What is live shopping ecommerce? When was the concept born? How does it actually work? In which country is live ecommerce shopping most popular?
Definition: What is Ecommerce Live Shopping?
Live ecommerce, better known as live shopping, is an online shopping experience that allows shoppers to try on clothes, make purchases, and return items before purchasing.
Live shopping or live shopping is a new digital marketing approach for e-merchants that makes live video marketing fully interactive. By integrating two-way communication and direct purchase, live shopping brings online shopping closer to the shopping experience of physical stores, it breaks the purchase barrier and increases the conversion rate According to estimates, up to 30%.
E-commerce combined with live video streaming creates a real-time shopping experience. An interactive experience that showcases shopper content and allows retailers to easily bring the in-store experience to life online. Instead of reading product descriptions and researching customer reviews, potential customers can now join a live video stream and discuss products in real-time before making a purchase directly through the stream.
E-commerce live shopping is very popular in China
While live internet shopping is growing in popularity in the United States, China is setting the standard. According to Coresight Research, live shopping in China would have surpassed $300 billion in 2021. Given the tremendous success in China, many American companies are asking the same question: Is live shopping the future of e-commerce?
China is the undisputed leader in live online shopping. Ecommerce streaming on TikTok accounted for 28.2% of traffic in February 2021, compared to 24% in January. Bilibili, a Chinese video sharing site, captured 12.4% of live streaming consumption and 10.7% of traffic consumption.
Buying via live shopping has emerged as a compelling new approach to e-commerce during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Astound Commerce, this sector would even experience an average growth of 76% worldwide from 2020 to 2021.
As the number of live shopping ecommerce software grows in popularity, live shopping should become more and more relevant for all brands and retailers. If you already have social networks and an online store, in most cases you can easily integrate additional functions. When you get into ecommerce, it’s a good idea to consider live shopping as part of your ecommerce strategy as soon as possible.
From traditional e-commerce in the ’90s to live shopping in 2020… 30 years of evolution in online selling
Live shopping is one of the new trends of this decade, as is shopping in the metaverse. But over the last 30 years, e-commerce has taken many forms and evolved. Since the introduction of eBay and Amazon in the 1990s, consumers today have the ability to buy almost anything online. Today, almost all trading companies integrate online business practices into their business models.
Since the e-commerce industry was born, it has continued to grow. This sector has managed to become the trendiest source of shopping engagement. We found ourselves in a situation where we spent a lot of time on the internet before making a purchase, making decisions to find the best deal. It is an obvious activity that we do on every occasion (buying gifts, parties, current needs, etc.). Live shopping marks a significant shift in the way online marketing is done.
As a reminder, the history of e-commerce begins with the very first online sale: on August 11, 1994, a man sold a CD by the Sting group to his friend through his website NetMarket, a platform for an American online shop. This is the first example of a consumer purchasing a product from a company through the World Wide Web, or “e-commerce” as we know it today.