An exciting new trend is taking place in the world of eCommerce – livestream commerce (live commerce). It is a new form of online shopping where customers make purchases during live streaming video sessions.
This exciting new way of online shopping is extremely popular in Asia and it’s beginning to make waves in the US as well. In this blog, we’ll explore what live commerce is and why your business needs to implement this new strategy.
The Changing Retail Space
With the pandemic and shifting buyer habits, business as usual is no longer an option. Retail stores are shutting down rapidly. People are moving to online stores for purchasing. But now, online stores are fusing live streaming to lure buyers with in-person experiences.
In China, live stream shopping is a $312.5 billion market. This is projected to grow into a $770.70 billion market by 2023. The U.S. livestream shopping market reached $11 billion by the end of 2021 and is expected to reach $25 billion by 2023. These numbers speak for themselves.
The convergence of video streaming and online retail is making waves in the eCommerce space. Live commerce helps improve buyer engagement, closes the gap between customers and products, and even increases product sales.
What exactly is Live Commerce?
Live commerce, simply explained, is a real-time online event where customers get a chance to interact with brands or their influencers. They can engage with other customers, ask questions, and interact with the brand in real-time before they buy the product.
Right now, fashion retailers and beauty brands are the early adopters of livestream shopping. However, grocery and specialty retailers have good chances to make it big in this space.
Benefits of Live Commerce
Sell more products in minutes. With live commerce, businesses are generating sales quicker by exposing their products to thousands of viewers in minutes.
More engagement with fewer efforts. Live streams are like videos. People are 2x more likely to share videos with their friends than static ads. More people will engage with your videos than static ads so why spend on ads, and not on live streaming videos.
Impulse buying results in more sales. Influencers and brands collaborate to promote products. People trust their influencers. When people take part in an exclusive online event and see great products, they don’t want to miss out on the limited-time offers.
For instance, Kim Kardashian, a billionaire and social media icon, sold more than 15,000 bottles of her perfume in minutes, bye going live.
Reduces distribution costs. In live commerce, businesses sell products directly to consumers from a warehouse. Through live streaming, businesses receive orders; have a label created, and easily shipto consumers
Live Commerce Use Cases
The live commerce model has been a major success in China. Alibaba’s Taobao Live has a large chunk of the market share. ByteDance, the parent firm of TikTok, owns Douyin — a short-video platform with eCommerce integrations to make direct purchases. Kuaishou is the other major player in the market.
China’s top influencer, Viya, generated the equivalent of $51 million USD in a single day.
Flipkart-owned online fashion portal, Myntra has started testing influencer-led live online shopping on its platform. Myntra is one of the first major eCommerce platforms in India to experiment with the model.
Myntra has asked influencers to hold live video sessions wherein people can buy fashion, beauty and personal care products by adding them to the cart while the session is underway.
Amazon recently launched Amazon Live. It is a live-streaming product demos platform where influencers come and showcase products to customers, live. Amazon rival, Walmart, began teaming up with TikTok to host live stream shopping experiences during seasonal events.
TalkShopLive is another live streaming shopping platform that has just 2 million users, but generates revenue in billions.
Future of Live Commerce
Live commerce is a type of social commerce, which first took off about five years ago in China. Now, the live commerce market has reached a trillion-dollar market all over the world.
Research reveals that 44% of retailers surveyed will increase their investment in livestream selling in 2022. The future of commerce is video. Some brands like Facebook Shops and Shopify Plus already started integrating live videos within their stores in April 2020.
Shoe retailer, Aldo, recorded a 308% engagement rate and registered 17,000 page views on its website after a live shopping event in 2021. Most retailers are seeing more Gen Z shoppers in online live events. Some companies are even seeing an increase in younger buyers to grow by 20%.
NTWRK is a mobile app that uses live shows to sell limited-edition products has seen its sales surge by 400% after the pandemic.
Top Live Streaming E-Commerce Startups
Globally, there are 75 live streaming eCommerce companies, and here is the list of the most interesting ones:
Moving Live Commerce Forward
Homegrown short-video live commerce is expanding its revenue pool. Businesses thinking to invest in live commerce don’t need a dedicated platform.
Now, live shopping can happen on a buyer’s phone or computer. Here is how your business can host your live shopping event:
As live commerce is gaining traction in the world, several platforms have sprung up to support it. You can use ShopShops which is widely popular with Chinese consumers.
Go with NTWRK if you want a curated live selling platform. Or you can choose between Google Shopping, CommentSold or PopShop Live.
Self-hosting provides more control and power. It can result in greater opportunities to repurpose content or replay the live shopping.
For instance, Shopify Plus merchants can host a live shopping page on their stores with LiveScale and Channelize.io.
Livescale is being used by brands like Knix, Nerdy Nuts, FEED and Dermalogica to create awareness, engagement and sales with a fully integrated shopping experience.
channelize.io enables live shopping and video streams.
YouTube is leading the way with its live streaming options. Brands are also using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and more niche platforms such as Twitch.
If you want to save money on advertisement and invest more strategically in live commerce in 2022, consider creating your own live commerce solution.
Chingari app is planning to launch live commerce on its platform in the next two to three months.
Roposo, a business unit of Glance of the InMobi Group, is positioning the brand around the live commerce space. Mohalla Tech-owned Moj has partnered with Flipkart to enable live commerce on its platform.
Before you venture into live commerce, you must consider these new trends:
Conclusion
The potential to engage audiences and boost sales with live commerce is significant. Live commerce is the future of online shopping and is going to remain a crucial pillar of the buying experience in the post-pandemic era.
I predict that most online stores will jump on the live commerce trend in 2022.
What will you do to stay competitive in this eCommerce industry? Please let us know in the comments below.
About the Author
His forte lies in developing and executing innovative mobile and web technologies, digital marketing and influencer marketing strategy, and everything related to digital.
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