Livestream shopping is becoming a hugely popular trend, just like QVC’s Gen Z. This trend was first noticed in China during the coronavirus pandemicIt is rapidly spreading to other parts of the globe. While the medium of live shopping demos isn’t new, social channels like TikTok have democratized it and brought it to an entirely new audience. Some online influencers are able to sell millions, if certainly billions of dollars worth of products in a relatively short live shopping session.
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Austin Li, a 29-year-old livestreamer, gained his initial popularity selling lipsticks. set records by selling approximately $1.8 billion during one 12.5-hour shopping session on Alibaba’s Taobao Live. During the same Single’s Day promotional event for Alibaba, fellow livestreamer Viya sold $1.3 billion in goods in just 14.5 hours. Clearly, I’m in the wrong business, but that’s a story for another day.
Some brands use the influencers’ built-in audiences, while others train their own teams to create live commerce experiences. Right now live shopping is done on a variety of platforms, including the retailer’s own website (e.g., Nordstrom), on social media, and within major marketplaces like Alibaba and Amazon.com.
Regardless of a retailer’s home market, the livestream trend could be here to stay. Let’s look more at why live commerce has taken off and what retailers can do to keep up.
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Why has live shopping become so popular?
As this trend matures livestreaming will become an integral part of ecommerce. According to eMarketer in 2021, the medium generated will be livestreaming. $300 billion in ChinaThe number of livestreaming users has increased by 85 percent over the past year. Livestreaming is expected account for 11.7% of total retail sales in the country.
But why is Gen Z and millennials so interested in live shopping. These channels allow consumers to keep up to date with emerging trends in commerce. Some types of products, such as cosmetics, do well in a livestreaming setting because potential buyers want to see a demonstration — particularly with newer brands that are yet to be discovered. Perhaps the most important aspect of the medium is its ability to provide entertainment for the viewers. impulse-buying generation.
The same eMarketer report above cites the most popular products on Taobao Live as women’s fashion, cosmetics, food, home goods, jewelry and accessories. However, the biggest-ticket items such as computers and large appliances are most popular, according to gross merchandise volumes. Any product that can be demonstrated effectively could be a prime candidate to live shopping experiences.
Livestreaming’s Rise in the US
Shopping is currently only an option. $11 billionU.S. market However, this market share is not significant. could change quicklyAs Facebook, Amazon TikTok and Twitter jump into the medium, other tech giants such as Pinterest, TikTok and TikTok are also jumping in. During Prime Day 2020, Amazon hosted over 1,200 live shows with influencers, and the company’s investments in the medium are expected to continue.
Brands like L’Oreal are getting in on the action on TikTok, sponsoring the #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt hashtag. These brands hope to capitalize on the almost one-fifth of buyersMany people say that they use the app to purchase all the time. This and many other cases have made live shopping a form entertainment.
Many startups are also emerging in the live shopping sector, along with mainstream social and marketplace adoption. One example is ShopThingA startup that offers livestreaming services to help brands capitalize on this market.
This category is very interesting. retailers to watch because it can build both brand discoverability and revenue. Livestreaming is seen by many progressive brands as an opportunity for customers to ask questions directly. Engaging with consumers in this way shortens the customer journey, improves loyalty, and gives brands a way to understand their customers’ needs. From there, it’s simpler to tailor content, products and marketing directly to their preferences. Livestreaming helps to avoid dissatisfaction for high-ticket items, or those that are subject to returns.
How Brands Can Capitalize
As Gen Z and millennials’ spending powerLivestreaming accounts for a larger share of the total addressable market. It is important to adapt to these trends. Instead of investing in developing these capabilities in-house there will soon be many options to integrate with third party livestreaming platforms via APIs. This is similar to other commerce platform plugins (e.g. Stripe for payments).
For brands that want to capitalize on live shopping, it’s important that the technological underpinnings of the commerce platform are ready for such integrations. Many legacy platforms have rigid, monolithic product catalogs that impose limitations on a merchandiser’s ability to expose products and engage in new channels, including livestreaming. Modern API-first catalogues allow brands to capitalize upon emerging trends.
To prevent these types of delays, it’s important to seek out commerce technology with a modern, API-first catalog for merchandisers. These platforms will allow you to merchandise at any time and create shoppable experiences wherever you are, regardless of whether the trend is livestreaming or the metaverse, NFTs or whatever else may be coming next.
Bryan House is the senior vice president of product and customer success at Elastic Path, a headless commerce solution.
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