Live stream shopping is great omnichannel marketing for a number of reasons. Firstly, it helps remove hidden barriers for the customer so they can experience a frictionless sales journey.
Secondly, the changing retail landscape is driving customers to shop online and purchase high-consideration items, which once happened in-store. Most importantly, live stream shopping establishes trust between the customer and retailer. The expert can truly understand the consumer’s needs and the customer can make a well-informed purchase decision.
Here we uncover why the two work so well together.
What to expect…
- What is omnichannel marketing?
- Successes of live stream shopping and omnichannel marketing
- Examples to follow and conversion rates to aim for
- Will this demand continue post lockdown?
- Why should you integrate a live stream shopping experience?
- Recap
What is Omnichannel Marketing?
Firstly, let’s go through a brief understanding of omnichannel marketing.
Omni, meaning ‘all’, offers a fully integrated experience for users across all channels and devices. The shopper experiences a frictionless customer-centric journey and receives consistently clear messages, no matter what channel or device they are using.
By removing barriers and enhancing transparency, omnichannel can improve trust by providing security features such as verified sender. This means the person is who they say they are.
In contrast, multichannel marketing means each channel is independently functioning. For example, the experience they encounter on a company’s website may not reflect the company’s mobile app.
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- Creating a Great Customer Service Experience for Video Commerce
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The Successes of Combining Live Stream Shopping with Omnichannel Marketing
Why should your business utilise a fully personalised omnichannel experience using live stream shopping for your current and potential customers?
Flexibility is what omnichannel marketing aims for.
Marketing channels like Apple Business Chat do not permit all types of marketing. Whereas RCS (Rich Communication Services) enable it.
Additionally, not all devices support each channel so omnichannel marketing enables you to reach a broad reach without technological barriers.
Live stream shopping humanises the omnichannel experience and offers the consumer an immersive environment. The power of video and customers has been analysed in a previous article (worth a read!), however, below is a summary of a personalised experience using video:
- Customers can purchase inside the experience
- Retailers can direct shoppers to relevant information pages, helping them make an informed decision
- With effective coaching, retailers can identify customer needs and build a loyal community
- Retailers can arrange further appointments – works great with high-consideration items
Examples to Follow and Conversions Rates to Aim for
One example of an omnichannel experience using live stream shopping is L’Oréal.
They invited a number of celebrities to live stream behind-the-scenes snippets at the Cannes Film Festival.
During the live streams, celebrities would introduce L’Oréal products that would then feature on the website. Enabling a seamless sales journey from the point of awareness to purchase.
The result? All featured products sold out.
It’s important to remember that conversion rates are notoriously low for eCommerce, due to the self-service experience a website provides. However, Jialu Shan, Research Fellow at IMD commented saying:
“conversion rate for live commerce is usually higher than traditional content-driven platforms. And it’s expanding from the promotion of regular products like skincare and cosmetics to more sophisticated products, such as automobiles”
Allowing consumers to purchase inside the experience, preceded by a wealth of knowledge by a trusted influencer, brands can expect conversion rate and average order value reach epic heights.
Will There be a Demand for Live Stream Shopping after the Pandemic?
In short, the answer is: yes.
PwC’s report, Where Next For Retail? looked at accelerating trends pushed by COVID-19.
Traditionally, low-consideration items were purchased through eCommerce. However, high-consideration items are now seeing increased penetration rates. With this newfound popularity for online shopping across growing sectors, analysts are placing bets on digital retail solutions remaining after the pandemic.
Post lockdown, customers will already be accustomed to remote work, online learning and using questionable filters on Zoom. In combination with faster internet speeds, 5G and growing popularity in live stream shopping, this demand is set to grow, not diminish.
Furthermore, consumers will seek trust from influencers or charismatic experts and will no longer gain their trust from a “static HTML page with a buy button”.
For example, Primark’s reluctance to invest in online shopping and their digital strategy has seen losses of up to £1 billion. On the other hand, boohoo reported UK sales jumped 40% to £352 million in the four months leading up to 31 December 2020.
Currently, boohoo drive their revenue using influencer marketing, heavy promotions and social media. However, if boohoo integrated live stream shopping within their omnichannel mix, would sales increase even more so? Most likely.
Why Should you Integrate a Live Steam Shopping Experience for your Customers?
Here’s why you should integrate live stream within your eCommerce website:
Immerse your Product Feed with Headless Commerce
Firstly, headless commerce decouples the front end from the back end on an eCommerce platform. This architecture freely enables brands to adjust front end experience based on customer preferences.
Secondly, headless commerce allows any eCommerce platform to fully integrate a live video format utilising product data – deepening the customer interaction.
It Becomes a Part of your eCommerce Website
Live stream shopping is great omnichannel marketing because it is embedded within your website. For example, using Confer With, we integrate a shared virtual basket that does not sit outside the core shopping channel.
In other words, items which are added in the basket using Confer With will automatically be added into the purchase basket.
Omnichannel Marketing Gives Full Control and Access
Omnichannel marketing provides customers with a consistent look, feel and voice. Full control allows your customer to make purchase transactions with ease.
Live Stream Shopping Builds Trust
To create and maintain trust over eCommerce is no easy task. Live stream shopping helps bridge that gap between customers and your online store.
Even more so, it enables you to truly understand customer needs and build a 360 degree profile – this is before any selling happens!
From there trust can be established, resulting in loyal customers and repeat custom.
Recap
From a business point of view, live steam shopping removes barriers between the retailer and shopper, allowing deeper communication and an opportunity to nurture high-value loyal customers. From a consumer point of view, they experience a consistent message across all channels and receives an outstanding service where all needs are met.
At Confer With, we help businesses set up live stream shopping to stay connected with their customers via video commerce. Find out how we can help you achieve your goals by scheduling a free demo today.
