Why Beauty Brands Should Consider Livestreaming
Welcome to livestreaming retail. A world where e-commerce meets real-time consumers connecting and shopping over live product videos. You may think of it as today’s modernization of the teleshopping market that was birthed by major players like QVC and HSN throughout the 80s.
Although traditional teleshopping retailers still carry powerful selling relevance today, livestreaming platforms allow brands to reach younger demographics and sell their goods through highly digitized mobile apps and web plug-ins that are quickly becoming an additional revenue stream for brands while also generating viral exposure. The Asian market has led the world of livestreaming for several years and continues to crush performance records across numerous categories, especially within beauty.
According to a recent article by Public Sapient and insights from Coresight Research and iResearch, “The U.S. livestream shopping market is expected to reach $11 billion USD by the end of 2021 and $25 billion USD by 2023”. Across the globe, China has also experienced incredible growth when “livestream shopping skyrocketed from $66 billion USD in 2019 to $150 billion USD in 2020”.
Why Should Your Brand Adopt Livestreaming?
It provides both emerging and established brands with more equitable power and reach to connect with their loyal audiences and new brand enthusiasts from any place, at any time. This enables them to further build brand community and ignite sales beyond traditional revenue-earning channels that may have fallen stagnant throughout the pandemic. It can also help brands move excess inventory and connect with more intimately engaged customers that generate higher average sales.
Examples: How Are Brands Incorporating Livestreaming into their Selling Strategy?
Beautycounter recently opened a new flagship store in Santa Monica, CA that includes a livestream shopping studio to reach their remote shopping fans.
Image credit: Kylie Cosmetics
For the Kylie Cosmetics relaunch Kylie hosted a shoppable livestream event to reveal new products from the brand’s redesigned D2C website. Customers were able to click on a product during the stream that would redirect them to a purchase page.
Estee Lauder brands like Clinique, Bobbi Brown and La Mer are continuing to embrace this selling trend with their North American audience. Clinique hosted a livestream with Emilia Clarke where she talked viewers through her personal skin care routine. The live product shares and recommendations were dually shared on Clinique.com and cross-promoted on Emilia’s personal Instagram.
Carolyn Dawkins, Clinique’s Senior Vice President of Consumer Engagement, Analytics and Online shared in this Glossy article that Clinique has “continued to experience high demand for our virtual consultants via our live chat experiences, especially live chat video with consultants, so we knew there was strong interest for people to have the opportunity to connect with our Clinique experts.”
It also mentions that Clinique was prior planning their livestream strategy before the pandemic occurred, but the opportunity was given new wings for flight once global lockdowns began. Carolyn expressed in the article, “We’ve seen that consumers were able to ask and have real-time responses to specific concerns or advice in a way that isn’t always possible on social.” Livestream insights gave Dawkins and her team the ability to better understand their client demographic and evolve their consumer marketing and engagement strategies.
5 Ways Livestreaming Can Help Your Brand Grow
MOBILIZING REVENUE - For young brands operating on leaner budgets with small teams, third-party livestreaming apps are an amazing alternative to quickly mobilize A new sales frontier with minimal barriers to entry.
PROTECTING MARGIN - Brick-and-mortar retail can be a massive investment for young emerging brands to financially support in their early years. Something they may not be prepared to afford. Not all brands have large teams that can own the various execution setups and account management details required to have a successful in-store partnership. Alternatively, livestreaming helps brands gain a quicker viral following and generate more frequent sales with higher ROIs per sale since the selling channel demands less headcount and marketing dollars to set-up, launch and thrive. Although livestream platforms will require some kind of sales commission, brands usually retain higher margins than more traditional retail models.
KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE - Livestreaming gives brands the power to better know their audience demographic and refine their marketing voice to remain relevant and meet the demands of their growing customer base. Who attends? Where are they buying from? What are people looking to purchase? What questions do they ask during live events?
INCREASING TARGETED SALES - The demographic insights can also be applied and integrated across a brand’s other omni-selling platforms (web, social, in-store, etc.) to reap additional conversation sale benefits.
SHIELDING RISK - As the world continues to navigate through the ups and downs of the global pandemic, livestreaming helps brands and retailers continue to shield their risks against future store lockdowns and inevitable lost sales. It provides sellers with the power to rise above pandemic roadblocks and stay connected to their customers as they build remote-serviced sales without interruption.
Existing Players vs. New Competitors
Although in its infancy across North America, Europe and Aus/NZ, the Asian market has been leading the livestreaming trend for years with these leading platforms.
These are some newer livestreaming platforms available to engage with a brand’s expanding audience across Western markets.
Virtual selling through 1-on-1 mobile consultations are also making waves with these latest SaaS ventures.
Brands may also explore livestream shopping through other more familiar platforms like these social media giants.
Amazon Live
Facebook Live
Google Shoploop
TikTok
Instagram Live
Selecting the right shopping partners can be a game-changer. We’re excited to keep watch of how the livestream shopping channel will continue to evolve into a mainstream revenue earner.
Have you roadmapped a livestream shopping strategy for your beauty & wellness brand yet? Which platform(s) should you present on and why? How do you set-up your brand to sell on a platform? What are the sales growth and exposure benefits to your brand? What are the challenges to using and adopting?
We can help you answer these questions and point you on the right path. Laura Belsley is an expert in establishing new retail partnerships and setting-up distribution channels across beauty markets. Send us a message on LinkedIn or email Constellar Consultancy at hello@constellarconsultancy.com to set-up a call and learn more.
- Article written by Laura Belsley, Retail Director