Reviving The Retail Industry Post COVID-19

 

The impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on businesses across various industries has been destructive especially for retail businesses. With global economies falling up to 8%, retailers have had a hard time surviving as retail stores were forced to shut down and traditional online shopping experiences became boring for consumers. This paved a way for new opportunities in retail spaces.

Additionally, customer habits are shifting at rapid speeds. And today modern shoppers are more tech-savvy than ever before and they look for quality experiences. They look forward to connecting with your brand in real-time, witnessing authenticity and improved product experience.

Brands are thus required to reexamine how they build trust with their consumers in this new reality. The brands that are able to meet their customers’ expectations and adapt to rapidly changing customer demands as they spend more time at home and rely more on digital are the ones that will be most successful. Here is when Live Shopping comes into play.

Introduction to Live Shopping

Live shopping is expanding globally as a critical aspect of social commerce, inviting shoppers to participate in the shopping experience in a way that standard e-commerce doesn’t have space for. H&M debuted live commerce on its website, representing one of the first major Western retailers to experiment with live commerce outside of China. Other brands are also leveraging video commerce to drop exclusive products with the influence of celebrities, industry experts, or brand advocates. Luxury fashion marketplace Farfetch has also announced its partnership with a live video shopping provider to captive audiences.

This has given video commerce a new meaning as consumers look for safer ways to connect with retailers and experience in-store experiences.

Boosting Brand Engagement with Live Video Shopping

Engagement is a key strategy to connect with your buyers through emotional and rational communication. When brands go beyond showcasing and demonstrating their products and services, they engage with audiences through interactive marketing, storytelling, and holistic experiences. When all of this happens in real-time, buyers’ positive response and patronage become a natural outcome, not forced or manipulated. This brand and customer relationship translates to higher conversion rates when you opt for a live shopping solution.

Additionally when you are choosing a live stream shopping platform, look for features that allow your audience to ding in and ask questions, share their opinions, and feedback during a live show.

Here is how you can leverage Livestream eCommerce to engage shoppers.

Product demos and launches

Conduct a live stream show to launch or demonstrate the functioning of a product in real-time. This gives you an option to test products for buyers and interested customers, answering any questions they may have.

Collaboration

Collaborate with an influencer, industry expert, or brand advocate to give a level of insight and authenticity to the selling process.

Storytelling

Today storytelling has become more than just a buzzword. Brands realize that to captivate the attention of their customers and retain them, they must create a narrative around the everyday lives of their target customers through great storytelling. Live commerce can help you achieve this.

Human interaction

Interacting with buyers while giving them options to shop from allows your buyer to participate in the testing, learning, and shopping experience in a way that straight eCommerce doesn’t necessarily provide space for.

Shoppers today want a quality experience to go along with whatever they shop, in short, they want to engage. It feels more significant to do this now with COVID-19 limitations. Live commerce is still likely to exist beyond whatever normal commerce settles back into. Globally, this is an opportunity for brands to offer their customers to continue to live sort of borderless buying experience. Hence from building an authentic brand to reaching new customers and making sales, Livestream shopping provides a roadmap to help brands meet their buyers’ expectations at every step of their purchase journey.

Channelize.io Live Streaming Commerce solution can help you target all areas of customer relationship beyond generating brand awareness and sales. You can start selling live with the help of our live shopping solution while keeping your customers engaged throughout their purchase journey.

 Here is what you can achieve with our Livestream eCommerce solution.

●     Boosts brand image

●     Increases customer loyalty and trust

●     Provides valuable customer feedback and insight

●     Improves product experience

●     Increases sales funnel velocity

●     Improves brand reach

Furthermore, we have also launched a plugin for Shopify live commerce. Now Shopify merchants can leverage this plugin to boost their online presence and connect with their buyers in an authentic manner.

You can get in touch with us at info@channelize.io and know more.