Loading...
Answers
MenuWhat is live commerce?
Live commerce is getting popular these days, what exactly is Live commerce and how will affect online marketplaces?
Answers
Live commerce is a business that uses online and on-site activity to sell products and services.
Some of the key features of live commerce include:
- Customers can access and purchase products on-demand.
- The salesperson is not on the premises.
- The customer does not have to leave home
Live commerce is the new frontier of online marketplaces. It is making online marketplaces more engaging and interactive, where customers can purchase products and services in real-time, instead of just buying them after they are done.
I think that the impact of live commerce will be quite big on online marketplaces. It is because it will help companies to increase their customer base and improve the overall experience of customers by making use of technology such as chatbots and virtual assistants.
Online marketplaces are now shifting from a one-way process, where products and services are sold through websites, to two-way platforms where buyers can buy things right away and sellers can manage their products and services using chatbots.
The impact of live commerce will be seen in all aspects: delivery times, payment methods, marketing efforts etc. Online marketplaces like Amazon India have already started integrating with various ecommerce companies such as Uber for deliveries. This means that you no longer need to wait for your items to reach you; they can be delivered instantly! And if you don't want them anymore, you can return them easily without having to do anything about it! All this has made shopping more convenient than ever before!
I've successfully helped over 150 entrepreneurs, startups, and businesses, and I would be happy to help you. Please send me more information before scheduling a call - so I can give you maximum value for your money. Take a look at the great reviews I’ve received: https://clarity.fm/ripul.chhabra
Live commerce is the fusion of live streaming videos and e-commerce. It gives customers confidence and the ability to find answers to their questions that would otherwise prevent them from adding an item to cart and purchasing.
Different types of live commerce:
1. Online marketplaces:Online platforms like eBay and Alibaba are places where users can buy and sell with ease but the concept is becoming outdated and has been replicated by countless other businesses. To keep users engaged when they shop online, new features are being introduced to ensure online marketplaces stay relevant and increase revenue.
This is where live commerce fits in. By offering real-time interaction, buyers and sellers will feel like they’re at a physical marketplace but in the comfort of their own homes.
2. Live auctions
Instead of attending an auction house, buyers and sellers can connect online and worldwide. Live streaming an auction allows the bidding pool to expand which means there’s likely to be more buzz, more bidders and more competitive bids than ever before!
3. Influencer streaming
We’re used to seeing influencers of all types streaming on social media (whether that’s nano, micro, macro or mega influencers) and with the new demand for improved engagement, you will soon be seeing influencers diving into live streaming across e-commerce sites too.
4. Live events
Product launches, retail holidays, limited edition items, although all relevant to the aforementioned categories , are more likely to be held as ‘live events’. Streaming these live events will make for quick and easy coverage, regionally, nationally and even globally. There’s also no consumer limit - which will increase buyer urgency.
5. Interviews and Q&As
As well as reading a Q&A blog, live streaming can also involve holding live Q&A sessions with specialists or frequent product users. This method humanises a brand and invites viewers into a conversation amongst the community.
It's benefits;
Shopping online without assistance can be difficult, and without anyone there to ask how big something is or what colours it's available in can lead to cart abandonment. However, with the virtual presence of a shop assistant or influencer, your questions can be answered right there and then.
Other benefit are;
Improved customer relationships
Improved understanding of what customers want
Reaches a larger audience
Helps businesses to get ahead of competitors
Reduced overheads.
Hope this helps.
Live commerce, also known as live shopping or live streaming shopping, is an emerging trend in the e-commerce industry that combines live video streaming with online shopping. It involves retailers or influencers showcasing products in real-time through live video broadcasts, allowing viewers to interact, ask questions, and make purchases directly within the live stream.
Live commerce typically takes place on online marketplaces, social media platforms, or dedicated live shopping platforms. The host or presenter demonstrates products, highlights features, shares personal experiences, and engages with the audience through real-time comments and interactions. Viewers can ask questions, seek recommendations, and receive immediate responses, creating a more interactive and engaging shopping experience.
The impact of live commerce on online marketplaces can be significant. Here are a few ways it can affect the industry:
Enhanced Engagement: Live commerce provides a highly engaging shopping experience by combining video content, real-time interactions, and product demonstrations. It creates a sense of urgency, excitement, and authenticity, leading to increased user engagement and longer session durations.
Influencer Marketing: Live commerce often involves collaboration with influencers or key opinion leaders (KOLs). Influencers leverage their influence and credibility to promote products during live streams, resulting in increased brand exposure, reach, and trust. This can drive more traffic to online marketplaces and boost sales.
