People act on emotions and instant desires. According to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman, 95% of all purchasing decisions are subconscious. Think about it. Did you ever took at least 1 day to analyze the thought if you really need that scarf and still decided to buy it? Or that specific pair of socks that is on a 50% discount? This is where live shopping comes into place.
Over the past 2 years, the pandemic shifted the way we think about life in general. In almost every field, it was recommended to work from home or do that job remotely. Many day-to-day or occasional activities were either canceled or altered in a way.
Shopping makes no exceptions, and although the trend was towards remote shopping even before 2020, COVID-19 accelerated it by 20% in a single year. Naturally, live shopping and online shopping satisfy the needs and desires of customers.
As a business, you want your products to be accessible to as many people as possible. Generally speaking, the more people see your product, the more will buy it. This is also true for product releases, a moment in which that specific item is “hot” and you can use this status.
Today, it’s impossible to portray our life without live shopping or online shopping. If you don’t exactly know the difference between these two, don`t worry, we are here for you.
The difference between live shopping and online shopping
There were advertisements on cereal boxes, in newspapers, and on TV, but you still had to go to a mall or a store to buy that specific item. Now, both the ads and the possibility to buy the item instantly are at the tip of your fingers.
Online shopping shifted the way people bought things. Back in the day, you will have to literally camp at the door of the store if a popular product would be released.
But what is online shopping? Oxford Dictionaries defines it as “the action or activity of buying goods or services over the internet”. Online shopping as a trend became very popular, offering the service in the comfort of your own house, instead of walking or driving to the store.
It comes with a disadvantage though, by not offering a personalized experience and interaction with the seller (not counting cookies).
Live shopping is more a “see-now-want-now” type of selling method than its counterpart. It functions on the premise that human beings are driven by emotions and desires. This mentality reshaped the way shopping works over the years.
It encourages customers to buy that specific item on the spot, and people can even live chat. The fact that others are watching the same item and could buy them all before you can grab one creates a feeling of scarcity.
Imagine if, instead of 5 people watching the same dress or T-shirt in a store, there are 50-100-150 potential buyers watching the same thing as you. This is the same atmosphere as it is yearly on Black Friday. Imagine sales like that every day.
It also provides a personalized experience for the users, having the best of both worlds – a conventional shopping experience combined with the comfort of your own house or wherever you are at that specific moment.
The evident advantages of live shopping, especially for product releases, have started to pave the way for the trend in the West, just like online shopping did a while back.
Essentially, all live shopping events are a type of online shopping, but not all online shopping possibilities are live shopping events.
Why you should use live shopping for product release
As we mentioned before, live shopping events offer the best of both traditional and online shopping experiences. You can be in the comfort of your own home or literally anywhere in the world and still enjoy an interactive way to buy products.
For business owners that want to jump into this trend, it is possible to become one of the most influential stores on the market, due to the movement being still in the early stages in the West.
Basically, you will offer something that most of your competition will not. Guess where this is going? Exactly, more visitors and more customers for your own business. They will come to your website or your platform to see for themselves “the new way to buy products”. As this is meant to offer an immersive way to shop online, live shopping will likely be the new trend and the new way people buy things on the internet.
Conclusion
Clothing, electronics, and consumer goods are just a few industries where live shopping is changing the way we buy stuff. According to Forbes, live shopping could hit a whopping $500 billion just in China. On the other coast of the Pacific, in the United States, it adds up only to approximately $11 billion. This may change very soon, as giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, and even Pinterest are jumping into live shopping hard.
If you want to implement live shopping into your website or platform, use our free way to get started. Additionally, we also created a cost-free livestream shopping guide that you can download right here.
