Livestreaming is entrenched across Asia, driving sales in Southeast Asia’s recent 9.9 Super Shopping Day and even forming part of government policy in China; with Amazon and Facebook also exploring livestream shopping opportunities, brands everywhere will have to think about how they can create effective livestream commerce content.

The format, which first took off in China, has been co-opted by the government as a development aid, as the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) published a policy to establish e-commerce platforms and sell products from impoverished areas online.

CGTN has highlighted recent instances of how this is working: in July, a 14-hour livestream from Lhasa on shopping platform Pinduoduo attracted 75 million people and showed 88 different types of local products, while achieving an 890% rise in turnover.

During this month’s 9.9 Super Shopping Day, organised by the Shopee platform across Southeast Asia, the number of hours spent watching Shopee Live streams was three times higher than an average day, Tech in Asia reported, while 2.5 times more items were purchased during live streams compared to an average day.

It’s an approach that will be increasingly deployed during several other upcoming sales events, including 10.10 and 11.11.

The success of livestream shopping is the result of three powerful digital media trends – online video, influencer marketing and e-commerce – and it seems likely to spread to the rest of the world.

For brands wanting to try this format, the best option, says Pete Lin, Managing Director, North Asia, We Are Social, is a mature platform already designed for shopping with livestream features built in – like Shopee.

While social media platforms have been adding livestream shopping functionalities, additional measures may be needed, he observers – for example, a technical bridge to link livestream shopping content on Twitter to a brand’s own e-commerce site.

“Whatever platform a brand uses for livestream shopping, ease of access to the e-commerce component is key,” he says.

Read more on this topic in Pete Lin’s new article for WARC: Livestream shopping: How brands can harness this latest e-commerce phenomenon.

Sourced from WARC, CGTN, Tech in Asia