Live Commerce – What it has in store!

When Daraz, the leading E-Commerce brand in Pakistan, first announced that it would live streaming the ICC T20 World Cup, people didn’t get whether Daraz is moving away from its E-Commerce business or how it would work with the existing E-Commerce. However, the app’s active users grew from 6.7 million before the tournament live streaming to 15 million after it. The results were terrific, and the experiment worked wonders for Daraz as it subsequently got many other live cricket streaming rights for its customers. This stunt by Daraz has started a new trend of Live Commerce which is believed to be the need of the hour for all the E-Commerce platforms

What is Live Commerce?

“Live Commerce is a new form of online shopping where customers make purchases during the live streaming of video events.”

Alibaba’s Taobao is believed to be the pioneer of Live Commerce when it brought live influencers to communicate the value of various products. China’s top influencer, Viya, generated the equivalent of USD 51 million in a single day. Viya and Kim Kardashian partnered in a live stream to sell 15,000 bottles of perfume in just a few minutes. As per Mckinsey, the Live Commerce GMV in China alone reached USD 171 billion in 2020.

Why is Live Commerce a big Success?

Though a big hit, E-Commerce lacked customer trust and was struggling to give the shopping in a store experience. The advent of Live Commerce gave customers the personal help of an in-store shopping experience. A celebrity, for example, can provide a live product demonstration or endorsement. Customers can ask questions about the products, which are answered live. There can be a link to more details of the products that the customer can view during or after the live stream. In short, the Live Commerce experience is designed to mimic the experience of shopping in a store.

Two broad areas where Live Commerce created the most value for businesses were:

• Increased customer conversion – Live Commerce is entertaining and engaging, that attracted the customers to stay longer on the platform and reduced the shopper journey from awareness to purchase decision.
• Improved brand appeal – Live Commerce helps in improving the brand appeal and highlight its distinction from others. It really helps in attracting new customers especially young shoppers who are always keen on innovative shopping formats and experiences.

Future of Live Commerce

While this channel is still very new and the dos and don’ts are still yet to emerge, Live Commerce has shown impressive results to start with and is certainly an area to explore for all the E-Commerce platforms. It has scope to be evaluated by several industries such as healthcare, which can provide live streaming of health-related content and so on.