The beginning of the 21st century has reminded us of the need for deeper customer engagement to sustain business growth.
With the growing population of digital natives, like millennials and Gen Zs, plus the increased penetration of video-based digital touchpoints and the emergence of the creator economy has ushered in a new era of transformation in customer engagement.
At the current juncture, global eCommerce demands are focusing on metrics like reach, engagement, and conversion. After all, in today’s business ecosystem, the need is to provide good engagement while maintaining an impressive conversion rate.
It is for this reason that brands are letting go of traditional methodologies and are seeking new-age marketing techniques like livestream shoppable videos to not just facilitate real-time shopping but engage with customers.
No wonder many industry experts believe that shoppable videos are poised to be the preferred mode for online shopping.
There have been several surveys from Asia and the US that see the growth of livestream shopping and by 2026, revenues going up 20% from shoppable videos and livestream shopping alone. Recently, a Tommy Hilfiger livestream in China garnered 14 million views, and in the span of 2 minutes, 1300 hoodies were sold.
Moreover, Tommy Hilfiger hosted Miss Fame, Matthew Noszka, Jasmine Sanders, Lolo Spencer, and Malik Lindo to talk season’s key pieces and how to style them. Check out in the video below.
Let’s see why shifting from traditional customer engagement strategies to the future of customer engagement, shoppable commerce and digital media content might be the next big thing for global eCommerce.
What is Shoppable Video?
To put it simply, a shoppable video tool showcases a brand’s product or services while enabling a user to in real-time purchase those products or services.
Consumers get to shop quickly and seamlessly as they watch the video with tools like a sidebar that facilitate queries, shopping, reviews and other information in real-time.
Unlike traditional consumer engagement techniques, shoppable videos have enabled brands to engage and connect with a high-intent audience in less time.
After all, it allows users to simply buy products showcased through a tap on their screen. No wonder nearly 83% of global brand marketers believe shoppable videos are a great way to generate leads.
Industry experts believe that an excellent shoppable video should have three primary factors:
- It should be informative and concise
- It should convey the brand’s story
- It should be engaging and creative
As technology kept on improving and online marketing continued to evolve, the ways consumers shopped drastically changed.
Today, eCommerce brands (40% of them) are pushing the boundaries to offer seamless shoppable experiences to drive engagement and conversions. And brands are recognizing that shoppable video is one of the keystone strategies to increase on-site engagement organically.
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6 Key Benefits of Shoppable Videos For Your Business
Are you still doubting the value shoppable videos will bring to your business? Here are six key benefits to know about:
1. Increasing Customer Stickiness
We have all spent hours on YouTube falling down a video rabbit hole. Shoppable videos create an engrossing customer experience, with customers more likely to stay longer on your website. In order for that to happen, your content would need to offer infotainment to customers.
2. Improved Product Showcase
As new digital innovations keep on being created, brands are allowed to develop more dynamic, visually-driven content for customers, and interactive videos can have a powerful impact. According to a 2022 survey, 94% of marketers say video has helped them increase their understanding of products or services.
3. Impacting Add-to-Cart Rates
It’s great that a customer is visiting your website, it’s even better if they buy your products. Along the marketing funnel, shoppable videos enable faster customer transition. In fact, the add-to-cart rate increases by 37% when a product is viewed on the product page.
4. Product Discovery
Recently, in a survey, nearly 60% of online shoppers felt they found more interesting products on personalized retail platforms. This proves that creating an engaging experience allows you to personalize the experience for your customers, making the product discovery process easy.
5. Impacts on Customer Decision Making
Genz and millennials crave instant gratification when shopping online. If they see something they like, they want to buy it immediately. Shoppable videos can close the gap between the point of inspiration and the point of purchase.
6. Better Conversion Rates
Today, marketers have realized the value of video commerce to drive conversions. In fact, the rate of conversion by 80% if you add a video to your landing page. This gives brands the opportunity to collect first-party data for more significant market research and boost customer engagement.
Where Can You Use Shoppable Videos?
Here are some places you can use shoppable videos to connect with your customers.
1. Streaming Service
For a new-gen brand or a new brand looking to reach a wider audience then, shoppable videos for your streaming service are a surefire way for these brands to increase sales.
After all, they already have their attention and are likely to buy products the brand recommends. In fact, recent studies showed that buyers are keener to purchase products if shoppable videos are included on the website.
2. Social Media Platforms
In order to get more eyeballs, brands are looking at social media platforms, which have started incorporating eCommerce functionality on their platforms. Like Instagram and TikTok, which have partnered with Shopify. These can be published as part of the brand’s feed or story or as a shoppable video ad.
3. Livestreaming Platforms
Today’s audience wants to interact with brands in real-time, giving brands an opportunity to sell products. Livestream shopping is a really lucrative form of online video and can be beneficial to both streamers and brands.
Today, major eCommerce and video platforms like Amazon and Youtube, respectively, are adopting livestreaming, with the latter building an ‘organic live shopping experience’ to buy and sell products:
4. eCommerce Store
Shoppable videos on an eCommerce platform can increase sales, build better customer relationships, and create an amazing user experience.
How FLUFF used Firework Interactive Shoppable Video?
