Startups ride video commerce wave

Hyderabad: Latching on to the new wave, four startups are trying out their luck with live commerce, which is taking the shopping experience inside a social channel such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok without the customers having to leave the platform. The adoption of live commerce, also known as social commerce, is getting accelerated due to […]

Hyderabad: Latching on to the new wave, four startups are trying out their luck with live commerce, which is taking the shopping experience inside a social channel such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok without the customers having to leave the platform.

The adoption of live commerce, also known as social commerce, is getting accelerated due to the Covid-19 protocols, which have been forcing people to avoid visiting places with high density like malls and shopping centres. In live commerce, a user’s journey revolves around product discovery and research and also the checkout process.

“There is a lot of focus on live commerce. It is already big and will get even bigger,” said Deepthi Ravula, CEO of We-Hub, India’s first and only State-led incubator to promote and foster women entrepreneurship by incubation, access to government and creating a global collaborative network for women-led enterprises to thrive.

According to her, Covid-19 has forced startups to discover new ways to sustain their businesses as the footfalls are falling. Live commerce ensures that respective customers have unrestricted access to products and at the same time with the comfort of operating from anywhere. Customers also have a live interaction with the staff apart from seeing the product.

“There are four startups in the live commerce segment with us. They are in the stealth mode now,” said Deepthi about the newage startups that are getting mentored at We-Hub. It will look to tell more about lowering the risk aversion, funding channels available and also the importance of financial discipline. It is also looking to reach out to more women entrepreneurs, particularly from Tier II and III cities.

“Many are keen on social entrepreneurship as it solves a societal problem and also provides a scope for scaling up. Live commerce is now catching up as many are not going to the physical stores due to the Covid-19 situation,” she said.

What does live commerce mean to companies?

The companies can engage with their audience by encouraging them to vote on select products, use influencers for endorsements, offer one-to-many events, link products directly to the checkout page, invite users to engage with their social media posts and also seek feedback on favourite products and styles. Many users also follow the business accounts on platforms like Instagram and a lot of them rely on reviews for purchase decisions.

Live commerce will match high-value customers with the sales teams in real-time or set up virtual appointments. Video shopping allows collaboration and helps customers select the right product. The channel allows the companies to share product images, video demos and more for an immersive experience. It also allows the businesses to curate the recommendations while making it easy for customers to shop as they can ask or chat and buy the products via the live and interactive channel.

E-marketing allows in identifying a precise target audience and offers a customised experience for the users. The distribution costs are lowered as the goods in most cases are delivered directly to customers from the place of manufacturing instead of first moving to a physical store. This also helps in consumer retention with targeted emails promotions, directed social media messages and so on.

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