On a spring afternoon in New York, Iva Lazovic walked away from a rooftop cocktail party and got to work. Standing in front of an iPhone connected to a ring light, she adopted the tone of an auctioneer and implored her audience to buy a used sweater.
“Let’s get this down to 67 bucks girls“, said. “It’s so cute. It’s Lululemon. You will never get it at a better price in the store. Let’s be realistic. Posh has the good bargains”.
Lazovic was one of several women there who stood in front of the phone to sell their wares on Posh Shows, Poshmark’s new live streaming platform.
Poshmark is one of many companies rushing to enter the nascent live shopping market in the United States, which is estimated to generate $32 billion in sales this year, according to retail consultancy Coresight Research.
Looking at the live shopping market in China, which is projected to generate $647 billion, American companies have poured money for years into the medium, where people buy and sell goods in real time via video. But US consumers have not yet embraced the trend.
Even as shoppers return to stores, retailers and big tech companies are betting that consumers will continue to shop for items on their phones. For platforms, live shopping promises greater engagement, as consumers sometimes spend hours watching drivers selling items. For retailers, it is another channel to sell their products.
Qurate, the parent of US TV shopping channel QVC, recently launched Sune, a live shopping app aimed at Generation Z. In the past year, Walmart, eBay, and YouTube have added or expanded live shopping features. For Prime Day, Amazon recruited celebrities to promote its Amazon Live platform. Shein was an early adopter when Shein Live began in 2016 for US shoppers. It averages hundreds of thousands of viewers per episode, said George Chiao, its US president.
In addition to big companies, startups like Whatnot and Ntwrk are promoting their customer communities as a model for live shopping. Investors poured more than $380 million into streaming e-commerce businesses in the US last year, PitchBook reports.
“We believe that buying is not just a matter of transactionssaid Liyia Wu, founder of startup ShopShops. “It’s a matter of experience”.
By 2022, 78 percent of adults in the United States say they have never participated in a live shopping event, Morning Consult reported. Some companies have already backed down. Meta shut down Instagram’s live shopping feature in March and Facebook’s in October.
But Paige DeSorbo, 30, a podcast host and influencer on the reality show ‘Summer House,’ said that Hosting her own show on Amazon Live allowed her fans to see a “totally different” side of her. He has hosted his show weekly since late 2021 and receives commissions when people buy products that appear on his Amazon page or during his broadcasts.
“People want my opinion on fashion or beauty“, said. “When I talk to them live, I feel like we’re friends.”
JORDYN HOLMAN and KALLEY HUANG
THE NEW YORK TIMES
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6725621, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-05-22 22:10:07
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