Why Brands Can No Longer Ignore Video Commerce

Integrating video commerce into marketing strategies is crucial for brands and retailers. This includes leveraging shoppable videos on social media platforms, incorporating videos on all panges from homepage to product pages, and establishing a presence across the board from your ecommerce site, to email marketing campaigns and social media across the board from Instagram to TikTok. 

89% of consumers desire more video content from brands in 2024, and over 60% of shoppers are more inclined to make a purchase when product pages feature customer videos. Video commerce has evolved from being an optional strategy to a vital component for success in e-commerce.

eo commerce is the strategy of using digital video content to enhance product promotion and sales online. Brands leverage various video formats, including live and non-live, to engage consumers and achieve diverse business objectives. Video commerce provides dynamic, engaging content that instills confidence in consumers’ purchasing decisions. It blends entertainment with education alongside seamless purchasing options, creating an immersive shopping journey.

Live video shopping, like the kind conducted by buywith in real time, taps into a growing market of live viewers and fosters authentic interactions, accelerating purchase decisions. On the other hand, non-live video shopping, prerecorded and controlled by brands, offers tailored product presentations, ensuring effective communication and enhancing the shopping experience. This can still be tied with video commerce, by having replays of livestream shopping videos greatly contribute to revenue. As per one of our recent webinars, 87% of the revenue from livestreams in China comes from replays of the livestream shopping event! 

• Engaging Shopping Experience: Dynamic storytelling through videos captivates audiences more than traditional sales and online shopping, proven to boost engagement by 67% and conversion rates by 10X. Plus, through buywith’s multistreaming technology, content is shareable on various platforms.
• Interactive Browsing: Video commerce offers an immersive browsing experience, showcasing products in action and facilitating informed purchase decisions.
• Efficient Product Information and Education: Video commerce efficiently conveys comprehensive product details in an engaging format, catering to modern consumers’ preference for visual content. In this way, they don’t need to read pages of how-tos, descriptions, or browse other images/videos to learn how products work.
• Visual Product Understanding: Videos provide detailed demonstrations and real-life applications of products, enhancing user comprehension and offering a virtual “try-before-you-buy” experience.
• Deeper Customer Connection: Videos foster a genuine bond between brands and consumers, particularly appealing to younger demographics like Gen Z who value authenticity.
• Trust Building: Authentic video content, including user-generated and behind-the-scenes footage, often hosted by influencers, builds trust and loyalty with audiences, humanizing the brand and strengthening connections.
• A Better Measure of Influencer or UGC Conversion: Video commerce tests the ability of an influencer, who is often the presenter, to convert. Same goes for UGC (user generated content). Unlike static influencer or UGC campaigns, the ability of a video to drive sales is measured directly.

Utilizing video commerce in an e-commerce strategy caters to a growing group of customers who are increasingly drawn to content like unboxing videos, tutorials, testimonials, and product showcases, making them effective tools for engaging with your audience and driving sales.

• Livestream Shopping: A subset of video commerce, livestream shopping has gained global traction and is globally a $512 billion market. Recognizing the immense potential of live commerce, brands can partner with a platform like buywith to host live shopping events on their site, and repurpose the video content for video commerce in social media, email marketing, and website collateral. 
• Video Content on Product Pages: To bolster consumer confidence in their online purchases, brands can turn to video content to enrich their product pages. Unboxing videos and ‘how-to’ guides offer customers immersive experiences, aiding in their decision-making process. Additionally, user-generated videos, such as testimonials and product demonstrations, provide authentic insights into product usage. We have covered many such strategies in our article on how brands can maximize their e-commerce sales on Shopify. 
• Reshare Content on Social Media: Instagram and TikTok have become key players in the realm of video commerce, offering brands innovative ways to showcase products and drive sales through captivating video content. With Instagram’s evolved video capabilities, brands can link products in their videos, allowing viewers to shop while watching. Similarly, TikTok’s creative features have facilitated the creation of engaging short-form clips that seamlessly integrate e-commerce. Plus, if a brand hosts a livestream shopping event on site, snippets from this can be shared on social media to extend the life of the event, and drive even further revenue.
• Product Launches: Gone are the days of lavish product launch sets; now, the best way to build anticipation for a new product is through video commerce by enlisting livestream shopping events. Personal care brands do this often, for example through our partnership with Ulta Beauty, where La Roche Posay announced during our livestream that they were the preferred sunscreen sponsor and partner for the US Open starting in New York. Livestreams are a format of video commerce that create an immersive experience that engages audiences and drives excitement around new releases.
• Product Demonstrations and Tutorials: Videos commerce offer brands the opportunity to create tutorial content demonstrating how to use their products effectively. This alleviates the pain point that customers have in moving through the purchase journey, and video commerce is an efficient way to combat this. Tese tutorials typically feature step-by-step instructions or product demonstrations, aiding customers in comprehending the product and its functionality more thoroughly.

• Produce Engaging Content: Create compelling videos with clear messaging, good lighting, and interactive elements like shoppable features. Repurpose existing content from platforms like YouTube and Instagram to maximize conversion opportunities.
• Establish Livestream Shopping Schedule: Set a consistent schedule for livestream shopping events, aligning with customer behaviors, seasonal trends, and brand occasions to enhance engagement.
• Implement Shoppable Features: Make your videos interactive by including links, calls-to-action, and instant checkout options, facilitating a seamless shopping experience for viewers.
• Leverage User-Generated Content (UGC): Harness UGC to create authentic content that resonates with your audience, fostering a sense of community around your brand.
• Optimize for Search Engines: Enhance visibility by implementing video SEO practices such as keyword-rich titles, compelling thumbnails, and transcripts/captions. 
• Prioritize Mobile-Friendly Formats: Optimize video formats, sizes, and loading times for mobile devices, considering widely supported formats.
• Expand Reach with Social Media: Extend your reach by simulcasting live videos on social media platforms, available via the buywith multistreaming feature. This drives traffic and boosts conversions further.
• Collaborate with Influencers: Consider collaborating with micro- or nano-influencers and other businesses to create focused content or cross-promote videos, expanding your audience reach and generating more exposure for your products. To find out which influencers are perfect for livestream shopping and video commerce, download our Top 100 Influencers Guidebook.