Liveshopping: Why livestreaming Commerce will re-invent eCommerce in 2022

My first encounter with live-selling stretches all the way back to the late 90s / early 2000s when Cable Television was first installed in my household and coming across channels such as QVC ( For those in the UK, who remembers NTL, which later got merged and rebranded as Virgin Media!). Shopping channels really reflected what Cable / Satellite TV was all about - 24/7, having a plethora of choice and being in control of the TV! With my trips to the USA in the 2000s and 2010s, I was amazed with the number of channels available for liveshopping, which were very likely to be owned by the Home Shopping Network (rebranded as HSN).

The concept of live-selling has certainly been around for quite some time, and now we are seeing the digital adaptation of this on Social Media, along with Celeb and Influencer culture.

The future of eCommerce

The closest to live-selling I've seen online prior to the arrival of native live stream commerce platforms is webinars. From internet gurus, to entrepreneurs, these individuals would all use these platforms to provide valuable free content for a certain period of time to win over the loyalty of all the webinar attendees, and eventually pitch their products and services once their audience has been sweetened up. These are very effective, and i've even used these myself to sell digital courses at previous roles and even my own Podcast course created in lockdown ( I promise you, i'm not trying to sell to you now).

Outside of this, there has been a lack of innovating of personal selling in the world of eCommerce aside from exhibitions, meetups and conferences (webinars haven't really been exploited for eCommerce brands, nor have they been optimised for online selling). All eCommerce brands are now in grave danger, and must evolve to include emerging technologies to stay relevant, be it Live Commerce and/or immersive experiences such as VR/AR.

The pandemic, Social Media and the increasing adoption of online shopping

25% more purchases were made online than offline since the wake of the pandemic. Online shopping accelerated to unprecedented heights as more shoppers were forced to embrace online shopping more due to the lockdowns. Social media usage skyrocketed too for those who weren’t able to engage in human interaction during this tough period. We also witnessed the rise of live streaming events and conferences. The best example of this is Hopin acquiring Streamyard.

Live shopping gives sellers the ability to showcase their products, and customers the ability to buy products in real-time. Overall, it’s a highly engaging experience — it goes way beyond simply clicking and filling up a shopping cart. (Giosg)

Amazing live selling Stats

Live shopping is HUGE in China and even accounts for over 10% of their entire consumer market!

In December, TikTok, the most visited website of 2021, jumped on the Livestream selling bandwagon.- #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, where users post what they've bought thanks to recommendations about products on the site, has been used 7bn times!

Kim Kardashian sold over 15k perfume bottles in MINUTES for a Chinese market (alibaba owns live shopping platform TaoBao now).

The eCommerce Big Dogs wanted a bite of the live-selling action

Amazon, of course would want a piece of this pie especially after ending their flop TV series, Style Code Live, a live-selling show with hired talent, Amazon launched Amazon Live—an initiative focused on independent creators who earn a cut of revenue on items they sell—in 2017.?

eBay obviously wouldn't let their rivals get away, and now host live auction events at ebay.live

Big Tech joins the Live-selling bandwagon

Top Social Media platforms between 2020 and 2021, began to exploiting the social media platform features and functionality they already had in their locker, for their live-selling experiments:

• Twitter jumped on the bandwagon of live shopping, and hosted their own very first live shopping event with supermarket giant Walmart, and Pop artist Jason Derulo
• Facebook launched Live Shopping Fridays in Summer 2021 to allow top brands such as Dolce Vita, Abercrombie and Fitch and more take advantage of their live streaming services

• Instagram has also started rolling out live shopping (US only at the moment)?-Users can add products that people can buy, save livestream after for replay so people can buy products later!you can even download

Summary

Modern Live-shopping is certainly an engaging experience which makes the most of what Social Media has to offer, whilst giving a way for users to interact on a human level with products like never before, whilst giving eCommerce brands a much needed boost when products are catching dust on shelves closed due to restrictions and lockdowns.

A typical formula for successful live selling still consists of:

• A rundown clock
• A hint of FOMO
• A touch of human interaction with strong personalities (celebrities, influencers, media presenters, etc)

Combine all three and you are on the highway to success. Users will never fill up their carts as quickly than this method of shopping. 2022, we should see this being more of a trend.

Adrian is a SaaS ( Software-as-a-service) professional with six years experience in the industry. He currently works for a software subscription company,?iubenda, which focuses on helping over 80,0000 enterprise businesses and SMEs websites and apps stay compliant with the law across multiple countries and legislations with their 360 solutions. He also consults and has experience in the EdTech, Podcasting and Startup industry.

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