Traditional, physical retailers are great at customer service. They can focus on the specific needs of a handful of shoppers at a time, answering their questions and providing bespoke recommendations until browsers are ready to buy.
On the other hand, e-commerce stores have a much broader reach than their brick-and-mortar peers. There’s basically no limit to the number of people they can serve at once, and those people can be anywhere in the world as long as they have an internet connection.
Live streaming e-commerce shopping effectively combines the two, putting digital retailers in front of a vast online audience while still allowing them to respond to customers on a one-on-one level.
It’s highly effective: Experts estimate livestream shopping will generate $25 billion in the U.S. alone in 2023.
What Is Livestream Shopping?
First of all, what does livestream mean? In short, live streaming is transmitting live video to an audience in real time over the internet.
Livestream + online shopping = live streaming e-commerce opportunities for businesses.
So, let’s discuss what this looks like in practice. If you’ve ever watched a home shopping network like QVC, you probably already have an answer to the question “what is live shopping?” because it’s been in American living rooms for years. A presenter showcases a product, which you can purchase during the broadcast.
That said, there are a couple of big ways livestream shopping improves upon the traditional home shopping experience.
For one thing, it’s far more interactive. While home shopping channels allow viewers to call in, livestream shopping enables the audience to interact through comments, likes, polls, and more. For example, anyone watching the stream can ask a question about the product or request that the host show it from a different angle using chat functions.
A second thing to consider is it’s more convenient. You don’t need to be in front of a TV screen to participate. You could be in a coffee shop or on the bus. Given that a staggering three-fifths of American viewers who watch live TV are aged 55 or over, if you’re trying to reach younger consumers, home shopping networks likely aren’t the answer!
In the United States, livestream shopping is currently used mostly by small, direct-to-consumer brands, including a handful of celebrities like Catherine Zeta-Jones. She sells her line of makeup products via the talkshoplive platform.
Livestream shopping isn’t limited to any specific product category (although it’s almost all B2C). A quick browse of categories on CommentSold, a livestream shopping platform used by more than 3,000 retailers, includes:
women’s retail
direct selling
wholesale
sports merchandise
home decor
Livestream Shopping Platforms You Should Know About
Livestream shopping first rose to prominence in China, thanks in part to the existence of fully integrated digital platforms combining livestream e-commerce and payments. For example, in 2020, two-thirds of Chinese shoppers bought products via livestream within the previous year.
Outside China, a bunch of dedicated livestream shopping platforms aimed at Western audiences are already available. These include:
1. Facebook Live
This feature offered by Facebook allows users to broadcast live video content to friends and followers on the platform. Recently, Facebook has been expanding the functionality of Live to include livestream e-commerce features, making it a great platform for livestream shopping. A key benefit is its large user base and the potential to reach a huge audience through livestreams and “Facebook Shops,” but there are also plenty of interactive features to create a strong sense of community through engagement.
2. Instagram Live
Instagram Live is a feature offered by Instagram that, much like Facebook Live, allows users to broadcast videos to their followers. Also, like Facebook Live, Instagram Live has been working toward including e-commerce features. Instagram Live has Instagram shops, which let businesses create online stores and show products. For live shopping, you could simply integrate this feature to make the process seamless for users.
3. TikTok Shopping
TikTok, a popular short-form video sharing platform, has introduced e-commerce features to make the platform an excellent option for livestream shopping. With over one billion monthly active users, TikTok is an awesome opportunity to reach a large, younger audience. Plus, its format promotes engagement and creativity that makes it easy for retailers to use music, filters, and effects to showcase products.
4. Popshop Live
This is an iOS-specific platform that allows sellers to host shows from their iPhones, use photos to upload purchase links, and integrate with inventory management software.