's live stream shopping industry is the largest in the world, set to be worth $239 billion by the end of this year. This growth is not slowing down as it is estimated to grow by 27% annually up until 2025. In fact, in 2020 streaming commerce accounted for 10% of China's overall e-commerce market.


In the US, Amazon Live was re-launched in 2019. The platform features key brands like Covergirl and Neutrogena. Not only this, but Amazon's Twitch has also started to sell products via streams after integrating a check-out system in 2020.


TikTok recently announced a new partnership with Shopify that could see the platform support live stream shopping in the near future.


Globally, the live shopping industry grew 45% between March and April 2020, showing a 99% increase from the previous year.


HOW CAN I BUILD A SUCCESSFUL LIVESTREAM?

Creating your own live shop experience is easy with the right platform. Smartzer's shoppable live stream platform allows brands to easily create seamless, state-of-the-art broadcasts. But there are some other things to bare in mind...


  • Choose the right online and in-person location. Place your stream where your customers can find it. For example, if your engagement comes from your website you can embed on a webpage, or if your customers are more vocal on social share across social media and email newsletters. Make sure you broadcast from a nice, aesthetic area with good WiFi.


  • Time the stream intelligently. Choose to broadcast when your viewers will be able to watch and make sure your stream is not too short.


  • Build in house expertise. You don't always need to hire influencers or expensive production teams as hosts. Sometimes your own brand representatives know your product the best, you could even film effectively from a high quality smart phone.