As adoption for livestreaming continues to grow for brands and retailers, what makes the leaders and innovators stand out? And what other emerging opportunities (metaverse experimentation, perhaps?) are retailers and brands exploring to deliver on connected commerce strategies?
During the opening remarks at the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo last month, Deborah Weinswig, CEO and Founder at Coresight Research, revealed a few of the key findings from our recent survey. The survey, developed in partnership with the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, outlines the perspectives of 278 retail executives worldwide to understand how brands are currently using livestreaming and how they plan to further integrate it into their omnichannel strategies and investments moving forward.
Given the ongoing uncertainty of the economy and fast-changing consumer expectations, it’s no surprise that retailers are allocating a significant amount of their budgets toward livestreaming. The pandemic accelerated the shift to digital convenience for consumers. Livestream shopping can be cost-effective, promote brand awareness and, most of all, turn inspiration into action. Livestreaming also reflects the underlying themes driving retail innovation and brand differentiation. During the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, top themes included: adapting to evolving consumer behaviors, proactively meeting customers where they are and fostering meaningful community building across all channels.
Livestream shopping will help to accomplish all these imperatives and more. It offers a powerful gateway into improving the shopping experience by engaging consumers through their preferred devices and creating a seamless connection to influencers, experts and relevant products. Shoppers can seamlessly access product information, get recommendations and ask questions, which in turn will help drive product discovery and hopefully, will ultimately increase customer loyalty.
Adding Livestreaming to Your Omnichannel Strategy
Brands and retailers must analyze their evolving consumer behaviors and adapt their marketing strategies to effectively execute livestream shopping. In the survey report, Coresight Research provides insight into how retail executives are focusing on foundational pillars such as: multichannel platforms, frequency/cadence of livestream schedules, onboarding knowledgeable and engaging hosts, and embracing creative formats. A few questions to think about when assessing your livestream strategy include:
- Which channel is most effective to use? Your own website? Apps? Social media platforms?
- Who is the most effective host? Influencers? Internal employees? Store associates?
- How frequently should livestream shopping programs take place? Once a month, once a week or more?
- What is the preferred format? Should livestreaming tie in with events at physical stores?
What’s Next for Retail Industry?
As brands and retailers continue to test and adapt their livestreaming strategies to reach more online shoppers, it will be interesting to see how they will bring physical stores and even the metaverse into the fold.
At the Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, our first mainstage keynote featuring Cathy Hackl, Chief Metaverse Officer at Journey, and Roxanne Iyer, VP of Global Consumer Engagement at Clinique, gave an insightful presentation into how Clinique has created NFTs to drive customer loyalty and how they’re experimenting with the metaverse. Since returning from the event, we’ve even seen a concrete example of the metaverse mixing with a physical storefront. (If you want to dig into this topic a bit more, check out this awesome podcast featuring Deborah Weinswig and our good friend Andrew Smith.) We wouldn’t be surprised if livestreaming was brought into the mix to drum up buzz and excitement about digital goods and experiences.
With evolving consumer behaviors comes new trends, strategies and lessons learned, and rest assured, we are closely taking note of how the retail sector is adapting. We’re covering the timeliest trends and strategies for our next Retail Innovation Conference & Expo, scheduled for June 13-15, 2023.
Stay tuned for more updates from the event team, but for now, download the full survey results to find out how your industry peers are currently operating in livestream shopping and the metaverse!
