Live shopping: the new e-commerce trend that attracts consumers

With digital and social networks, Live shopping e-commerce new retail trends are emerging in the world, and brands that have directly suffered the impact of the health crisis have found various ways to innovate to limit losses.

For the 5th most e-commerce country in the world, this typically Anglo-Saxon expression designates a set of codes and methods aimed at winning more customers in the long-term thanks to digital innovations.

Thus, faced with the success of live streaming, in particular with the Twitch revolution, Facebook and Instagram lives, and faced with a spectacular increase in the number of users on social networks during periods of confinement, companies have been able to seize the opportunity. Convert as many consumers as possible to make sales by taking advantage of the engagement around these formats.

Live shopping therefore appears to be a means of reducing the impact of the crisis on your sales. Today, this expression has its tendencies, which any entrepreneur must respect; therefore, with you, we decipher the three major trends in live shopping.

What is live shopping?

Dubbed the “cash machine” by marketers, live shopping comprises video sessions in which companies present and market a selection of products to the public through popular influencers in the field.

Live shopping thus takes up the fundamental principles of tele-shopping by allowing users to view products in videos, to see stakeholders test them and give their characteristics.

First practiced in China, the practice has quickly spread to Western retailers, especially in Europe, where major players are offering their first live shopping experience.

How did they live shopping come about?

Although it developed particularly during the Covid-19 crisis because of the isolation of the population, it first appeared in the era of broadband and implementing qualitative tools efficient in particular with large players adding E-Commerce functionalities such as in Instagram, Facebook and Amazon lives.

Accessible and practical, live shopping has attracted e-merchants and consumers who see the act of purchasing via live shopping as a real entertainment. In fact, it attracts many new consumers.

Initially, the practice of love shopping was the prerogative of the big brands ahead of the market, very connected to new generations of consumers. But with new social networks connected and streamed live (including TIK Tök whose number of users is exploding in Europe), and despite a financially expensive practice, more modest companies are entering the vibe of live shopping to give themselves every chance of success.

If live broadcasting was already a phenomenon well established in the minds of consumers, it is reinventing itself by marketing on a fashion trend. Live shopping thus has many advantages.

Naturally, the health crisis has started the change towards digital and the world of live shopping in various sectors of activity. In 2020, we have seen a real shift in budgets towards digital events to replace the loss of influx into stores. Physical.

Why practice shopping?

At the same time a lever of notoriety thanks to its attractive and entertaining side, it is also a lever of sale, the live shopping, beyond being entertaining, makes it possible to recreate, online, elements of the physical sale and thus allowing consumers to get closer to what looks like the customer experience present in the store (seeing, testing products, asking sellers questions). 

With the loss of compulsive shopping on the internet, makes it possible to respond to this problem and revives the levers of desirability thanks to authentic shopping experiences.

The new generations, very keen on new technologies and in particular social networks, are thus more attracted to the idea of ​​joining live shopping and discovering a new shopping experience. This way, you stand out from your competition and get your business talked about in an almost infinite geographic space.

Live shopping is a proper way to access specific communities and improve your customer targeting. Indeed, thanks to the use of influencers specialized in the promotion of your products, you allow your potential consumers to learn about your product effortlessly. Thus, you benefit from the community of influencers and achieve a real commercial breakthrough.

Very engaging, the practice of shopping has seen a real leap forward in its use in China from 2016 thanks to the launch of Taobao Live by Alibaba: its live broadcasting platform.

Thus, China accounts for the month of March 2020 alone, with 560 million internet users present on live shopping. Thus, Tmall and Taobao, the two Alibaba apps on which it is possible to organize live shopping sessions, have generated 76 billion dollars in business volume with this new content in the country since the start of 2021.

With a global average of 265 million regular users of live shopping in E-Commerce in the 4 corners of the world and 50,000 lives organized per day, live shopping thus promises great opportunities for international development for your E -Commerce and the achievement of brand new targets, as proof, nearly 170 billion dollars in sales were made in 2020 thanks to live shopping according to the Research institute .

Maximize your sales while boosting your growth both digital and retail (by taking advantage of the visibility you get on the Internet thanks to live shopping).

To sum up, live shopping is a way of:

• Develop your notoriety
• Save your marketing budget
• Personalize your offer

What is the future of Lite Shipping in Europe?

With the rise of its use by consumers, the Western net giants are embarking on the race for live shopping by seeing the opportunities offered by this new sales channel.

Considering that 10 platforms used in Europe allow live video streaming (namely Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Amazon), and although only 3 of them added E-Commerce features, we can imagine that competition will soon rage and that still traditional platforms will also offer this sales channel to further market their products.

It is, of course, that TIK Tök has embarked on the field of shipping by offering an exclusivity to the American brands, Walmart and NTWRK. Although it has yet to deploy this tool on a large scale, it is only a matter of time before it arrives and becomes a major player in the sector.

Along the same lines, Twitch also wanted to experiment with this purchasing solution on its video platform during Amazon Prime Day in 2019. Although it has not yet repeated the experience, we imagine it will add to list soon.

The future of shopping is therefore very promising in Europe. With one-click purchases made on Lite Shipping streams, brands can now test consumers' appetite for this new sales system and make it become a true distribution channel thereafter if the results are promising.

Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok are already monetizing the audience generated by the broadcasting of live videos thanks to digital advertising, so don't be surprised at the new features that will soon emerge in the months. Years to come on these giants of the net.

According to Frost & Sullivan, global live shopping revenue is expected to reach $413 billion by 2022. It is therefore positioned as a real boon for brands faced with very digital consumers and still not very present in physical points of sale. Live shopping is fast becoming the new fashionable buying technique with no less than 28% of French people intending to use it in the next 6 months , according to a study by Tech Explorist.