How Video Shopping Helps E-commerce Brands Boost Promotion

Live Video Shopping: the Future of Retail

Today’s customers shop online but value real connection. They want to communicate directly with a brand and get a complete picture of a product to make an immediate purchasing decision. The problem is that most online shopping platforms still fail to provide this kind of customer experience.

The lack of personalization leaves customers indifferent, while insufficient or excessive product information confuses them. As a result, customers don't convert.

Live video commerce experience closes these gaps empowering brands to offer just what the next generation of customers craves. Live shopping is engaging and personal. It’s easy to perceive, and you can reach customers just where they are - on social media.

To get an idea of the market dynamics, consider the following video commerce stats.

Source: Live e-commerce sales in US | Statista

• Live selling generated $63bn in sales globally between 2019 and 2020, particularly in Asia, where live stream shopping is more established (Coresight Research).
• In just three years, the Chinese live-stream selling market grew from $3 billion to $171 billion (McKinsey Digital).
• In the US and Europe, the live video commerce market is growing fast and is estimated to surpass $35 in 2023 (Statista).
• 72% of consumers would rather learn about a product or service by way of video. In fact, 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video (Optinmonster).

With that being said, video commerce is a hot trend opening numerous lucrative prospects for brands, and it's here to stick.

What is Live Video Commerce and Why It Thrives

Live video e-commerce is where live streaming meets online shopping. Brands can interact with their customers in live video sessions and highlight products, while customers can click on the image and add them to the cart - all without leaving the stream.

This idea of combining live streaming with shopping is not new. Take Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or Tiktok Live shows, for instance. Despite social platforms being highly effective in helping brands to pitch a product, they don't offer a smooth path to purchasing one. Customers are staying on third-party platforms that own their data and time.

Live video shopping apps are a different matter as they provide a unique customized brand experience and full control.

Brands drive customers directly to their platform and maintain them there while getting customer insights and data. Not to mention far more powerful shopping features that convert views into deals. Tracking a product success metrics helps to investigate the key strategy points and plan accordingly.

Video Shopping Features & Possibilities

Live Streaming

Live streaming is a key feature of video shopping. Brands can organize one-to-many or one-to-one virtual shopping sessions. The first option lets them reach their clients and prospects globally and boost sales, while the second one suggests in-house retail specialists provide a personalized consultation.

And if you want your live streaming experience to stand out, you can add engaging augmented reality filters and effects - all with one AR Video Conferencing SDK.

Our Face AR SDK empowers your video shopping and live streaming apps with:

• Custom AR effects that make streaming fun and entertaining
• Virtual backgrounds to add more branding possibilities
• AR Makeup and beauty filters to let both the speaker feel cool about their appearance

Video Recording & Editing

Videos boost brand image and build customer loyalty in the long run. By adding a video editor to your shopping platform or app, you can let brands turn their video streams into evergreen content. They can record, export, and re-purpose their streams.

Video Editor SDK can empower your live shopping app with:

• Video recording and editing features
• Ready UI
• AR filters and video effects
• Text overlays and GIFs
• Multi-platform support
• Easy integration into your app with APIs.

Integrations to e-Commerce Platforms

Video shopping apps provide a direct integration to e-commerce websites or apps. It means you can let brands synchronize their product feeds, allow for instant payments, track inventory details between systems and much more. You seamlessly embed the video shopping experience into your platform keeping all its perks at hand.

Real-time & post-event analytics

Real-time customer tracking and post-event analytics tools will support your videoshopping marketing strategy and help you estimate its success. You can track numbers, engagement stats, customer feedback, and behavior. The more insights you get about your audience, the better results you'll achieve with your next live online shopping campaigns.

Chatbot

Using a chatbot during your virtual shopping can even help you engage more customers who may have common questions. Let the chatbot guide them on the delivery or return terms while the presenter can focus on the live chat audience.

