If there is one constant in the digital world and the world of ecommerce, it is continuous innovation. Consumers are increasingly demanding and looking for new ways to buy and receive their products.
With the events resulting from the pandemic, this process was also noticeably accelerated. Businesses acted quickly to keep innovating and offer a shopping experience that met — and exceeded, if possible — the consumer’s expectations when making a purchase, regardless of the channel, whether on the Internet, on social media or in brick-and-mortar stores.
The expansion of the omnichannel strategy and new sales trends
In this context, it is important to understand that there is no longer a “physical” limit to the stores. The consumer’s journey flows through the physical and the online worlds.
This is a clear example of a complete omnichannel experience, a concept that was being explored even before the pandemic and that is well-established among large retailers.
In parallel, new online sales strategies that take into account this multi-platform approach have been growing as well, and one of them has been standing out for its impressive results: Live Shopping, which can be a great ally to explore all the benefits that an omnichannel business model can offer.
But before exploring how Live Shopping can expand your omnichannel strategy, let’s understand a little more about each of these concepts.
What is live shopping?
Live Shopping is a new sales trend. When setting up a live-streaming event, the goal is to get people to buy products during the broadcast.
Unlike standard “one-to-one” selling, Live Shopping arises as a “one-to-many” approach that enables you to reach several people simultaneously.
The main features of Live Shopping are:
- It is a live, online event with no set duration;
- This event can be broadcasted simultaneously on different channels and social media, such as its own website, Facebook, YouTube and others;
- It must have at least one host, who will show and test the products, interacting with the public and answering their questions;
- It can be done professionally, in a studio, or made simpler by using a cell phone — regardless of how it is done, the connection of the host with the audience is what really matters;
- It is a great strategy to convert purchases through organic traffic, such as users who were just flipping through channels at the time of the event and joined it;
- It improves the conversion rate of the store by applying a dynamic strategy to the catalog and product display. Besides, it decreases the return rate by giving more detailed explanations about the products.
The Live Shopping sales model has become a real hit. Some success cases include Grupo Éxito in Colombia and Samsung in Chile. Grupo Éxito recorded a 6% increase in daily sales volume, while Samsung’s Chilean branch saw its daily order intake increase by 163%.
This is a consequence of the unique connection created with customers during the live events. The customer builds an interpersonal relationship, similar to the one with the sales associate in a physical store, thus feeling more reassured about the brand and the purchased product.
What is an omnichannel strategy?
The omnichannel strategy integrates physical stores, virtual stores and the public. It represents the possibility that consumers have to choose where and how to buy and receive their orders. The goal is to provide a seamless and unique experience across all channels and touchpoints to the consumer, without interrupting their journey.
There are three types of omnichannel delivery strategies, and you can adopt as many as you want.
- Ship-from-store: the physical store’s stock is used to fulfill orders placed on digital channels;
- Ship-to-store: the store acts as a pick-up point for orders placed on a digital channel, but is not responsible for the fulfillment of the order’s stock;
- Pick-up in-store: the store acts as a pick-up point for orders placed on digital channels and is responsible for the fulfillment of the order’s stock.
Adopting an omnichannel strategy is very beneficial to the retailer and the customer. It also increases the conversion rate and the competitiveness level of the company in the market. The main benefits are:
- Bringing physical stores into the ecommerce universe;
- More competitive shipping options both in terms of price and delivery time because the product is picked from the stock that is closer to the end customer’s address;
- Customer conversion rate increases as a result of the increased product offering, considering the inventories of all available points of sale;
- Reduction of logistical costs for the retailer, since the stores can also act as diversified inventory points;
- It is a great way to generate more revenue for franchises;
- It reinforces the retail brand as a pioneer in logistics and delivery best practices.
As we can see, the main benefits of adopting an omnichannel strategy lie in logistics and brand value perception. Both are decisive factors that will motivate the end-customer to complete the purchase.
Exploring live shopping actions to leverage your omnichannel strategy
With the dynamic way of working with an omnichannel strategy and the many benefits it brings, Live Shopping becomes a powerful tool to disclose these benefits.
Such action not only is a great sales argument that will positively impact the conversion rate of the store, but also positions the brand before the public. These two points help create “connection”, which is key for the success of an omnichannel action.
These are some ways to leverage your omnichannel strategy through live shopping actions and you’ll find them below.
1. Answer the consumers’ questions
Use the Live Shopping stream event to explain your delivery and exchange options. Seize the opportunity to interact with the public in real time and understand their main questions and wishes regarding your store’s shipping and pick-up options.
2. Diversify the content
Work with more than one host and stores in different regions. Explore the reach of your points of sale and alternate the events among them, focusing the demonstrations on strategic products for each store.
3. Understand your audience
Interact with the audience by asking where people are from. An interactive experience helps create connection with the public and also to direct your speech and actions to the audience of that specific region, choosing products that are in stock in these places and reinforcing the lower shipping cost and faster delivery, which is one of the greatest benefits of the omnichannel system.
4. Take advantage of promotional campaigns
Run free shipping campaigns for pick-up in-store and other types of shipping/exchange promotions as an incentive for customers to try new ways to receive your products.
To test and benefit from these initiatives within VTEX, you just need to have the VTEX Live Shopping App installed in your account. It will replicate all your account’s delivery and pick-up settings in your live-streaming sales.
Bottom line
It is possible to enhance an omnichannel strategy by taking advantage of the reach that Live Shopping events have. Furthermore, it’s important to keep in mind that you can test different strategies to understand which one works best for your store and audience, and thus leverage your multi-channel sales even further.
And adding the Live Shopping app to your store is seamless. The infrastructure is so flexible and scalable because it’s built on a cloud architecture in Amazon Web Services, which is one of VTEX’s most trustworthy partners.
