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What Is Live Video Streaming Ecommerce?
The pandemic has led to the growth of online work, entertainment, and consumption.
The merge of live stream and ecommerce, also known as live commerce, has proven fruitful in China who has taken the lead in showing the rest of the world the countless opportunities that it brings to businesses.
Ultimately, live streaming for ecommerce is promoting or demonstrating your product and services through live video on your website or mobile app.
But that’s not all.
Live commerce viewers have the ability to add-to-cart and checkout without leaving the live stream.
The Pandemic’s Role In The Trend
Undeniably, the COVID-19 crisis catapulted the trend of clearing out inventories through live streaming.
With social distancing measures put into place, customers look to online stores to shop.
This transition has resulted in a loss of interaction and engagement between the brand and the customer.
This pushes brands to go beyond selling on a website to selling on live streams where they are able to still interact with customers in real-time no matter their locations.
How Is Live Video Streaming For Ecommerce Changing Online Sales?
Brick and mortar shopping malls, along with other sectors, are being rescued by live streaming ecommerce.
iResearch predicts that by the end of 2020, China will have 524 million online live streaming users. This means 40% of Chinese people and 62% of the country’s internet users will be live streamers.
The total scale of China’s live streaming e-commerce industry reached RMB 433.8 billion in 2019 and is expected to double by the end of 2020.
Given that in 2019, live streaming ecommerce only accounted for 4.1% of the online retail market and it accounted for 1.1% of overall e-commerce, it still has plenty of room for growth worldwide.
Top Advantages Of Using Live Video For Ecommerce
– Live video shopping provides better customer experience and improves sales conversion rate.
– Real-time element of live video creates excitement and keeps users on your page for a longer duration.
– Live video shopping creates exclusivity and a sense of urgency that improves the average amount spent per purchase.
– Live video attracts new customers because it has a wider reach
How To Implement Live Commerce?
With the right resources, launching live commerce is a piece of cake.
You can go simple and promote your products on free live streaming platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Instagram. These platforms, however, have drawbacks that could limit your opportunities.
Here’s a breakdown of the factors that should be considered when selecting the right platform.
Branding
Having a live stream on Facebook, YouTube or Instagram would mean making use of the existing user interface on the platform.
What happens then is that your branding and identity will be lost.
But when you have your own live shopping platform, you can have your platform exactly to how you want it to be to suit your branding.
This will promote a sense of brand loyalty, exclusivity and recognition for your users.
Monetization
Monetization opportunity is always the most important factor for any business.
When you put in resources to having a live stream, you would want some form of returns as an outcome.
Having your own live shopping platform gives you control of monetization features such as ticketing, pay-per-view, or even a monthly subscription.
Besides,on your own live shopping platform, you can implement payment and shopping-specific features so you don’t have to do any manual stock-taking.
Quality
Not to be taken lightly, live stream quality can make or break your live video’s success.
A survey has shown that video quality is the most important factor to viewers.
Facebook Live is not as live as you think it is; it has a latency of 15 seconds. This means that whatever the broadcaster says or does will only be shown on the viewers’ screens 15 seconds later.
On top of that, Facebook only allows a maximum of 720p video resolution.
With millions of others using the same server on a mainstream platform, there are high chances of video buffering.
Conclusion:
Live video streaming ecommerce is the fastest growing trend that adds value to shopping, especially in these times of social distancing.
This can give you the opportunity to stay ahead of your competitors and sell well via your digital stores.
Live video for ecommerce will not only help you increase sales, but also provide your buyers with valuable information.
If you need more details on how to get your own white labelled platform for live streaming or a customized SDK live streaming solution, BeLive Technology will deliver whatever you need.
