When countless physical stores around the world were forced to close at the beginning of 2020, it sparked a new trend: live shopping. And all indications are that live shopping is anything but a fad. In 2021, live stream shopping was named the e-commerce trend of the year, and in the US, live shopping revenue is expected to grow to 35 billion US dollars by 2024.
Have you taken the plunge into live shopping or are you thinking about trying it in your organisation? Then you should consider including SMS in your strategy. SMS messages can significantly increase attendance at your live shopping event and ultimately increase your sales.
Learn how SMS can increase your revenue at your live shopping event in this post.
What is live shopping?
Live shopping is an interactive way to sell your products. Live streams allow you to present and sell your products in real time, all while having direct contact with your viewers - your potential customers. That's why it's also called livestream shopping.
With livestream shopping, you create a hybrid between the experience of shopping in a physical store and the experience of shopping online. Because it all happens live and with the ability to communicate with your participants, viewers get an experience of closeness and personal contact, just like when they shop in the physical store. At the same time, it all happens from the comfort of their own home, just like when they shop online.
It's no surprise that live shopping is one of the biggest e-commerce trends this year. It has proven to be an incredibly effective sales channel.
How does online live shopping work?
Live shopping as such is not a new phenomenon, but rather an old phenomenon that has been rethought and updated for today's social media platforms.
If you've spent time in front of the flow TV, you probably also remember the old TV-shop channels, where a presenter showed some products that you could then buy via a phone call. Live shopping works in a similar way - but online and in real time.
Product presentations are now live and online, and you no longer need a phone to buy the products on display. Instead, viewers can simply click "Buy Now" and shop the featured products online.
One of the biggest benefits of live shopping going online is the ability to communicate not only to, but also with viewers. While potential customers used to have to pick up the phone to place an order, viewers can now write comments and ask questions directly to the companies, who can respond in real time while showing the products.
This way of shopping opens up new possibilities for sales - and SMS can help increase participation in your live shopping feed.
Where does online live shopping take place?
There are many different platforms where you can present your products to your audience live. On many of the well-known social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and even Amazon, you can create livestream shopping events directly on the platform. Facebook liveshopping and Instagram liveshopping are particularly popular channels in Denmark.
There are also live shopping platforms that help you create and facilitate your live shopping events. For example, Easy Live Sales, Bambuser, Live Scale and many more.
How to use SMS to get more people to your live shopping event
When you create a live shopping event on Facebook, for example, your followers will automatically receive a notification when the event is about to begin. This notification is to ensure that as many followers as possible participate in your live shopping stream.
However, there is one potential problem, and that is that if your livestream shopping is hosted on Facebook, only your Facebook followers will receive this notification.
It goes without saying that the more people attending the event, the more potential income you have. Just as more visitors to the store also means more potential revenue. That's why inviting more potential customers than just those who follow your Facebook page has great benefits.
For example, does your company have a customer club or have you collected permissions for your newsletter? Why not invite these customer groups to your online shopping events? You can do this with the help of SMS.
Don't forget to invite key audiences to your live shopping event
A big bonus of inviting the customer groups that are on your SMS permission lists is that they are far more likely to be ready to buy than those who have simply liked your Facebook page. As we all know, Facebook followers can come from many different places, and a like doesn't always equate to an existing desire to buy.
The customers you have in your SMS and/or email marketing system, on the other hand, have often shopped with you before or at least shown a relative level of interest in your business by accepting communications from you. Otherwise they wouldn't be part of these lists.
So don't forget the low-hanging fruit that is picked when you invite your SMS followers to your livestream event.
Why SMS is ideal for sharing live shopping events
SMS is a great way to invite or publicise your company's live shopping event. This is partly because 98% of all SMS messages are actually opened (compared to an average open rate of 20% for email). At the same time, 90% of messages are opened within 3 minutes of receipt.
The high open rate and the short time from receipt to opening make SMS an ideal platform for inviting and reminding your followers that you are organising a live shopping event.
Case: How themeatclub.dk succeeded with live shopping and SMS
Emil Larsen from the webshop themeatclub.dk is one of the Danish companies that has had great success with Liveshopping in recent years. He uses inMobile to send SMS messages ahead of the company's online shopping events, ensuring that current, past and potential future customers are notified and can participate.
Using inMobile's integrations with Magento and Klaviyo, Emil is sure that his lists of current, potential and past customers are always synchronised with inMobile based on relevant purchase data from his systems. This makes it incredibly easy for Emil to segment the different audiences and send relevant information about his live shopping event.
