How does live video shopping for a bicycle actually work? a bike, particularly a high end bicycle often takes extensive research, multiple visits to a store and lots of reassurance form people you trust that the cycle under consideration is the right ride for you.
With social distancing continuing to be a presence in the UK and beyond – live Video shopping, particularly one to one live video shopping presents a very viable solution. In particular, it provides an opportunity for cycling brands to expand beyond your retail footprint.
A use case for Live Video Shopping for Cycling
In this article, we bring to life the use case for live video shopping for a consumer searching for a bike to purchase. There has been
A live video shopping experience in cycling gives the opportunity to Engage and immerse customers in the product experience from a distance. With a video commerce platform, new possibilities open up.The aim is to replicate the retail experience as much as possible from a distance, but also leverage the scale of eCommerce to assist with conversion en masse.
Matching shoppers with expertise
Confer With connects shoppers browsing on a website with experts who can assist with making a bike purchase. If someone is browsing the road bike section of a cycling website, why not set up live video shopping for a bicycle sale? Confer With provides the opportunity for a shopper to talk to someone who knows what they are talking about in the cycling industry. Conversely, if there interest is in urban cycling – shoppers can be connected to someone who knows a bit more about style. The best experts can be prioritised and importantly, appointments can be made in case someone isn’t available right away.
Engaging with a cycling expert
Once the shopper and their cycling expert are connected, Confer With sets up a one to one video call between the two. This video call allows the expert to understand their customers needs. What kind of cycling do they do? how fit are they? is it sport or leisure? what is thier height and body measurements? will they be doing the cycle to work scheme? The video engagement allows a connection to be made, talk through what they love about the sport, or if they are just starting out – what their expectations are. Questions can be asked that are relevant to the customers needs, which prepares the expert for how they might immerse their erstwhile customers in a product experience that they will appreciate.
The customers can also show any bike they currently own, which is always helpful in deciding the specification – do they want to upgrade? what is their current bike size and does that fit their body shape?
Immersing a shopper in an experience relevant to their needs
Because the customers and the cycling specialist are face to face, and needs have been understood, the expert can:
- Select bikes to their needs
- Show them how the bike looks and feels
- Demonstrate the right size bike and in a style that will suit their lifestyle
- Respond immediately to feedback
These are hugely powerful tools, but when using the immersion toolset that is linked to the entire inventory of the eCommerce platform, the bike sales person can take that immersion to the next level, even if they do not have the product (or a product variant) next to them.
Leveraging a cycling buy flow
The purchase of a bike is more than just the bike purchase itself. There are a huge amount of addons that are relevant to the purchase. Things like helmets, locks and apparel are the tip of the iceberg. Talking to an enthusiast means each specific components will need to be understood and reviewed.
- Using the “Alternatives” selector, the expect can select different bikes in higher and lower price brackets and cycling style so the customer can be reassured that they have exhausted the alternatives
- Using the “additions” selector: Suggest different helmets that might be relevant to their needs
- Using the “additions” selector: Suggest different bike locks that will secure the customers bike in the current use
- If the expert feels that the customers might benefit from bib shorts if they are doing long rides, they can select these from further additions in the buy flow.
- Show product specifications, images, and also prerecorded videos relating to how it matches
A full buy flow can be set up for the sale of a bike and add ons to the sale. This buy flow has a huge impact on average order value and can help you scale the selling of products at a high value.
Making it easy to buy, then and there
Confer With have developed patent pending a shared virtual basket, which allows both the shopper and the bike expert to add items to a virtual shopping basket. Once the shopper and the expert agree on the bike, helmet, lock and bib shorts, the expert can offer “Shall I add that to our shared virtual basket”? If the answer is yes, the expert can do the equivalent of making out the order.
While the expert is demonstrating an add on, like a helmet, the customers can add that to their shared virtual basket too.
This basket collaboration, is designed to match the behaviour online and take an online shopping basket from being a one way thing to something that both the customer and the expert can collaborate on.
Lastly, to help along the sale of a bundled purchase, the expert might make available a 15% closer deal. This can be applied at the managers discretion.
Booking a further appointment to check they are happy with the bike, and potentially discuss additional apparel or bike maintenance is always on the cards.
Last word on the cycling use case for live video shopping
On a practical level, the use case is very clear – video allows face to face connections between shoppers & cycling experts and importantly to demonstrate. Immersion deepens the customer experience to ensure there is a commercial framework for driving incremental volume. Not only will conversion rates increase, so will average order value.
Would you like a demonstration of the cycling use case?
Get a demo of live video shopping for a bicycle. Please put in a request and we can book a time to discuss your needs.
