Planning Event

Live Shopping and the Holiday season: The perfect match

Victoria Rudi
October 20, 2021

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Since the dawn of time, shop owners have used holiday events to boost traffic into their stores and generate sales through live events. From Macy’s New York, Harrods London to Galeries Lafayette Paris, the Christmas window displays have always been a must have and a marker of the beginning of the holiday season. In this day and age, with the evolution and development of technology and the appearance of live streaming technologies, e-commerce businesses can now do the same. What is more and even better than live streaming is live video shopping which has recently and rapidly emerged as the perfect solution for e-commerce businesses.

Live shopping is a digital experience that offers live streaming services as well as live chats and add-to-cart services making it a full experience to increase engagement and conversions. Indeed, its benefits include greater traffic, an increase in engagement rate, customer loyalty and a boost in conversion rates. Furthermore, analysts at McKinsey expect 10 to 20% of all e-commerce sales to be initiated by live shopping by 2026.

There are many ways to use live shopping solutions for your numerous events whether it be product launches, seasonal sales, public commerce events and the list goes on. Experts in China found that live shopping was at the center of shopping holidays attracting 81% of Chinese shoppers.

Find out more in this article about Shoppertainment for E-commerce

As the holiday season is getting closer, here are a few tips on how you can make the most of live shopping for your business with two examples of how to create successful Live Shopping experiences.

1 – Live Shopping for Black Friday, the perfect opportunity to boost sales

Black Friday, also known as the summit of bargain shopping for both online and offline shoppers, is an event to consider should you want to start using a live shopping solution. Last year’s Black Friday sales hit a record high of $7.4 billion in online spending, indicating that the future of shopping is undoubtedly online. After all the lockdowns and restrictions, a lot of businesses saw their activities decrease, making this year’s 2021 edition one for the books.

Using a live shopping solution like Shoply for this event could prove to be very beneficial for your e-commerce performance. To create a successful live shopping event for Black Friday, here are a few things to bear in mind:

  • Create exclusivity

We all like to feel privileged, it’s a fact. By creating a live shopping event with loyal customers, you offer a personalized service which remains one of the main factors in a consumer’s purchasing behaviour. During Black Friday, the two main factors which influence a buyer’s decision are free shipping (49%) and promotions and limited-in-time sales (36%). Live shopping events enable the latter therefore allow you to boost your customer loyalty, online sales and traffic.

  • Invite guests

What better way to witness a specific product being tested and presented by an expert or an influencer? In doing so, you will create brand awareness and must ensure you invite the right hosts for the right products as they will attract their own followers.

  • Build a partnership

Live shopping could be done on social media but recent data showed that consumers prefer it when live commerce is natively installed on an e-commerce shop rather than on social media platforms. By partnering up with a live shopping solution company/provider, you make a place for timely live shopping events and creativity.

Black Friday is also known to be the flagship day of Christmas shopping sprees. If we take Carrefour as an example. They have launched 3 live shopping events during Black Friday week to promote their new and exclusive Christmas toys. During the live shopping events, hosts presented the toys alongside the real testers: kids. Way to make the best of both events!

2 – Live Shopping for Christmas – An opportunity to make your brand shine 

Last year, most shoppers opted for online purchasing rather than traditional brick-and-mortar stores for their Christmas shopping with brands offering promos as early as November. During that time of the year, 68% of shoppers pay more attention to their emails from companies and 67% plan to buy more from online marketplaces which makes it ideal to get started with live shopping at that given time.

Therefore, using a live shopping solution for Christmas could prove to be very beneficial for your e-commerce performance. By creating a live shopping event specifically for Christmas, here are a few things to bear in mind in addition to the tips given for Black Friday:

  • Set the scene

One of the main reasons why live shopping is so successful is because it is more than just shopping, it’s an experience. Consumers want to be mind blown and entertained by what they see. Starting off with a live shopping solution during Christmas time gives you an edge due to the apparent added value of decorations. Santa Claus, a Christmas tree, holly, green and red decorations and presents everywhere: a perfect combination for an entertaining live shopping event.

  • Sell your Christmas exclusives

As mentioned above, shoppers like to feel privileged and in on the exclusivities. Creating a live shopping event to sell your limited-in-time products will increase engagement and create or ensure customer loyalty.

Holiday events are a great way to boost traffic on your e-commerce website

All in all, to make sure your live shopping events for the holidays are successful, you have to make sure you are creating fun and entertaining shows, invite relevant guests (experts, celebrities, kids for Christmas shows) and make sure to add exclusive deals such as discounts and free deliveries for instance.

Holiday events aside, live shopping events could be used for other purposes so stay tuned for more tips on how to use live shopping solutions.

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Victoria Rudi
Senior Content Specialist
With a Master’s degree in Event Management and a keen follower of SaaS technologies, Victoria is an event content master, producing insightful and valuable for Eventtia’s blog and beyond

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