ECommerce is evolving to provide more relevant and engaging experiences. Videos, interactions, chats and social networks blend offering customers new adventures in their online purchases. What exactly is live shopping, and why should we implement it in our business?
In 2016, fashion companies in China began to use social media as a platform for generating live sales. It didn’t take long for them to realize that this new way of selling would also allow them to strengthen branding and increase customer loyalty.
They were ushering eCommerce into a new phase. Brands can now redirect users with higher purchase intent from social networks to their own sites in a new format that deepens and improves the experience.
The ability to fully orchestrate the journey of thousands or millions of followers who interact with the brand via third-party platforms was definitely here to stay.
Later, in 2020, as a result of the pandemic, this sales method grew at an exponential rate. According to McKinsey, Live Commerce now accounts for 13% of total eCommerce sales in China.
It didn’t take long before this wave of innovation spread throughout other geographies, with high rates of adoption.
For example, in Spain, 78% of consumers have expressed interest in this type of purchase, making the country one of the most developed in Europe in terms of live shopping. Meanwhile, numerous Mexican businesses have already made over 2,500 USD in a single live shopping session.
What is Live Shopping?
Live shopping is an evolution of traditional eCommerce that uses video streaming as the primary display medium for products, services, and branding. It will be one of the year’s major trends.
In general, user acquisition for this kind of action begins on social networks, where companies have the most followers. This is combined with paid and segmented campaigns for each type of content. As a result, traffic is directed to the brand’s eCommerce, which hosts the live video.
This transportation of users from social networks to the website itself is transgressive since it provides brands with a series of high value-added benefits:
- Bring together large numbers of customers simultaneously, as it is done in virtual spaces.
- Take ownership of user data, which represents a capital in itself, because they no longer belong to the social network but to the brand.
- Have access to all user journey data, allowing for subsequent remarketing actions.
- Increase engagement and branding, staying in the top of mind of current and potential customers.
- Multiply impulse sales with a low investment and start-up.
- Increase Customer Lifetime Value.
- Optimize marketing, sales and retargeting campaigns.
In a live shopping event, users can start the purchase of a product from the video interface itself.
Live Shopping uses
Broadly speaking, this technique can be used both to achieve greater brand recognition, as well as increase conversions and engagement.
In this sense, it should be noted that Multiplica’s solutions allow for a 45% increase in engagement, in addition to increasing the positioning of the website, as search engines better index pages that contain videos.
In addition, brands manage to increase conversions. For example, they can reach 60% Click Through Rate (CTR), up to 28% Conversion Rate and more than 26% Add to Carts.
Lastly, live shopping increases 7x the chances of converting into a customer a user impacted by retargeting campaigns, an action that accounts for 70% of sales.
How does Live Shopping work?
Each campaign is unique, depending on the brand, its industry and its goals. However, Multiplica offers an end-to-end solution that adapts to all those companies that seek to join this new sales format:
- Strategy design for the proper implementation of Live Commerce in the brand in each event, according to industry, product, target, and goals.
- Technological consulting for selecting the best streaming platforms and integration for the creation of a sales channel with live content hosted in the brand’s eCommerce to capture all user journey data.
- Strategic video production including:
- Selection of streamers, influencers, experts or KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) who will host the live shopping.
- Creation of interactive dynamics for the show through scripting and design.
- Technical capacity (setting, lights, cameras, script, etc).
- Reach and marketing actions before, during and after the live event.
- Results analysis for the optimization of the following livestreams and continuous monitoring of KPIs.
Industries, modalities and audiences
Although Retail and eCommerce are leading the way in this mode of selling products and services, other industries such as Banking, Fintech, and Insurtech are following suit. The ability to interact with customers to explain very abstract or complex concepts in more personalized and simple ways is valued in these verticals, attracting more customers.
Depending on the type of desired public being addressed, a brand can choose between three types of live shopping.
- 1 to many, in which mass product companies can target as many customers as possible.
- 1 to few, aimed at the most exclusive customers, or those who are part of loyalty or membership programs.
- 1 to 1, exclusively designed for a single person and ideal for companies dedicated to luxury goods, or products and services that require a more complex decision process.
Fashion and Retail companies are at the forefront of live shopping, although new industries have been joining, such as Pharma, Real Estate, and even the Automotive industry.
Multiplica is expanding in new capacities with the aim of increasing the range of services available to clients. In this context, and with the acquisition of BeAgency, we are among the first companies to offer market solutions for live shopping campaigns in Spain, Europe, Mexico, and the rest of Latin America.
If you want to learn more about how live shopping can help you increase your sales in 2022 you can contact me.