OPINION
B2B live commerce –
IT COULD BE FOR YOU
Live commerce sits on the very edge of our sector right now. But, as Highlands’ Stu Conroy says, the B2B space is certainly not exempt from the benefits of this next wave in the e-commerce revolution
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t feels like we’re back to normal. As we emerge from the pandemic period, physical events are taking place again and traditional business conversations are happening once more. But some things will never be the same. The past two years have seen incredible changes in terms of how many of us conduct business: we use video calls for sales and all manner of other communication; the physical retail landscape has changed and we all got used to buying more online. Factor in the shipping crisis and current inflationary pressures and it’s easy to work out that it has been difficult for brands to get – and stay – in front of the customer. Often, it takes a crisis to alter our working practices. At Highlands, for instance, with our UK office empty as staff had gone home to work, we took the opportunity to turn the place into a live shopping studio. In a nutshell, we worked with our brands and manufacturers, and helped them talk directly to their audience.
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RESPONSIVE ELEMENT But what is live shopping or live commerce and how does it fit into our predominantly B2B world? The concept of live shopping is not new, of course – we all know about the QVC channel which recently celebrated its 36th birthday. There are many others – Alibaba’s Taobao is the world’s biggest player on this particular stage. The difference now is that technology has rapidly moved forward meaning brands increasingly have the ability to easily link their
products to a live stream feed and talk about them directly to end users, distributors or retailers. The responsive element of a live stream is far more engaging than a pre-recorded video production. You can answer the questions your audience has there and then to help influence purchasing. In addition, frictionless technology allows brands to take orders straightaway from their B2B or B2C audiences.
Compared to a trade event, live commerce is extremely cheap to set up. [...] The largest cost component is usually driving traffic to your live stream It is estimated by Forbes that live commerce by the end of this year will be worth $480 billion and $1.25 trillion in 2025. Much of this current total is derived from sales in Asia and comes from the fashion and beauty sector. On Singles’ Day in China in 2021, for instance – a major shopping event – one influencer sold $1.7 billion worth of beauty products in 12 hours. Of course, these figures and predictions need to be digested with a pinch of salt as they will never apply to all companies, manufacturers or sectors. When I spoke at the recent OPI Global Forum in Chicago (see also Focus, page 24), there was also a perceptible question mark in the room as to whether live shopping was indeed relevant to the
