Why does retail convert so well relative to online? The intuitive answer to that question is that you have an opportunity to have a face to face interaction with a human being. You can ask questions you can touch and feel products and get a level of reassurance that online can’t deliver.
How do the best retailers structure that engagement to scale effective retail selling? There are 4 elements to maximising it and they all can be used in video shopping:
- Connection – establishing an friendly or emotional connection with your customer. Human beings need a connect to establish trust. Live video does a great job at this.
- Understand needs – listen to the shopper express their needs. Often in retail, there are specific product questions or a need for reassurance. Understanding these needs is the key to engagement
- Respond to needs – once a shoppers’ needs are understood, it makes sense to respond to them. If the needs are responded to that chances of closing a sale is increased.-
……now all of the above can be dealt with reasonably well with a live one to one video feed. All of the above will aid conversion as well as improve average order value and NPS. But there is forth element that enhances performance in live video shopping , and it’s called immersion:
- Immersion – this is where customers actually experience the product. This is where shoppers want to touch and feel the physical product, and immerse themselves in a product experience.
Immersion is harder without physically having the product in front of you. Luckily, technology has a way of finding a way.
What is immersion in live video shopping?
Immersion in live video shopping is the process of giving the customer an experience that is as close as possible to the physical experience of touching and feeling a product.
Let’s go through a list of live shopping immersion techniques to put some meat around the bones:
Types of live shopping immersion
Given the goal of immersion in live video shopping is to bring the customer closer to the product, when it’s not possible to be next to a product, the aim becomes giving access to the important elements of the product to aid decision making.
When you are choosing your video commerce provider, you need to consider what the provider can and cannot do. Importantly, consider if the following capabilities are going to help your video commerce sales and revenue grow.
Live Video demonstration
Live video demonstration as an immersion tool involves the expert or demonstrator showing the product live, online via video feed. This can be hugely useful for things like sizing. You could for instance send a customer to a sizing room and have a model in the shoppers size try a garment on.
Sharing of specifications
During a video consultation, your customer will likely have questions relating to specifications – for example, what are the measurements of a table. A great video shopping platform will be able to share specifications on demand. Generally, you will want to be able to share this information without the customer leaving the video stream.
Sharing of images
Sometimes, a demonstrator image is going to be hugely useful. Even though the customer can self serve on the website, and view the product themselves – it is going to be useful to be able to push that image directly to the customer based on their specific communicated needs.
Sharing of recorded video
Similar to the sharing of images, you might want to show a specific video to the customer to show them how a product is used, or use in a specific context. Often directing a customer to a pre-recorded video is going to be very helpful. Remember if images are demonstrative, videos are considerably more effective.
Calculators
For higher consideration purchases, calculators are important. Consider things like affordability calculators, specific requirements calculators – a live video consultation, guiding a customer through detailed questions help make that decision easier to make for the customer. Importantly, it it is a key element of decision making that is often a barrier to purchase.
Augmented reality
Augmented reality has long held a promise of engagement for customers that lack certain specific elements of a live experience. For example, how does this picture look on my wall, or how does this lipstick look for my skin colour. Integrating augmented reality provides that element of decision making to during a live video shopping experience.
…There are obviously more ways to immerse customers in a digital experience, but these make a huge difference to the elements of decision making when not face to face. All of these are possible with the Confer With immersion toolset, plus the development roadmap has more exciting immersion tools ahead. Schedule a demo today to find out more
