Livescale Academy

What is LIVE Shopping explained

Some people call it Live Shopping, some call it Live commerce, what it actually means? A shoppable LIVE Streaming. 2020 was considered “Year Zero” for Live Shopping in North America and Europe. We see more than 600 events were done by a vast pool of client industries, with an average of 300 viewers per event. 

It’s proven that Live Shopping works well for fashion & accessories, beauty, fitness and food & beverage, generally speaking visual-heavy industries. One popular accessories brand sold 282 items in less than an hour, scoring a 56% sales conversion rate.

Live Streaming is the new favourite marketing tool in which notifications are not muted (yet) by default. If you keep an eye on Asia, Live marketing wouldn’t be cutting edge technologies to you. It has been on the rise for years and has become key in brand marketing strategies, in particular in the e-commerce field. To better illustrate this, China’s version of Amazon – Taobao generated more than $15.1 billion in gross merchandise value via live-streaming sessions in 2018. 

💻 Your Data & Fact | Over 17,000 brands participated in live streaming on 11.11 in 2020. – Forbe

Here is what you will learn:

What is LIVE Shopping?

Live Shopping may seem intimidating to the uninitiated business. These common hesitations may lead to the dreaded FOGL (Fear of going Live).

Live Shopping (or Live commerce) is a shoppable video marketing tool that allows your viewers to make purchases while watching the live stream. Its immersive checkout experience greatly reduced the hesitation toward products in a fun and interactive way that results in instant sales. 

With a matching type of host and product combination ,the experience transforms viewers into a community by unlocking awareness, engagement and sales through live video. If you have heard of QVC shopping channel, this is a similar idea with a modern and authentic touch.

💻 Your Data & Fact | Kardashian sold 15,000 bottles of perfume in minutes with Live Shopping.

“Confronted with new opportunities, people tend to lose out in four ways: they don’t see it coming, they turn their nose up at it, they don’t understand it, or they’re too late to adapt.” —Jack Ma

Is Live Shopping an impulse marketing tool?

Depends. Live Shopping surely leverage “the fear of missing out” by limiting the time of the offers to the length of an event, but if you pair it with information-centric content, it usually revolves around “solving a problem” for viewers. Knowledge-sharing series is a user acquisition path that tends to lead to recurring purchases instead of impulse buys.

Though there may not be a one-size for all golden Live Shopping formula for all businesses, we notice one of the common sales factors in Asia’s Live Shopping events is education and the value derived from expertise.

What are the advantages of LIVE Shopping?

Live Shopping with multi-mobile-phone-in-store-selling

Communication works for those who work for it. With LIVE Shopping hesitation time is drastically reduced as customer’s doubts are cleared by the brand in the LIVE video. The result is a 20.5% conversion rate for our LIVE Shopping users. But why?

The answer is LIVE Shopping is a highly engaging form of video marketing and sales channel all in one. It allows instant interactions where audiences chat and ask questions to the host in real-time. With all the AI around us, we all secretly crave for even more real human interaction. LIVE Shopping brings on average a 35% engagement rate.

💻 Your Data & Fact | Live video boosts engagement 10 times more – Forbes

From KOL to KOS (key opinon seller)

A shift from KOL(key opinion leader) to KOS (key opinion seller) shows that people are looking to replace commercial with authentic vibes. And LIVE Shopping is usually done by a simple mobile phone setup, host casually chats with the audience and casually mentions what product they are using and recommends it to people to buy. It’s the year of being relatable – branding yourself as an untouchable brand is not a thing anymore.

💻 Your Data & Fact | The conversion rate of a top China KOS is 20%, while social commerce is 6-10%

Own your Live Shopping events

Embeddable and immersive Live Shopping experience is the game changer. It allows your viewers to watch the event seamlessly from your e-Commerce website.  Remember the days we all wanted our own app? People get offended when they receive pop ups on their mobile web browsers from clicking a button. It takes a time machine to convince users. The LIVE Shopping experience, from the social media platform to the show itself, all in-app – there’s no exit. By smoothening the user’s experience it, in turn, converts audiences into customers.

How Live Commerce works?

You can Connect e-commerce systems (such as Shopify) to a LIVE Shopping platform, which enables product purchases on the streaming page and, all orders and payment processes without exiting the LIVE Show window.

Your audiences interact with you and other views during the LIVE. They might ask you question and hope you call out their names and clear up their doubts etc. With the level of understanding and love toward to the brand, it is what makes the conversation rate good.

Who should use LIVE Shopping?

LIVE Shopping is beneficial for business from fashion, beauty to kitchen wear and more. But if you have an e-commerce and work with an influencer who has been a big help for your B2C marketing tactics, LIVE streaming is going to send you on a conversation ride.  LIVE commerce is your guy if your brand’s

  1. Targets are mobile people
  2. Customers love influencers
  3. Understands first party data is a must

Mobile first is customer first

LIVE Shopping is all about engaging and adapting to the behaviours of the new generation. Especially for B2C business, LIVE streaming allows a high level of interactions that foster customer relationships, resulting in strong brand loyalty. The seamless in-app or on-site open, gives the show a maximum presence and reach.

Influencer marketing in Live Shopping

Influencer marketing brings brands closer to the customers, yet if you have been doing it for a while you will notice the growth has been slowing down.  By combining this new favourite channel of your customer with their favourite people(or with the people they follow) will allow influencers to take full advantage of their influences.

Data ownership

Data collection for business direction, remarketing or data analysis is made impossible thanks to 3rd data control. No matter how the social media marketing game changes, the one thing that stays the same is the fact your data is never yours. If your plan is to run a long and sustainable business, owning your business’ data, as in first party data control, is the answer.

What is the successful Live Shopping event format?

JENNY BIRD’s Live Shopping show is a great example. 

Eager to continue their strong relationship and maintain status as the brand for “cool girls,” “working women” and all #BirdGirls in between, the JENNY BIRD team turned to Live Shopping to do what they do best; be the first. “We are always thinking of new ways to reach our customer, and getting Jenny in front of the customer… but the pandemic inspired us to try this new approach to selling,” says Laura Carincini, Director of Digital Marketing and Content. “We wanted to meet the customer where they were – in their homes.”

Highlighting exclusive collection launches and pre-sales with Live Shopping, they leveraged the brand’s strong online presence and knack for digital advertising through the expert use of Live Shopping. With Jenny Bird herself as host, the label knew that teasing once-a-year deals and surprise gift-with-purchase would ensure a full turnout of “Bird Girls,” excited and ready to purchase. 

Free Live Shopping Webinar

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Live Shopping Webinar: How to boost sales and engagement

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