The ecommerce industry and retail shopping experienced a huge change in 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic introduced the new normal and had people staying indoors, businesses began to look for ways to attract shoppers online. According to the latest report, digital sales reached a high of $204.6 billion in revenue during the third quarter of 2021. This is quite a big jump from 2019 and shows how consumer preferences are shifting quickly.
With new tools and technology, online shopping has become a lot easier and more accessible as well. Recently, brands or businesses are using features such as shoppable live streams to interact with consumers and increase sales. In retail, this option can also work quite well for increasing brand awareness as companies can reach out to a wider audience by livestreaming on social media platforms.
Before we proceed further, let’s get an understanding of the shoppable live stream feature and how it can work for different brands.
What To Know About Shoppable Livestreaming
The concept became popular in China over the last few years and soon took over the retail industry globally. It is also known as live shopping as the brand or business usually showcases its products or people in real time and interacts with the audience too. Here are a few important facts about live streaming:
- In the US, brands are quickly adopting this trend and market share is expected to rise to $25 billion in 2023.
- Nordstrom has launched its own live streaming platform to allow shoppers to get a closer look at the products before purchasing.
- There is a 50 percent less chance of products being returned when they are purchased via livestream.
One of China’s biggest marketplace, Alibaba, has a market share of 80 percent in live streaming. With the introduction of Taobao Live, the company managed to attract more Gen Z and Millennials who prefer the experience of a virtual shopping mall.
It has inspired other Chinese brands to explore the option and tap into the market. Chinese cosmetics brand, Perfect Diary, hosted a livestream to promote it’s makeup line. Mostly, live streams have an expert or influencer talking about the features of various products and even demonstrating how they work.
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In this day and age, social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have made it very easy for brands to engage consumers and provide live support. Over the past year, the media sharing platform introduced its live shopping feature and hosted various events, particularly during the holiday season. Instagram has also upgraded its app for e-commerce by integrating the ‘live’ option with the ‘shops’.
This has made it a lot easier for businesses to boost awareness by collaborating with celebrities and influencers and also increase sales as people get a chance to buy the product directly. Selena Gomez promoted her makeup brand, Rare Beauty, through a livestream on Instagram which gave her followers an insight into the brand. Estee Lauder collaborated with makeup artist Nikki for a tutorial and tips so that viewers could purchase items easily. Shoppable live streams are also changing the retail industry on their own with brands using the tool individually to host digital styling events, fashion shows or fitness programs.
Branding Tips To Grab For Shoppable Live Streams
If you are thinking about how to brand your retail business for shoppable live streams, you can follow some highly useful tips and tricks. Here are a few useful ones that might help your audience become familiar with your products in real time!
Choose The Right Platform
Before anything else, this is one of the most important things to keep in mind when it comes to the branding of a retail business for live streaming. You want to make sure that you host on a platform where your audience is located or can access easily. While most retail businesses make use of Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube Live and Facebook Live, it is also important to focus on improving consumer experience during the livestream.
Brands can use the following platforms to create a clickable or shoppable stream and interact with potential customers:
- Popshop Live
- Bambuser
- TalkShop Live
- Amazon Live
You may already be familiar with the last as the biggest marketplace has been quite successful with its ‘live’ feature. From cooking shows to fitness classes and styling tips by experts, Amazon hosts any small to large streaming event that allows consumers to promote their brands. While Nyx has a wide audience on social media platforms, it managed to attract the attention of a younger and diverse demographic with its livestream on Amazon during May 2020.
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Similarly, Flawless by Gabrielle Union is another that was promoted during a live event on the platform by the owner and founder. The actress who was featured with her hair stylist talked about her hair-care company and other beauty products which also became hot sellers .
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Focus On Visuals
Since the idea is to create familiarity and brand your retail business successfully, it is crucial to include high quality images of products and focus on relevant visuals. Try to create a setting for the livestream which reflects your brand and makes it easier for people to identify with the core values. So you can have a background or a few items that showcase the brand colors. If it’s a demonstration or a tutorial, add attractive shots of product packaging and the company logo.
While you may already have people talking about certain items, highlighting the visuals in the video can make it easier for people to recall or remember them later on. The retail brand, Aldo, hosted a successful live streaming event through the platform, Bambuser, and managed to attract quite a lot of attention. The event had a high engagement rate and 17000 views after the first week of its streaming.
The company collaborated with Mimi Cuttrell and Nate Wyatt to draw in a wider audience. Both of them gave tips to style the accessories and shoes that people could buy immediately. The livestream focused on the products and allowed people to get an insight into the brand as well. It certainly helped the brand connect with more people and make a positive impression too.
Similarly, Adidas hosted a livestream by integrating the platform, Smartzer, and featured its new products which people could view and buy at the same time. Miliboo is another example of a brand that showcases its furniture items on a shoppable livestream successfully.
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Host A Q & A Session
At the end, you want your consumers to think about the brand and identify the products anywhere. This is where a live session for Q & A can prove to be quite useful. This could help brand your retail business as you can answer all the possible questions that people might have about the products and their features in real time. This also makes it easier for brands to interact with potential customers and consider their feedback as well.
You can have three to four bestselling items and talk about how they can solve problems for people while taking questions from people during the livestream. Otherwise, it is also a good idea to have an industry expert or micro influencer promote the company and the products. They can also answer some of the commonly asked questions about the use or application, results or what to avoid. A live session also allows you to maintain transparency and have authentic content with valuable information.
Quivr, a Nitro coffee company, has hosted quite a few live shopping events and experienced a rise in its sales after most of them. One of the first livestreams was an introduction to the products by the founder of the business, Ash Crawford. He gave an insight into the brands and the different products so that people could get all the information before making a decision. It was streamed on Amazon live with the items featured below.
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