So what if livestreaming ecommerce is hot?

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Dear readers,

When I was a kid, I loved going to the supermarket to get free food – ice cream, fish fingers, chips, etc. – from sample stands. The staff would prepare the food and serve it to you fresh, in the hope that you’ll buy their products.

At the local neighborhood, you’ll sometimes hear salespeople loudly conducting demos to show what a great buy their non-sticking frying pans are. Good salespeople are not just good at hawking products, but they also entertain potential customers as they pitch. You’ll see them cracking jokes, doing tricks, and sometimes even getting the audience involved with their shows.

But as more people buy online, these human-intensive sales approaches are slowly disappearing. Not that they weren’t effective, but the return on investment is probably low as there’s always a limit to the number of people you can host in an offline setting.

With livestreaming, this kind of showmanship and salesmanship gets another chance to shine. In China, livestreaming was a US$61.2 billion industry in 2019, and this trend is fast catching on in Southeast Asia, partly because of Covid-19.

Our reporter, Melissa Goh, published a fascinating deep dive into the trend, and it really got me thinking. If livestreaming ecommerce is going to be huge, what demands or innovations will it trigger under this new normal? Here’s a list of things that popped up in my head, for your consideration and imagination:

🔴 Livestreaming equipment. Any hardware startup building specifically for livestreaming can ride the wave. Sure, there are already cameras, microphone, audio equipment available in the market, but piecing them together with the livestream platform can be very daunting. Livestreamers will probably prefer to have an all-in-one setup that they can just plug and play.

👨‍💻 Livestreaming software. A real-time editor would be handy to help livestreamers look good when it’s showtime. Could there also be a WordPress for livestreaming?

📅 Livestreaming events. If more users are starting to accept livestreaming, it could catalyze growth in related alternatives such as virtual live events, concerts, and workshops.

👍 Livestreaming ad network. Could it give rise to a network that improves ad performance by analyzing product, speech, and audience during live shows?

🤳🏾 Livestreaming talent agency. A lot of businesses will be looking for livestreaming talent to catch this trend, but there’s a shortage in the industry. Business models could be based on cost-per-acquisition or fixed hourly rate. Influencer agencies may have to pivot fast in order to capitalize on this.

🛍️ Livestreaming-focused ecommerce. Could it lead to a vertically focused ecommerce platform built just for livestreamers? And showcase products that can sell better on livestreams? For example, items with higher price tags such as laptops, beauty products, and even durians may do better because people do want to “experience” them before buying.

On the other hand, day-to-day products like shampoo, milk, eggs, or bread wouldn’t do as well because a static ecommerce page will do just fine. People generally don’t deliberate as much when purchasing fast-moving consumer goods because habits tend to lead them to their familiar brands.