The digital revolution in retail has resulted in customers expectations of online retailers delivering exceptional customer service and personalisation.
With the accumulation of the digital push and the limitations of the pandemic, video shopping has become a new sales channel for retail and is predicted to stay – even after COVID-19.
This article will explain the emergent of this new channel and how it contributes to retail.
What to expect
- Disadvantages of commonly used sales channels
- What is video shopping?
- Why is there a need for a new sales channel?
- Advantages of video shopping channels
- The future of video Shopping
- Recap and ley takeaways
What are the Disadvantages of Current Sales Channels?
So why is there a need for a new sales channel? Let’s look at the disadvantages of commonly used sales channels for retail.
Retail
This is where brand and companies sell through physical locations such as a shop or a showroom for their products.
Customers can walk into the shop and talk to retail experts and discuss the products whilst they are being demonstrated and sold.
Disadvantages of Retail
- Limited audience: physical stores only attract the people who come into your store. With e-commerce, it doesn’t matter where your audience is.
- Opening and Closing Times: unlike video commerce, the physical store cannot be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Customers aren’t able to access your product or your services throughout the day, whereas with video commerce there’s consumerism ease.
- High Costs: it costs to maintain a physical building space. A digital sphere is a much more efficient, open, cheaper space to sell to an audience.
Personal Selling
Personal selling uses a sales force to create a network of consumers in order to sell to them.
Disadvantages of Personal Selling
- High cost: there is an increased competition, more travel, and higher salaries.
- Limited Customers – sales tend to rely on the customers that have the highest potential to generate a sale. Therefore, there may be an abandonment of new customers or low-potential customers.
- Training: the training of the salespeople is also a very time consuming and costly process. It’s much easier to adapt retail experts to a digital sphere.
Direct Marketing
This is where brands or companies reach out to prospective customers by telephone, mail or go to their door to sell a product.
Disadvantages of Direct Marketing
- Intrusive: Customers can find direct marketing annoying and intrusive, creating a negative brand association.
- Low Response Rate: – you are able to reach a lot of customers, however, the majority of them are not interested and your company will not get a good response.
- High Competition – Customers receive a lot of direct marketing emails and messages from every company.
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Why is There a Need for A New Sales Channel?
1) Videos are much better at explaining than a picture is
Whilst a picture online can tell you some of what you need to know about a product, a video does it better.
Brands are able to demonstrate, trail and show the product from limitless angles and address any questions customer has.
The customer then is able to evaluate the product on offer from a different perspective than just on a website.
Also, customers are able to view these videos from anywhere, now that pretty much every device is mobile and transportable.
As a brand, you are able to promote your product, to anyone, from anywhere and do it with ease using video.
2) Customer and Brand Relationship
Video commerce, whether that be one-to-one or one-to-many engages your audience.
Through the process of matching the customer with the expert, your brand is able to be visualised and personalised by the customer, therefore building an emotional connection.
With live-streaming and one-to-many, brands are able to listen to customers questions and queries and address them live.
Through increased customer satisfaction and engagement, you can build a better relationship with the people that are buying your products. This better relationship further circulates your brand’s success.
3) Stylise Your Brand
Without an online presence in the 21st century, a brand isn’t able to be as successful as it could be.
However, with the progression of digitalisation in the last few years, without an online presence, a brand struggle.
By using video commerce, brands are able to stylise and commercialise themselves, whether that be through influencers or their own display of products.
Video commerce is one of the best ways for customers, in the time of a pandemic, to get to know your brand and its ethos. Online brands, videos and advertisements are so easy to consume, which accounts for video commerce’s success.
Anything then produced by the company is entertaining and more enjoyable to consume that a text advert or an in-store retail expert.
How Does Video Shopping Differ From Other Sales Channels?
1) It minimises costs
Video commerce allows companies to project their products onto an audience with very little cost involved – there is no need for a physical store.
The expert simply presents the product to the customer and sells it to them, without the need for travelling or extra cost.
Since COVID-19 restrictions, this has become more appealing to a wider audience, where travelling either isn’t possible or not preferred.
2) Easy and efficient
Similar to being cost-effective, the video commerce that Confer With supplies, also allows a simple and easy interaction between the expert and the customer.
Calls are able to be booked, monitored or called for on the spot, and they are able to get the answers they need quickly.
