“A very common misperception is that, oh, live, you do live video shopping. It’s an event thing. But where you see the greatest potential is when you use this as an amplifier.”

 

Key Insights

 

What do live video shopping success stories look like? (7:30)

You may have heard talk of live video shopping or are familiar with how China is using live streaming services in their ecommerce activities. But what does it look like for the western world? And how should brands be thinking about what success looks like?

“We always suggest the brands go back through their target audience [and ask] how can I add value by using live video shopping instead of just offering a static HTML ecommerce, or just your classical store? And how can I bridge the two? The ones that are seeing the highest ROI in success have a proper strategy… Success stories can be anything from a really small brand nailing a really good show and making hundreds of thousands of dollars in one show, but it can also be another brand realizing that they have untapped potential in in-house experts, dermatologists, store staff, where they can optimize everything from minority language to super-niche skills and add that value to customers.”

How live video shopping addresses ecommerce-specific problems (12:36)

Ecommerce brands have a number of challenges and throughout the history of the industry, many solutions have been developed. But the world is constantly changing and new technologies are making it possible to address challenges in ways that meet the moment and help brands keep their eyes on the future. 

“Being ecommerce specific, what we have been struggling with for the last 10 years is if you’re high average order value ecommerce, you want to shorten the conversion funnel, right? If you’re a low average order value ecommerce business, you want to increase cart value. And all those trips and tricks that we have done on static ecommerce for the last decade, we know them right now – who looks at this is also likes this. Or that you’re trying to retarget people for shortening conversion. In a live stream, this happens in an organic natural way. So if you have expensive, more tricky or complex purchases, all of a sudden in a live stream, you get all the information you need. You give [customers] this confidence to purchase. So you shorten it. And on the other hand, if you have low average order values and you’re presenting in a very dynamic, organic way, different things, then people will by default add them to cart because they see them in a natural context. So I think we’re actually meeting and solving to real ecommerce challenges just by the technology itself.”

Why brands need to be brave to be part of the live video shopping revolution (23:46)

Everything new is inherently a little scary. You don’t know if the benefits of trying something will outweigh the risks. But it’s the brave brands that have experimented in the past that have reaped the biggest rewards. The same will likely be true for the first-movers in the live video shopping space. 

“I remember when influencer marketing started when influencers came and the luxury brands were very reluctant to having non-models portraying their brands or having people style themselves and mix them with other brands, which was way out of their comfort zone. And now it’s the luxury brands themselves that are fueling influencers more than anyone else. I think we’ll see kind of the same evolution with live video shopping. Right now, it’s new. You need to find your own sort of way of being but give it a couple of years and this will be what everyone is doing.” 

About the Guest:

Sophie Abrahamsson is the Chief Commercial Officer at Bambuser, where she is responsible for executing on Bambuser’s aggressive growth strategy, spearheading global new business efforts and continuing brand development. She has more than 10 years of experience in the world of ecommerce, and she previously served as Marketing manager for LUISAVIAROMA, Head of Digital for & Other Stories and various business development positions at H&M group.

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