Voice & video chat

Real-time interaction helps customers to mitigate any uncertainty about the product. If you add an option to call or video chat with an advisor, you can drastically improve your customer experience and, eventually, sales.

Live Video Shopping: Key Benefits for Brands

Deeper Connections with Customers

The key reason why 78% of companies use live shopping in their marketing strategy is the ability to deliver a deeper connection with their consumers. Video streams engage viewers via face-to-face conversations and help brands build trust.

Ultimate Personalization

Personalization is achieved thanks to a detailed demonstration of a product and the ability to ask questions in real-time. Viewers can interact with the sellers, making the relationship far more personal than just watching a video. It improves customer service leaving all customer doubts away.

New Revenue Stream

Live video shopping is second to none in its ability to increase customer engagement, brand service and ROI. It provides a fresh way to authentically connect with their target audience and convert them into purchases.
Reduced returns

Video shopping reduces product returns as buyers have a much better insight into their specifics at the moment of purchase. Add a virtual try-on option where the client can wear items in augmented reality and it cuts the return ratio to zero.

Unmatched Interaction

Ecommerce video solutions join brands, customers and influencers under a single platform that sits natively on their website or app. Consumers don’t need to toggle between different channels but can fully enjoy a seamless video shopping experience.

Creating a Video Shopping Experience For Your Brand: 3 Approaches

So, how can your brand create a video shopping experience for your audience? There are 3 ways to deal with it.

Add video shopping features to the existing app

If you want to have full control over your customer experience, inventory, or shopping carts management, you can integrate live shopping features into your website or mobile app.

Such features as AR live streaming and video editing can be easily added using Face AR SDK or Video Editor SDK. Both include a pre-coded set of functionality and a collection of rich AR effects to make your video shopping experience memorable and catchy.

Key pros include:

• Save time on feature development
• Ready-to-use AR filters and effects that add engagement
• Cross-platform support
• Easily added APIs and complete documentation
• Technical support.

Connect to a video shopping platform

Video shopping platforms are Software as a service (SaaS) apps that you can embed into your website. In this case, you get a fully engaging platform with numerous features to promote your product or service in live sessions.

The key advantage is that visitors come directly to your platforms and stay there from browsing to purchasing. You can increase engagement with interactive features like polls or instant giveaways.

The main benefits are:

• A seamless virtual shopping experience
• Powerful features.

Use social platforms with shoppable features

If you're pressed on a budget or want to test video shopping before rolling into any service, you can use the most popular social platforms. YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, and Amazon Live are well-established players. You can partner with an influencer or set a live session on your own for your followers.

As mentioned earlier, social networks impose some limitations on functionality and brand experience. Still, it doesn't mean that your campaign won't generate results.

The core benefits are as follows:

• No software fees
• Easy to generate buzz and attract the audience.

How Brands Use Video Commerce: 5 Use Cases

Brands and social media apps are increasingly leaning toward video shopping to connect with consumers and make the audience stick. Here are just a couple of interesting live video commerce use cases.

Live shopping events

Live video shopping events

Live video commerce events feel like real ones with all the shopping marketing perks like an instant sale, website discount and promo coupons.

The Bloomingdale department store chain has hosted over 50 live shopping events and managed to build a smart marketing strategy around videoshopping. In one recent live stream featuring the Jimmy Choo brand, the first 50 purchases during the session got a personalized fashion sketch and everyone who stayed till the end got a gift card giveaway.

Influencer & Guest Hosting

A shoes and accessories retailer, Aldo, held a live online shopping meetup inviting influencers, a stylist Mimi Cuttrell, and TikToker Nate Wyatt to discuss fashion and Aldo products. The followers could view and shop the items during the stream. As a result, they saw:

• 17,000 more page views on their website in the following five days.
• average viewing time of over 12 minutes.
• 308% engagement for the event.