Customer service has never been able to be delivered so effectively through a screen, as experts are able to respond to the customers’ needs in real-time, increasing both satisfaction and engagement.
With the virtual shopping basket, orders are able to be edited both by the expert and the customer, and with a click of a button, another order is placed. Video commerce makes the stresses of shopping cease.
3) High Engagement
Video commerce allows possibilities such as live-stream shopping which developed in China and has proved very successful.
Statistics have shown that audiences are more engaged with the material they watch, and therefore more likely to invest, emotionally and financially, in a brand. This is both through one-to-one shopping and one-to-many.
- SellBrite Survey highlighted 84% of consumers would purchase a product after watching a brand’s video
- 56% of consumers also believe a company should have video content on its website
- Lemonlight highlights videos are shared 1200% more times than links and texts, combined
- A further 83% said consumers would share it with their friends
4) Entertainment
Video commerce blends information and entertainment into one, where customers can go for their commercial and social needs.
Through demonstration, customers are shown why they need a product, whilst also being provided with a level of entertainment from the brand, which erases the feeling of experts trying to persuade or ‘sell’ a product.
Video shopping provides a light-hearted yet effective way to convert customers and create an emotional relationship between the consumer and the brand.
In an article by Mediamonks, video commerce is
“accommodating a need for connection and entertainment, the format is well-tailored to building strategic relationships into the year ahead.”
Obviously, since COVID-19, customers have this incessant want for connectivity with a brand, video commerce allows companies to maintain, and build, these important relationships with both existing and new customers in a way that is entertaining and simple.
5) Celebrities or Influencers
With video commerce companies are able to project their brand onto a large, engaged audience. Neil Patel calls platforms like YouTube,
“the perfect vehicle for promoting brand awareness and building a loyal following.”
Platforms such as YouTube, Instagram Shopping and Amazon Live have all demonstrated how the use of video shopping can increase engagement and conversion rate.
Video shopping allows brands to incorporate celebrities and influencers into their brand, without the travel time or the cost.
Chris Gollop for Saleslayer stated,
“Buyers trust testimonials from others who they consider to be near them or trustworthy, and while the influencer bubble does have some ethical issues, these individuals are able to move people’s attention to many brands.”
One major example of this is Kim Kardashian’s feature in a Chinese Livestream. Vogue Business said:
“The potential of live streaming wasn’t lost on Kim Kardashian West who, helped by Viya, sold 150,000 units of her KKW perfumes during a live streaming session on Alibaba’s Tmall on 6 November 2019.”
The influence of celebrities in the days of the digital age is shown clearly by the statistics of live stream shopping.
Video commerce allows us to integrate tactics that brands have used via YouTube for years, into the modern-day world to further increase conversion rates.
The Future of Video Shopping
Online shopping, before the introduction of video commerce, had a void. Video commerce fills the void by offering personal, direct and efficient guidance with products and services.
With companies being able to interact with their customers face to face, a foundation of trust is built. This relationship is vital in retail.
Since the limitations of the pandemic, e-commerce has had to adapt to the expectations of its customers.
The online pace surrounding retail has developed ten folds, where the interaction online is almost exactly the same as you would get in person.
Recap
Video commerce has shown its success blatantly, in a culture that is emerging as highly digital.
The pandemic was a large factor in speeding up this process of digitalisation, however, the shift has happened for a reason.
Customers want to buy the products they need with ease and simplicity. They also want the opportunity to browse and be highly informed when making a purchase.
Video commerce bridges the gap between the physical and the virtual. Experts and customers are able to collaborate and produce a purchase that the customer has high confidence in.
Along with one-to-one shopping, one-to-many allows brands to connect with an infinite number of customers, all either potential, existing and new.
The potential of video commerce is broad, and after showing its success in China, and the restrictions of the pandemic, it is now more important than ever that brands establish these online relationships and a virtual presence to survive, and thrive.
With the immersion of the pandemic, retail shopping has become impossible, unreliable and inconsistent.
The introduction of video shopping as a new sales channel allows customers to access the same products, new products and new companies, with a new level of entertainment and information.
Retail experts and brands are also able to build and maintain their relationship with the customers and sustain an online presence that is vital in the 21st century.
About Confer With
To find out more about how you can use video commerce and AR to increase sales and customer success, schedule a no-obligation demo today.