Improved Conversions: The real-time nature of live commerce enables immediate purchase actions within the live stream. This can lead to higher conversion rates compared to traditional e-commerce, where customers often need to navigate through different pages and checkout processes. The convenience and instant gratification offered by live commerce can drive impulse purchases.
Product Discovery: Live commerce offers an opportunity for customers to discover new products and brands they might not have encountered otherwise. By featuring a variety of products in live streams, online marketplaces can attract a broader audience and introduce them to different offerings, thus expanding their customer base.
Authenticity and Trust: Live commerce allows customers to witness product demonstrations and testimonials firsthand, fostering a sense of authenticity and trust. The live interaction between hosts and viewers, along with real-time feedback and reviews, helps build confidence in the product and the shopping experience.
It's worth noting that while live commerce presents significant opportunities, it also poses challenges for online marketplaces. Infrastructure requirements, technical capabilities, and maintaining a seamless shopping experience during high traffic can be demanding. However, with the growing popularity of live commerce, online marketplaces are increasingly integrating live streaming features or partnering with dedicated live shopping platforms to capitalize on this emerging trend and provide a more immersive shopping experience for their customers.
Related Questions
-
I want to start an ecommerce business that imports goods from India to sell in the U.S.. Where in the world do I start re: tax/legal implications.
TAX is US. For export paperwork (free tax delivery) is India. Use business location may in delaware for lower state taxML
-
What are the profit margins for high end home decor and furniture?
Hone decor / furniture industry is one of the highest profit promising industry today. The profit margins on home decor ranges from 20% - 45% depend on the price of the product. If you're looking to get quickly popular, I suggest you start with the online store and promote it on offline as well. Keep the margins low initially so that you can attract more buyers. As the business grows, reinvest the amount back on the business so that you can stock more varieties. All the very best.KK
-
How can I make a small, profitable business on Wordpress?
It sounds like you have plenty of skills to get started now. There's no need to keep re-training in different areas when you have experience to get started today. My suggestion would be to pick a niche and try and become the go-to guy in that particular niche. Let's say, for example, you are interested in men's fashion. You have experience in creating Wordpress ecommerce sites. You could call up maybe 10-15 of the local businesses in that niche in your local city/state and offer to make their website and get them in on a set-up fee and then a monthly maintenance retainer. This approach would be lower stress (because it's something you're interested in) and also because you could create a methodical framework that you could apply to other businesses in that niche. That's just one idea. Second idea - create a course on WooCommerce development and put it on Udemy (or Coursera etc). Note down 10 of the biggest obstacles you've had to overcome when building sites for friends and family and then note down 10 of the most important considerations people should consider before people get started. Now you've got 20 video lessons for your course. Charge for the course on Udemy or use it as a marketing tool to get more b2b development work. Idea 3: Go make money on freelancer.com, peopleperhour etc. Perhaps you've tried this already? Skills like yours are in demand on those platforms. Idea 4: Take the things I noted in the second idea above, and turn it into a handbook. Sell that book via Amazon. Idea 5: Go on Tweetdeck. Create a column that searches for people who are using keywords like "Wordpress woocommerce issue" "Wordpress woocommerce help" "WordPress woocommerce problem". Give them your clairty.fm link and tell them you'd be happy to have 5 minute discussion to see if you could help them resolve their problem. Idea 6: Find 10 major theme development companies. Sign up to their help or support forums. Do a similar thing to what's noted above on Twitter and offer to have a quick call via clarity.fm to see if you could help. Idea 7: Go down the route of finding existing Wordpress/Woocommerce blogs. Write posts for them about specific WooCommerce issues, problem solving or project management tips. Do this with the aim of improving your inbound consulting gigs. Idea 8: Do the exact opposite of whatever those friends are telling you. Idea 9: With your skills you could easily start a dropshipping company. I won't go into all the details here but just start looking at sites like Clickbank or Product Hunt to get a feel for something you're interested in. Build your site and start dropshipping products. https://www.woothemes.com/2015/06/dropshipping-beginners-guide/ Wordpress consulting alone, yeah it's probably quite competitive, but that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of opportunities for revenue. I think you will be even more motivated, successful and less stressed if you pick a niche industry, product or service to focus on. Enjoy it!SC
-
I'm looking to get off the Yahoo platform. Shopify seems to be nice, and BigCommerce just looks like a slightly better Yahoo. Thoughts?
