Live shopping is the 2022 version of QVC and Danoz Direct and it originally took off in China where Influencers would team up with brands to do livestream product demos, Q&A's, games and deals, with the goal of selling large quantities of product in one online event.
It's also started becoming a popular thing for US influencers to do through Amazon live which basically allows people to do affiliate marketing through a livestream on the Amazon platform showing products in real time and linking to the Amazon product listing.
We're now starting to see live shopping, in some form, arrive in Australia.
While we don't yet have the Instagram live shopping capabilities that the US do, and Amazon isn't really established enough with a wide enough range of lifestyle consumer goods for the Amazon Lives to pop off
We're definitely starting to see more brands using Instagram lives and stories for new collection launches, try ons, answering questions and, ultimately, using a live stream situation with two way audience interaction to sell products.
And, my god, does it WORK 🤩
HOW AUSTRALIAN BRANDS CAN USE LIVE SHOPPING NOW
While we don't yet have the Instagram and TikTok live shopping features available in Australia, and Facebook shut there's down (another feature they half-arsed, lets be honest) there are still other ways to utilise the concept to pull off high-revenue shopping events.
INSTAGRAM LIVES - I'm starting to see more Australian fashion brands and boutiques doing this, getting real members of the team or ambassadors to do Instagram lives and trying pieces on, talking through fabric, fit and styling tips, as well as, answering questions from the comments. hot tip: Set a regular weekly or monthly date that your audience become aware of, consistently promote it, and they will grow over time to be 'anticipated events'
TIKTOK LIVES - we're seeing these on our feeds *constantly* but currently mostly from users brands (which means there's a huge opportunity in AU). I particularly keep seeing one from a wig story where they try on and talk about all their different wigs, answer questions and so on. The best part about TikTok lives (compared to IG lives) is anybody can stumble across them, which gives you an opportunity to sell to both existing and new audiences.
INSTAGRAM STORIES - If you're not keen on doing a Live yet or maybe want to built some audience engagement first to make sure people turn up, trying doing some 'live selling' demos on stories first. Do one story for one product talking through what it is, how it works, (incl. a demo or try on! Much better for conversions) and have a link directly to the product page. hot tip: ask people to send in questions, repeatedly. The more people actively interact, the more a) invested they become (once you've helped them with a question it triggers the reciprocity principle and they feel committed to returning to favour) and b) you know what to talk about to entice people to buy.
God, I've accidentally sold an expensive pair of shoes for a client just by showing them in this natural, demo style on my stories while I was setting up for a video shoot.
The fact that they're unscripted, un-edited, un-produced and in real time is what makes them sell so well.