Today, consumers’ need for a more appealing online shopping experience can be seen as another factor contributing to the change.
For instance, buying clothes online means endless scrolling through an anonymous and static online shopping page, making it difficult and unpleasant to find the right product amidst countless choices and assess its quality. Sometimes, people do not complete their purchases because product page photos might be misleading and ultimately the product won’t meet their expectations.
It goes without saying that customer dissatisfaction inevitably leads to goods return that weighs on the business. Last year, the fashion industry faced a return rate of 20%.
Returns result in significant financial losses for companies, including expenses related to storage, shipping, and product handling. Furthermore, returned items frequently need to be marked down, reducing overall revenue for the company.
The average cost of processing a return ranges from 8 to 12 euros and this is without taking into account the impact returns have on the environment. In fact, each returned item generates additional carbon emissions from transportation, contributing to waste due to excess packaging. The ecological footprint is a pressing concern for businesses committed to sustainability.
It is clear to everyone that not all aspects of the classic online shopping model benefit customers. Consequently, companies needed to find a suitable solution to their problem: Live shopping.
Live shopping provides consumers with the ability to interact with products and brands in a way that evokes the in-store experience, offering a sense of familiarity to those who cherish the traditional retail experience. Customers today crave more than static product pages and impersonal online experiences, they look for engagement, interaction, and a touch of excitement. This is why Live Shopping is transforming the e-commerce landscape, bringing new trends into play.
In this article we offer an overview on what makes Live Shopping so appealing to customers.
Buckle up, because we’re diving deep into the benefits that will have your customers saying “add to cart” in no time!
Boost Engagement & Conversion Rate
Live shopping undeniably boosts engagement, a metric that will likely experience a significant increase when reviewing your KPIs.
Here’s why: Live Shopping fosters a participatory environment. Customers can interact directly with the brand and among each other, fostering a sense of connection and community.
According to McKinsey, this can lead to a 20% increase in engagement. This rise isn’t solely driven by younger audiences; it’s the interactive nature of the platform that captivates viewers of all ages. The engagement boost fosters an increase in conversion rate as well.
Some companies report an increase of 30% in conversion rate, ten times higher than traditional e-commerce. Live shopping gives customers the chance to witness live product demonstrations with the possibility of directly interacting with the host.
The possibility of interacting first hand with the seller helps people trust the brand and the product they are considering to purchase. The eventual increase in conversion rate is not only due to the engaging aspects of the experience. In fact, brands can create a sense of urgency and exclusivity, for instance by giving a restricted number of users the access to a closed number event or special discount coupons.
One-to-few experience
The highlight of the live shopping experience is prioritizing quality interactions over a massive audience. Focusing on a restricted group, the live shopping event makes the chosen customers feel valued, fostering a sense of exclusivity.
It is exactly in this small environment that customers can access limited-time deals and thanks to personalized recommendations, the exclusivity and urgency generated by live shopping fuel purchasing decisions. The unique features of one-to-few live shopping can lead to higher conversion rates and stronger customer loyalty. We explored in a more detailed way, all the benefits of the one to few live shopping experience in this blogpost.
A shorter customer journey
What ultimately boosts conversion rate is Live Shopping’s simplified customer journey. It is well known that the customer journey has many different steps that eventually will end up in a purchase.
Thanks to a live shopping experience the customer won’t need to go through all the steps separately: they have the opportunity to discover a new product and decide whether to buy it or not in the same moment.
This reduces the time a customer spends discovering new products and dwelling on purchases.
Increased customer satisfaction
The multitude of small, unique features that define the distinctive experience of live shopping contribute to increased post-experience customer satisfaction.
We listed the most significant ones, such as the sense of being part of an exclusive community and a simplified customer journey. But there is much more behind it.
What concurs to increase customer satisfaction is the ability to purchase products instantly while watching the live stream. In fact, the possibility of an immediate purchase creates a sense of excitement and satisfaction.
GOLIVE, one platform for all live shopping benefits
A proven success in Asia, live shopping is now a global trend that has already taken over Europe. Its success is driven by the positive effect it has on every aspect of the business and on the customers.
To meet the new business needs, we developed GOLIVE – a live shopping platform that is more than just a streaming platform for live commerce sessions.
GOLIVE is an AI-powered live shopping platform that allows you to monitor and analyze show performance, user behavior and understand how your audience perceive your products thanks to sentiment analysis.