Video shopping with influencer and guest hosting

In-App Video Commerce

Wayfair furniture retailer released an in-app video commerce experience to make their products more discoverable. The videoshopping content features studio shows and peeks into creators’ own homes. It showcases furniture pieces for customers through daily shows The Wayfair Rundown and Two-Spaced to guide consumers with multi-functional living.

Live Tutor Sessions

Swedish makeup brand CAIA Cosmetics taps into video commerce with its founder's live makeup tutorials. The video shopping option comes by default. As a result, according to Bambuser mobile streaming platform, they achieved

• an average viewing time of 11 minutes
• 60% of viewers “liking” the content
• 17% interact with the live chat.

Live Tutor Video Shopping Experience by CAIA Cosmetics

Live Shopping Channel

Shop streaming is showing great success too, becoming a new trend among brands. An example, Samsung has made a separate landing page #LiveAtSamsung to make more of their video shopping marketing.

Nordstrom, a fashion and beauty giant, follows the example by rolling out the Nordstrom Now shopping channel. Customers can connect with Nordstrom employees and brand partners as well as beauty and fashion experts in real-time.

Top 7 Ecommerce Video Solutions and Live Shopping Apps

The market of video shopping apps is not yet as established, just as the trend of e-commerce videos itself. However, a range of prominent players already set the bar.

#1. Bambuser

Bambuser is SaaS company based in Stockholm that provides the world's leading Live Video Shopping technology. The software is intended for field services, mobile platforms, and media companies.

• support for over 300 mobile devices for broadcasting and playback
• the ability to set multiple video streams
• a compact embedded player.

#2. HERO

HERO is a seamless and feature-rich virtual shopping platform for eCommerce and retail stores that lets you host one-to-one and one-to-many video commerce events. Among its competitive advantages is the ability to create a videoshopping content tweaked for social media formats.

• Numerous features
• “Stories” to create short-form, shoppable videos and post them within your store or social channels
• Easy integration.

#3. Livescale

Livescale is a cloud-based live shopping SaaS platform that helps retail brands and companies improve engagement with customers. Among its possibilities, you have full creative freedom to customize branding, perform market testing, and access real-time analytics. You can organize interactive live shopping events with polling, customer feedback, and commenting.

• Fast to set up, easy to use
• integration with Shopify
• the affordable price of $490/month with a 30-day free trial.

#4. Swirl

Swirl is a video commerce SaaS mobile platform for retailers, influencers and small businesses. Among its unique features is the ability to create TikTok-like short video content. Apart from standard live streaming and shopping features, it includes powerful analytics. You can follow up and retarget engaged viewers.

• Whitelabel app
• One-to-many, one-to-one streaming
• Pre-record video and add to website.

#5. Talkative

Talkative is a real-time communication service that helps brands and companies to enhance customer service, improve sales reps productivity and lower the waiting time. You can embed audio and video calling, chat and co-browsing capabilities into your website, host live sessions and answer customer questions quickly.

• Integrations with CRM and contact center systems
• On-demand video customer support
• No app downloads needed.

#6. Confer With

Confer With is a live video commerce platform for one-to-one shopping video sessions. You can virtually re-create an in-store sales assistant or your business consultant service to improve your customer service. You can display products directly onto the customer’s screen, and add promotions and giveaways to customer baskets during live video shopping experiences.

• Ultimate personalization
• Share product images and video demos
• Create and curate recommendations.

#7. Buywith

Buywith is a rising live-stream shopping platform where brands, retailers and influencers can organize live online shopping events and generate immediate sales. During the shopping video sessions, customers can hit a "WANT" button and add products to their carts.

Among its competitive features, Buywith uses AI algorithms to block negative comments keeping your stream clean and healthy. Customers can seamlessly browse and shop with a convenient screen sharing feature while watching the broadcasting session.

• No-code integration
• Customers can join streams with a link from any device
• Check out without living the session
• Coupon codes with timer.

More information about online business growth strategies in the topic article How to grow an ecommerce business