Here is one of the best shoppable video examples by FLUFF, a DTC home goods brand that aims to bring a 5-star hotel experience directly to people’s homes, used Firework’s shoppable video technology to engage with its customers on its own website while connecting with next-generation buyers. So how did we go about doing it?
1. Revolutionizing user engagement with shoppable videos
Most DTC brands use text, images, and horizontal video content on their websites. Instead, to better suit the needs of its customers, Firework empowered FLUFF to showcase its products with shoppable vertical videos.
2. Using product description card in shoppable videos
Firework’s product description card on FLUFF’s shoppable videos enables customers to scan product information while watching videos quickly.
3. Retaining customers on the website much longer
By implementing Firework’s shoppable videos, the average order value increased by 98% as consumers the product discovery process and spent time exploring and buying.
Best Practices for Shoppable Video
Now that you are convinced, here are some best practices to follow
1. Encourage Audience Interaction
A good shoppable video is one where the audience understands that it is an interactive video experience, which is why brands need to make it clear that the video is interactive. Other ways to increase the interaction
- Narration explaining the links
- Clear video description
2. Place Shoppable Links in the First Few Shots
Don’t wait too long to start having your links show up in the shoppable video, as you risk losing your viewer’s interest.
3. Let Shots Linger Longer than Other Videos
Most marketing videos prefer quick shots, we recommend you reconsider and slow things down in your shoppable videos so your customers can get a better look at the products.
4. Publish Videos on Social Media
Don’t neglect social media, where your shoppable videos can still leave an impact on consumers, as you can increase conversion rates and clicks across your networks.
5. Focus In on a Few Products
It’s great to have different products, but it is better not to stuff your entire product catalogue with videos. Too many options will confuse your viewers.
6. Be Creative and Have Fun
The simple truth is that videos that depict creativity have higher views, rates of engagement, and clicks.
Shoppable Video Brand Use Cases
In China and a few other countries in Asia, shoppable videos have become very popular. Compared to the West, and the adoption of shoppable video has not reached its full potential in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States.
However, the results are promising for marketers to believe in its popularity in the next few years. Numerous brands incorporate livestream shopping in their mainstream marketing techniques. Some industry use cases and examples of brands using shoppable video are:
1. Ted Baker
Source: Adage
The British luxury clothing retail company Ted Baker launched a 3-minute shopping video in 2016 for viewers to purchase the product right from the video.
Even though there was a low engagement rate at that time, the company’s livestream exercise was a success. As part of its fashion marketing campaign, its marketing and advertising strategy was to help consumers buy products and participate.
2. Burberry
Source: Business of Fashion
Since 2012, another luxury brand from Britain, Burberry, has been experimenting with several shoppable videos and content marketing strategies that use visual effects.
They launched their outerwear collection and supporting accessories directly on their website with shoppable videos. These have gained immense popularity and engagement among customers through web stories and interactive videos.
3. Kate Spade
Source: Netsolution
When it came to Kate Spade and its clothing and accessory branding, they went a step further and took shoppable video content to a whole new level.
They launched their clothing accessory brand by including shoppable video content starring celebrities like Anna Kendrick, which proved to be a huge success. More importantly, conversion rates improved. To offer a more effortless user experience, the marketing team assembled all items into a shopping list. The products were made clickable at the end of the video.
So, those were some shoppable video examples you can get inspired from. And now, we will take your inspiration ahead by discussing how to integrate shoppable videos into your eCommerce stores.
Integrating Shoppable Videos on eCommerce Stores
To create a seamless shopping experience via live commerce, it is essential to integrate shoppable features in videos. This reduces the number of steps a customer needs to take to complete a purchase and keeps them hooked.
Businesses can use shoppable videos to facilitate customers watching a video and making purchases directly from it. With the introduction of “Reels” on Instagram, using videos for sales has recently been exploded. The growth in popularity of TikTok and other social media platforms makes this the perfect time to finally invest in a video platform to boost your marketing.
Any eCommerce company must always stay on top of the latest trends, and video is one of them. There are different ways brands can share their products via video, which is a blessing as consumers are shopping online and through social media.
To see how you use Shopify on your website, click here.
How can Firework help brands in leveraging shoppable videos?
Firework allows brands to seamlessly incorporate high-impact video shopping experiences into their websites and apps. Firework’s no-code platform connects to custom websites and popular eCommerce CMS solutions.
With Firework, brands can build emotional and authentic connections with customers on the back of superior technology. Dynamic short-video are designed to boost customer engagement. Plus, the platform gives a swipeable, shoppable, and interactive experience that links smoothly across every major CMSs.
Firework provides a suite of enterprise services and tools that assists publishers and brands design, curating, and hosting mini videos. The facilities also include Open Story Page, which provides brands with a dedicated destination to help them monetise their content.
Summary
eCommerce brands create shoppable videos to get high engagement and boost sales. This also helps brands offer an immersive customer experience and facilitate a buying process with just a few clicks.
Giants like Alibaba have received astounding results using livestream shopping and not yet shoppable videos to engage with their customers. In essence, shoppable videos are ready to take the eCommerce world by storm, merging entertainment and shopping experience using interactive video solutions.
