Live shopping is gaining momentum in North America, based on its success in Asia. And the pandemic helped a lot.

Live shopping has existed for decades on television. From channels dedicated to incite consumers to call a toll-free number to benefit from a sale “only valid in the next 30 minutes” to hours-long shows that filled the Saturday morning schedules of mainstream broadcasters.

More recently, online live shopping has gained momentum in North America, thanks to the pandemic and people being stuck at home. Many players saw the craze that live video where influencers sell beauty products, clothing and tech gadgets directly on Asian digital platforms had. And a lot of them are working at bringing it to North American shoppers, like Livescale here in Montreal.

But to have success in online livestream shopping, one needs an audience. And this is where Buzzfeed really saw an opportunity.

In the past year, they’ve hosted multiple livestreams, some of them on the Amazon Live platform, others on Facebook Live, experimenting with various formats and duration (it seems that 90 minutes is the sweet spot).

On Amazon Prime Day, they even ran a 16-hour-long livestream!

Kayleigh Barber from Digiday met with Nilla Ali, senior vice-president of commerce at Buzzfeed, to learn more about their discoveries and how they will be integrating more livestream shopping into their overall strategy.

Struggling to get performance out of your content? If your content team is living through content chaos on a daily basis, schedule a quick call with us to discuss Content strategy and content operations. We can help you get all your ducks in a row.

In short, live shopping is a tactic that can definitely make a dent in a brand’s revenue stream, but one has to make sure to have the right storyboarding approach, the right tone, manner in their content, and the right products. In the end, great content always makes projects like this work. It can make or break the results.

Which brands around you would you like to see doing livestream shopping? Which types of products seem more appropriate for the format? We would love to discuss more about the subject, so don’t hesitate to contact us whenever you want!