In this article, we bring to life the beauty use case for live video shopping. A lot has been said about reduced footfall caused by social distancing. This has had an impact on beauty sales, particularly given beauty has traditionally relied upon on retail to drive sampling and sales through shopper experience.
A live video shopping experience in beauty gives the opportunity to Engage with customers and immerse them in the product experience from a distance. 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 makeup artists
Confer With connects shoppers browsing on a website with beauty experts, makeup artists and experts in skincare. If someone is browsing the skincare section of a website, Confer with provides the opportunity for a shopper to talk to a skincare expert. The best skincare experts can be prioritised, over people just training, so as to give your brand the best opportunity for success.
Engaging with a Beauty expert
Once the shopper and their skincare expert are connected, Confer With engages in a one to one video call between the two. This video call allows the skincare expert to understand their shoppers needs. What type of skin do they have? are they looking for a specific product? What is their daily regime and do they find it works? the video engagement allows a connection to be made and prepare for immersion.
Immersing a shopper in a beauty experience
Because the shopper and the skincare expert are face to face, the expert can:
- Show how the product looks on fingers and skin
- Demonstrate the application of product specific to the needs of the shopper
- Respond immediately to feedback
These are hugely powerful tools, but when using the immersion toolset in the Confer With video commerce platform, the experience is linked to the entire inventory of the eCommerce platform, the skincare expert can take that immersion to the next level.
- Using the “Alternatives” selector, upsell everyday moisturiser to day and night moisturisers
- Using the “additions” selector: Select cleansers, toners and travel kits to demonstrate
- Show product specifications, images, and also prerecorded videos relating to how it is used
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 skincare expert to add items to a virtual shopping basket. Once the shopper and the skincare expert agree on the day and night moisturiser, 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 take it to the till.
While the Skincare expert is demonstrating an add on, the cleanser, the shopper 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 shopper and the brand can collaborate on.
Lastly, to help along the sale of the toner and travel kits, the skincare expert can offer a gift with purchase and free samples of other products, by applying a voucher code at her discretion.
Returns the beauty industry can expect from live video shopping
In the example above, a website sale is likely to have netted just the moisturiser purchase, if the website was able to meet the shoppers needs.
Conversely, with video shopping the skincare expert can learn that their erstwhile shopper has combination skin, has a morning and evening routine – which would give a good reason to purchase both day and night moisturiser.
This response to needs will drive up conversion rate anywhere between 4 and 10 times, depending on the skill of the skincare expert in selling.
Furthermore, because the skincare expert has established trust with their customer – they can choose the right moment to suggest the additional items. The Confer With add ons selector empowers this by using data to suggest the right thing. The Shared virtual basket allows both the shopper and the expert to add it to their pre-selection basket.
These tools help increase average basket size by at least 30%, and much higher when your teams get the hang of it.
Last word on the beauty use case for live video shopping
Our analysis shows that the beauty industry and live video shopping are a great match. One a practical level, the use case is very clear – video allows face to face connections between shoppers and beauty experts and importantly to demonstrate. Immersion deepens the customer experience to ensure there is a commercial framework for driving incremental volume.
Please get in touch if you would like a live demonstration of how Confer With can facilitate highly effective live video shopping experiences with customers.
