In 2022, live shopping contributed an estimated $17 billion in sales in 2022. But by 2026, that figure is forecasted to account for $55 billion in sales. McKinsey estimates live commerce could account to 20% of all ecommerce in just a few short years.

(And no — we’re not talking QVC or cheesy 24-hour shop-a-thons.)

Instead, live shopping is a hybrid event that captures attention with limited drops and timed offers while entertaining and immersing customers in your brand. In China, live shopping has dominated the landscape since Alibaba pioneered Taobao Live in 2016, but Western ecomm darlings are slower to adopt.

Our take? Live shopping is about to blow up. It’s time for your brand to start thinking about your live shopping strategy now — before everyone else hops on the bandwagon — to grow your engagement and boost sales.

However, you can’t just go live and expect the sales to start rolling in. There’s more to hosting a successful livestream beyond showcasing your products. Instead, it takes lots of creativity paired with a conversational, playful (read: not salesy) style.

In this article

    What is live shopping?

    Live shopping or livestream shopping refers to using live video to feature your products in real-time to encourage viewers to buy from you.

    You can either go live on social channels like YouTube or Facebook or host livestreams on your website.

    What are the benefits of live selling?

    From offering you a way to standout in the noise to connecting with your customers in real-time and growing sales, live shopping offers a ton of benefits. Let’s explore them below: 

    Engage your target audience 

    Livestream shopping lets you have two-way conversations with your target audience in real-time.

    “Live shopping gives retailers the opportunity to create an engaging environment where customers can get familiar with the brand and its products without having to physically visit a store,” shares Robert Hoffmann, the Marketing Manager at CashbackHero. 

    Grow your community

    By regularly hosting live sessions, you can tap into live shopping as not only a reliable channel for customer acquisition and retention but also community building and gathering customer feedback.

    To this end, make sure your live sessions focus on entertaining and providing value alongside offering attendee-only discount codes to make viewers feel like a part of something special. 

    Increase sales

    By showcasing your products and educating your viewers about them in ways that text-based format alone can’t, live shopping offers you a close alternative to physical shopping. In turn, this encourages sales.

    Walmart’s Senior Director and Head of Brand Experiences and Partnerships, Kim Tunick, notes livestream shopping helps them build brand trust and grow sales.  

    “[Livestreaming] allows us to have valuable, fun two-way conversations with our customers and remove friction in their shopping experience. We approach it as: sell first, entertain second, but in some instances, depending on the product or host or theme, that might even flip.” 

    Offer a memorable brand experience

    By allowing you to show your brand’s human side and connecting with customers, live shopping lets you improve customer experience.

    As Arpan Podduturi, the Director of Product Retail and Messaging at Shopify points out,

    “The more we can connect online and offline, the better the customer experience. And that ultimately gives retailers and main-street brands a chance to survive and thrive going forward.”

    Arpan Podduturi, the Director of Product Retail and Messaging at Shopify

    Thankfully, livestream shopping gives you a unique way to connect with and build deeper, more lasting relationships with customers. 

    Why you might want to try a live shopping campaign

    On top of leveraging the benefits that it offers, you can launch a live shopping campaign or make it a regular part of your marketing strategy for the following reasons:

    • You’re not afraid to try something new
    • You have extra inventory you want to promote
    • You have a loyal audience on at least one social channel
    • You want to build brand awareness and break through the noise

    Remember: Although most believe that live shopping is ideal for products that lend themselves to impulse buying, the full truth is: live selling is a helpful way to connect and sell in different industries.

    It’s why you’ll see everyone from solo creators like @kimmiebbags to brands like Benefits Cosmetics using live shopping.

    In fact, businesses like BankingGeek in the finance industry plan to tap into live shopping too. “During each livestream, we’ll review different financial products like credit cards, insurance policies and investment plans so that our customers can get an overview of what’s available in the market,” shares the Founder and CEO, Max Benz.

    “We also want to provide promotional offers so that viewers can take advantage of discounts or freebies for signing up for certain products or services. Finally, we’ll address any questions or concerns that viewers may have about their financial situation or options available to them so they can make informed decisions.” 

    Max Benz, Founder & CEO of BankingGeek

    How to create a live shopping strategy in 5 steps

    Planning your live shopping events helps you set your audience’s expectations, create hype around them, and get the eyeballs you deserve. But you shouldn’t script everything down to the tee to maintain your authenticity.

