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Live Selling: The Future Of E-Commerce
Video content has never been more popular than now, with almost every major social media platform offering video features and live streaming. Whether it’s TikTok, Instagram or Facebook, you need to be confident in creating live video content for your e-commerce website. By 2023 it’s likely live selling will become essential to hosting a successful online business, so learn more about how you can use live streaming to sell your products in the nearby future.
What Is Live Selling?
Using video content to sell your products is nothing new, but live videos have definitely grown in popularity over the last year. Unsurprising given the platforms that host live video content such as YouTube and Facebook, have over 1 billion active online users worldwide. This number is predicted to grow across social media channels used for e-commerce with the global release of live selling functions. Chinese company Douyin was well ahead of the curb, having already invested in the live selling market during 2020 with plans to further expand. They developed their platform to include functions that enable users to purchase products in real time during live stream videos. Douyin also took inspiration from Alibaba, choosing to have external partners handle supply and demand issues while they focus on maintaining their shopfront. It doesn’t appear they have any plans to slow down as they only continue to implement features to their online storefront including a real-time leaderboard ranking shoppers. What this means for your business is the ability to sell your products to a live audience who can shop along in real-time becoming a reality very soon.
Sharing Your Videos
There’s multiple platforms to choose from when it comes to live videos, some of the most popular channels include Facebook Live, Twitter Live Streaming, TikTok and Livestream. However, Facebook and YouTube still hold the most active user base for live video content so if you’re thinking about live selling for your business, it’s worth investing time into both platforms. At this stage western social media is yet to catch up to other countries when it comes to allowing consumers to purchase products during a live stream with the tap of a button. So in the meantime it’s worth building your company's brand story online and seeing how you can best accumulate a live video audience by marketing your company through the features already available.
- 80% of consumers stated they prefer watching a live video to reading a blog article
- 82% of consumers prefer live videos to branded content and/or social media posts
- 67% of audience members watching a live stream purchased a ticket to similar events
How This Will Change E-Commerce
With Douyin’s success in China, it’s predicted that this innovative approach will reach international users by the end of next year with Douyin's growth reaching 22% in just a year since their debut as a live stream e-commerce platform. The ability to connect with consumers in real time becomes even more significant when considering the shift towards more relatable and authentic content. Platforms like TikTok are expected to be some of the first to adapt to this new method of online shopping given Douyin is the company that owns TikTok in China, not to mention other countries have already beta-tested similar features on the app over the last few years.
Meaning, it's likely user-generated content and social proof will play a role in defining conversion rates and growth. So if you haven't already, it's worth getting to know your target demographic and developing relationships with potential business partners that can benefit your business.
What's Next?
It’s not long now till these new e-commerce tools are adapted by platforms worldwide, soon enough it will become essential to running a successful online business. So with that in mind, now is a better time than ever to think about how your business is going to approach live video content and accumulate an active audience.
If you’re looking for advice on developing your e-commerce website, book a consultation with our Melbourne digital agency team now.