Shopify is best use case for $0 to $1M ish, depending on product line, how many transactions that makes up, and if their are some custom things that are not possible on Shopify that realistically lead to huge gains that would cover more costs of a custom solution with something like magento. I recommend Shopify to everyone starting out. That's what we used at Diamond Candles up until about a $5M run rate. We were/are growing quickly so we hit a point where payoff of customizing checkout flow, add of social sign on, etc. that could not be done because of Shopify, would cover and surpass costs of a more custom option. Best to think about this simplistic example. View the ecom platform market in about 3 buckets. 1. Starting out: $0-$1M ish 2. Wow looks like you have a business: $1M-$20 or 50ish 3. You are/could be publicly traded: $50M+ Take a look at usage #'s for market share size from independent third party analytics tools from Builtwith: http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/Shopify/Market-Share http://trends.builtwith.com/shop http://trends.builtwith.com/shop/hosted-solution Just because something is found on the web more isn't the full picture. Ie. I could make a blogging platform and have a bunch of scripts and bots install it on millions of domains and I would have majority of the market for blogging platforms (ya that would take a while and isn't a realistic scenario but you can get the point). Providers dominating the different categories by companies in those areas actually doing volume and being succsessful? 1. Shopify, BigCommerce, Volusion, Magento GO, 2. Magento (varying editions), Yahoo Stores, Symphony Commerce 3. Demand Ware, GSI Commerce, Magento (varying editions) At the end of the day a good illustration goes like this. A truck and a moped are two different things. A truck is not trying to out 'moped' a moped and a moped not trying to out 'truck' a truck. They are both perfectly suited to different applications, situations, needs, and circumstances. The same goes with who you choose to handle your ecom platform. For 2-3 search for internet retailers first 500 and second 500 lists. Pull off all ecommerce companies doing between $10-$50M as an example. Use the builtwith.com chrome toolbar to tell you what platform they are using. Hire someone for $2 an hour via odesk to make a spreadsheet of everything and the make a pretty little pie chart. Now you know what each revenue volume level chooses as 1, 2, 3 preferred platforms. Option 3 as a side note but very important one, is primarily a platform and commerce as a service model with companies like Demand Ware and GSI Commerce leading the market with platform and services including but not limited to customer service for the brand, fulfillment, marketing services, website product photography etc. Their pricing models are based on gross revenue share. ie. SportsAuthority.com does $100M online this year, GSI takes 30% of that to cover everything. (I am not sure who Sports Authority uses, just an example) You can almost pick any traditional brick and mortar retailer and if they have a website where they sell things, they all do, GSI or DW are the people behind the scenes running the call centers, shipping etc. Diamond Candles, my company, who started on Shopify decided to not go with a the market dominating option of Magento for a few reasons. One of which being upfront cost for an agency or on staff magento CTO type. We decided to partner with a newer entrant, Symphony Commerce, which blends the 3rd category model of platform plus service. Rev. cut is significantly smaller than providers in category 3, but still get benefits of volume savings on shipping volume, scalable customer support that can handle rapid growth and occasional spikes without us having to worry about scaling or implementing best practices, and a fully customizable platform as a service so to speak that doesn't require us to have in house tech but where we are essentially renting part time ecommerce engineers from with resumes that list Google, FB, Twitter, Magento, Amazon, etc. So in summary. If you are <$1M in revenue just roll with Shopify. Greater than that but less than $50M ish then I would recommend looking into Symphony. If Symphony is interested in letting you in then you won't have to incur the upfront costs of an agency or implementation and you will have an ongoing partner equally incentivized i your long term success financially which I prefer as opposed to an agency model which economically is incentivized to offer a one time finished product and their revenue is not tied to my financial success. It is the closest thing to an equity partner while returning our full equity.JW
-
Why don't small business retailers have e-commerce stores on their websites? How do I show small business owners the benefits of e-commerce?
I live in Brooklyn, NY, which is a really fertile ground for small business retailers. My experience speaking with a lot of the shop owners is that they simply don't have the resources to maintain an online presence. Just keeping the brick and mortar operation running consumes most, if not all of their time, especially if the are also creating and producing their own products. For many that I do see take a shot at e-commerce retailing, they may get Shopify/Squarespace site set-up, then just run out of steam to keep it going. One innovative, in-between approach that I've seen one of my favorite shops take, is to actually focus on using a single social media channel, Instagram, and maintain an e-commerce function through it. (See @peopleof2morrow on Instagram)CR
the startups.com platform
Copyright © 2025 Startups.com. All rights reserved.