    Put simply, plan enough so you know what content you want to share and how you want to increase audience engagement while keeping things conversational.

    With that, here’s how to begin with livestreaming ecommerce in five easy steps: 

    Step 1: Work out a format for your livestream shopping session

    A format prepares you for how you’ll host your livestream and sets your audience’s expectations.

    You can always shake things up in each episode to maintain an element of surprise but be sure to pick a dedicated time for your sessions so attendees know when to join.

    For the format itself, ask yourself whether you want to take an educational approach or entertaining one. Or if you want to take a product-first approach. The answer depends on what you’re selling.

    Aldo’s live shopping pilot, for example, followed a product educational format where Los Angeles-based entertainer, Nate Wyatt and celebrity stylist Mimi Cuttrell paired to share their style tips for wearing various Aldo accessories and shoes.

    You can try any creative approach though. Petro, for example, hosted a live dog show to encourage pet adoptions. 

    Step 2: Select a friendly host for your show

    You can always collaborate with influencers and brand ambassadors to co-host the live show. The upside to this is that you can tap into their influence to drive viewers to your stream.

    One idea is to bring interested customers on your live show to grow your social proof. Tommy Hilfiger used this tactic — inviting customers to share their favorite pieces from its 2021 spring collection.

    However, these folks know only so much about your products, which brings us to another option for hosts: your store associates who have a strong grip on product details. It’s why JCPenny uses them in their JCP Live shopping series where associates talk about the products.

    Have a founder with a loyal following? Ask them to host the live session as Bobbi Brown does for her brand, Jones Road Beauty

    Whether you invite customers, influencers, stylists, or artists as your co-host, remember to pick one, friendly face for a host who presents all your livestreams so viewers become familiar with him/her. This is an essential ingredient for breeding brand familiarity and creating community using live shopping. 

    Step 3: Choose a live streaming platform

    You can always use Facebook live shopping or use Instagram or Amazon Live. It’s even a good idea for brands to start with social media live streaming as it lets you go live on channels your audience is already using.

    As your attendee count grows, move to livestreaming on your site using live shopping platforms like Bambuster. This comes with multiple perks such as:

    • Better control over your branding, helping grow your brand memorability.
    • Access to detailed data on who is attending, what they’re buying from you, and how they’re engaging in your live event.
    • More opportunity to host replays on your site given 70% of sales from live shopping happen after the event.

    Most of all, you can use your site as a central library featuring replays and upcoming events as Nordstorm does.

    Step 4: Create your livestreaming set up

    Authenticity goes a long way so you don’t need everything to be picture perfect. But you do need to pick a place with sufficient lighting and a soundproof environment to prevent echo during the livestream.

    Before you go live for each session, it’s also a good idea to write a rough video script. Again, nothing detailed but a rough outline for you to use to guide the conversation. 

    Step 5: Create a marketing plan for your live shopping events

    Now is when you ask yourself questions like:

    • How will we invite customers to the live shopping event?
    • How will we create hype around the livestreams?

    One idea is to use social media to promote your live event. Take it from e-comm giant Shein, which uses Instagram Stories to promote its live events:

    You can also send a personalized invite to your email list and ask co-hosts to share the event’s live venue with their audience.

    Or take a page from Bloomingdales — they sent macarons and cocktails to viewers who signed up in advance so they could enjoy them during the live event. The department store also enrolled those who watched the livestream until the end into a gift card and basket giveaway.

    You can also offer limited-time promos to encourage sales during the event.

     Pro tip: Plan post-event marketing content to encourage more social sales. For example, create shoppable videos to get people to buy the products you feature during the livestream. 

    Ready to host a live shopping event?

    To recap, live shopping offers a close alternative to physical shopping, making it an effective channel to drive sales.

    Make sure to pick a friendly face as your host, work out a format for the livestream shopping event, and create a set up with lots of lighting and crisp audio quality. Then, after you host your first live shopping sessions, study what products drove the most engagement and sales.

    Going live takes moxie, willpower, and plenty of planning — plus tech checks galore. That’s why we’ve created dozens of resources to cover your bases.

    Learn the ropes of going live with Vimeo.