How to Start Live Shopping? Easy as 1,2,3

Live shopping has been taking the e-commerce world by storm recently, and for good reason. With its fun, engaging and interactive approach to selling products, it's no surprise that more and more businesses are jumping on board. But why is live shopping so important, how can your brand do it, and how easy is it to start?

What is Live Shopping?

To put this article in context, let’s start with “What is Live Shopping?”

Live Shopping has emerged as a powerful and highly popular format of social commerce, gaining widespread recognition. Its unique blend of interactivity, engagement and entertainment has made it the largest and most widely recognised form of social commerce. At its core, live shopping involves real-time, interactive video broadcasts where sellers showcase products and engage with viewers in real-time. These broadcasts often take place on social media platforms or dedicated live shopping platforms like LiSA, allowing sellers to reach a large and diverse audience. Live shopping is highly interactive and allows customers to ask questions, make comments, and engage with the host and other shoppers. This interactive experience makes live shopping more attractive to customers than traditional e-commerce sites.

Why bother with Live Shopping?

With live shopping, businesses can offer their customers a personalised and authentic shopping experience that resonates with today's consumers. Live shopping also overcomes mobile conversion problems which many brands haven’t properly capitalised on, so why not get ahead of your competition and gain extra sales from mobile shoppers?

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Especially in today's economic landscape, where inflation is high and consumers are increasingly mindful of their spending, live shopping has become even more important as a platform that leverages FOMO marketing tactics. For example, an exclusive offer that is only available during the live event increases the sense of urgency and scarcity, pushing viewers to make a quick purchase and feel more confident despite economic concerns.

‍The live event is the perfect opportunity to answer objections. As shoppers, we often have doubts that prevent us from making a purchase: does this product fit my particular problem? By answering the viewers' questions, the presenter can reassure, counter doubts and remove blockers, resulting in lower return ratio.

Similar to a sales situation in a physical store, live shopping allows viewers to get a closer look at the product and understand its features, benefits, and suitability for their specific needs. The "what you see is what you get" approach of live shopping provides a transparent and immersive shopping experience. This increased understanding of the product can lead to more informed purchase decisions, reducing the likelihood of returns due to mismatched expectations.

Customer interactions are more active on live videos than on traditional pre-recorded videos. According to Facebook, live videos produce 6 times more interactions than traditional videos. Plus, viewers tend to have a higher engagement rate than those who simply watch a video by scrolling through their feed.

There's a reason why live shopping sessions through LiSA see an average engagement rate of 91% (comments, likes and shares). We always want to be a part of a moment that's happening in real-time, especially if it's a brand, influencer, model or thought leader we admire. This is user generated content (UGC) comes into play and is especially powerful in live shopping - increasing trust, credibility and authenticity. Shoppers love relatable and candid brand content as real people engage with the brand in real-time. As you see, you don’t need fancy equipment or an expensive studio -  leverage UGC to create authentic connections with your consumers!

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Does my brand really need to start Live Shopping?

Imagine you’re an E-Commerce Manager for an online fashion store, or the Product Manager of a high-street beauty brand, and you’re already selling products on social media or from your e-store, but sales are plateauing or decreasing. And you’ve exhausted different sales techniques and platforms. What should you do now?

How can you generate more consumers? How do you increase community engagement? And crucially, increase your bottom-line revenue? Many of our clients like Charlotte Tilbury, M&S, Avon, Vieve and CHRIST (to mention a few), were in the same position as you and turned to LiSA for help.

We have three excellent solutions, but if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve never tried live shopping and have a few concerns like – cost, technical lift, integration issues, long-term licences, uncertainty what to do, how to run the event or what steps to take.

We know that starting with live shopping can be overwhelming, but we're here to help you every step of the way. We understand the challenges you may face and that's why we've created solutions that take away all your pain points. Our solutions are widely used across the industry because it's the easiest and most affordable option out there. Good news: To start live shopping you don't need any technical understanding or technical resources, nor do you need a complex studio setup. You can start your own Live Shopping channel within 24h.

Between March 2020 to July 2021, live commerce purchases increased by 76% across the world, and the live commerce industry is rapidly gaining popularity. Compared to other e-commerce formats, conversion rates through live streams are ten times higher.

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How to Start Live Shopping in 3 Easy Steps

Step 1: Choose Live Shopping Platform

When choosing a platform, consider your audience reach, ease of use, integration with your e-commerce platform, access to contact information, purchase history, browsing behavior and control over format, length and style of your livestream.

Now we could be biased and say just go for LiSA, but there are other social platforms like Amazon Live, Facebook Live and Instagram Live which are all good options but come with major restrictions as these platforms aren’t dedicated or designed for live shoppers in mind. LiSA on the other hand is curated specifically for brands to provide the ultimate live shopping experience. We make it ultra-easy to book a live shopping channel for just a one-off special event or launch a customised channel on your own e-commerce website. LiSA’s turnkey solution means you gain from 100% control over the data, first-party data, better conversion rates, live shopping reports, higher onsite retention and a streamlined checkout process compared to social platforms.

LiSA has perfect solution also for businesses with no e-Commerce and media agencies. Setting up LiSA POP is easy, and businesses can quickly create live events with a seamless user experience from live stream to purchase, making it the world's first solution targeted to non e-Commerce Brands and Media. What's more, LiSA POP requires zero integration, making it an easy-to-start product for retailers who want to see benefits instead of returns.

Step 2: Host with a Mobile in Hand

The host plays a key role in managing and showcasing your products during your live shopping event. It’s best to use influencers, brand ambassadors or your own sales associates because they know the best bits about every product. Many brands are scared to try live shopping because they think you need fancy equipment, a dedicated studio etc. You don’t. All you need is a mobile phone, a host, and the products. Let us reassure you as well as our client testimonials, authenticity is crucial in live shopping. Customers want to feel like they are interacting with real people, not just a sales pitch. Keeping things simple with a candid video, personal descriptions, and a mobile can help you build a loyal following and increase sales.

Step 3: Invite Your Community & Put on a Show

Now, it's time to put on a show and invite your community to join in on the fun! This is where the magic happens. To ensure a successful live shopping event, it's important to plan enough time for pre-promotion. This allows you to build excitement and get everyone pumped up for the big day. We'll take you by the hand and guide you step-by-step on how to invite customers and increase live shopping attendees, so you don't have to worry about a thing.

Promote your live shopping event via social media posts, email marketing, influencer partnerships and paid advertising and include key information like theme, date, time, link to join and exclusive advantages.

When it comes to the great show, customers love it when brands keep it real. Your host should be knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your products, and should be able to provide detailed descriptions, answer questions, and offer special promotions or deals. You can also use interactive features like polls, quizzes and giveaways to keep your audience engaged and encourage them to make a purchase.

Now you see, live shopping is easy as 1,2,3

Simply, choose your platform like LiSA, plan your event, and promote it to your audience. By following these steps, you can create an engaging and interactive shopping experience that will help boost your sales and connect with your customers in a whole new way.

To start, all you need is a mobile device, livestream shopping provider, a host, your brand community and a focus on authenticity and product/brand storytelling. LiSA POP is a great solution for businesses without an e-commerce, while LiSA Dazzle and LiSA Shine offer more advanced features for larger businesses. The best part? You don’t need any technical expertise to get started, so just connect with us and watch as your community grows, sales increase and products fly off the shelves.

Any questions to this blog article? Please contact: Kathrin Gering - kathrin@hello-lisa.com

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