What: Live shopping is among the most popular sales techniques during the pandemic, which allows the buyer to interact directly with the seller-influencer and encourages impulse purchases.

hy is it important: With the lockdowns after two years of Covid 19, different digital sales formats emerged highly prized by the youngest consumers. Especially rooted in China, is beginning to develop in Europe, notably in french department stores, with varying degrees of success.

China live shopping has experienced unprecedented growth in the country, around 280% per year until 2020. It weighed more than USD 300 billion in 2021 against half in 2020 and should reach USD 423 billion this year, with 900 dedicated platforms and more than 500 million followers.

It is mainly cosmetics brands, multi-brand stores, and merchant sites that have ventured into the field for the moment. Like the French platform of luxury accessories Monnier Paris, which is a pioneer, resolutely committed to this path for two years. For the vice-president of the Ecommerce Europe confederation, live shopping is nonetheless a new symbol of digital transformation, it's not just videos, it's interactive so you have the best of both worlds.

Monnier Paris organized a few sessions with online payment specialist Klarna in the US. The one made in December around the theme of Christmas worked particularly well. The important thing is the way in which the brand or company presents itself and manages the event, where two levels of communication are superimposed. The first is like a classic ad, where the company addresses a large audience by presenting its product as it sees fit via a monologue prepared and thought out by its communication teams. The second generates a direct dialogue with a customer, as happens in a store, where you must know how to communicate and react very quickly.

It took several attempts at Printemps to find the right formula and the right tone. In short, the right balance between a classic format of teleshopping and a moment of entertainment, friendly and playful capable of seducing the Internet user. Since the department store launched its live shopping format "En mode Printemps" last June, broadcast every other Wednesday evening, it has produced around twenty episodes, each around thirty minutes and a theme.

Printemps has chosen the Swedish start-up Bambuser as its service provider. Beyond the site, they broadcast live shopping sessions on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Contrary to popular belief, the main results in terms of sales or appointments are made after the live broadcast.

Galeries Lafayette is in the consideration phase for live shopping. Finding the right equation in terms of return on investment is essential for fashion and luxury players because, despite its apparent simplicity, live shopping requires resources. They chose to focus on the "one to one" video sale initiated from the first confinement. The pandemic has accelerated this distance-selling format, which was struggling to materialise, ultimately proving to be very successful for premium and luxury brands, as well as for designer brands.

Live shopping is also slowly attracting some retailers and big brands since the onset of the pandemic. Particularly in France where the practice of live streaming has crossed the symbolic bar of one million daily visitors on the Twitch platform.

China’s live shopping phenomenon is rising in Europe