Live shopping: The next big step for ecommerce in Indonesia

As ecommerce platforms and their merchants fight to capture the US$4.3 trillion global ecommerce market, new methods to improve engagement and conversions have come to the fore.

Take live shopping, for instance. The trend has seen a meteoric rise, especially in China, where approximately 37% of ecommerce purchases in 2019 were done through livestreams. In Indonesia, meanwhile, ecommerce giant Tokopedia is also leveraging live shopping to change up the game.

Making shopping more engaging

When Tokopedia first introduced its livestreaming platform, Tokopedia Play, in 2019, it wanted to bring entertainment to consumers while they shopped, says Priscilla Anais, associate vice president of product at the ecommerce titan. To do this, Tokopedia Play partnered with entertainment shows like the Tonight Show and Indonesian Idol.

At the same time, there was a growing demand in the Indonesian market for live shopping, where sellers would market their products during a livestream, which prompted Tokopedia to start building its own live shopping shows in 2020.

Although the feature was only initially available to a select number of white-listed merchants, earlier this year, Tokopedia Play expanded it to all its Power Merchant and Power Merchant Pro sellers (a special membership status on Tokopedia) and official stores within the platform, a move that has seen an “amazing” adoption rate and response, says Anais.

Priscilla Anais, associate vice president of product at Tokopedia / Photo credit: Tokopedia

In the first half of this year, the platform has seen an increase in weekly content creation of up to 8x compared to the beginning of 2021.

While bigger brands tend to use live shopping as a way to push new products or sales, the benefits of the approach manifest differently for small-scale sellers. For these merchants, videos are a front funnel to entice new potential buyers and serve as an invitation for customers to get to know their brands and products more, Anais explains.

For new merchants, the average livestream can increase product viewership and shop visits by 40% and 20%, respectively, while driving 29% of their orders for the day. Overall, livestreaming can also lead to an increase of up to 625x more product detail page views, a 262x increase in shop visits, and drive up to 100% of the shop’s daily orders.

“If the content is good and engaging, it will attract traffic and transactions,” Anais says. “In live shopping, there is a lot of room for creativity and for sellers to stand out. If your content creates curiosity among buyers, it can draw a lot of engagement.”

In some cases, small brands have been able to attract more than 80,000 viewers from a piece of content generated as part of their live shopping efforts, she shares.

Pulling ahead of the competition

Despite the obvious benefits of the approach, it takes more than a live shopping feature to stand out from the competition.

The strength of Tokopedia Play, Anais says, comes from how highly integrated it is with the main ecommerce platform – capabilities like flash sales and vouchers are already part of the live shopping experience.

Tokopedia Play’s live shopping giveaway function / Photo credit: Tokopedia

Tokopedia Play also places a huge emphasis on having robust programming to deliver the best consumer experience and set itself apart from other platforms.

“Our users should be able to find attractive and relevant live shopping content anytime they visit Tokopedia Play,” says the associate vice president.

In the world of ecommerce, live shopping has usually been more popular within the realms of typically female-oriented categories such as fashion and beauty, while generally male-oriented segments like sports and hobbies have been tougher to capture.

“Tokopedia has cracked something very special because we’re able to cater to the male segments,” Anais says. “We’ve seen great success in our ‘gadget’ category, which is very unusual for live shopping.”

Still, it took some effort for Tokopedia Play to perfect its offering. When it first launched as an entertainment platform, the company realized that even though entertainment content could generate a lot of traffic, it did not necessarily translate into recurring behavior.

The company had to revisit its content strategy to fit it closer with Tokopedia’s ecommerce DNA, which eventually resulted in Tokopedia Play’s expansion into live shopping.

Photo credit: ryanking999 / 123RF

Another stumbling block for the firm was Indonesia’s unstable internet connectivity. To overcome this, Tokopedia Play had to incorporate its own technology stack to accommodate low or weak network connections, as well as come up with use cases for various scenarios, such as when sellers or viewers would get disconnected.

All of these measures have culminated in Tokopedia Play’s current ecosystem, which sees merchants achieve record-breaking order numbers during live shopping streams.

“One notable thing is that we’ve also seen an explosion in the number of merchants who create content. And this is great because for us it means having a strong content pipeline,” says Anais. A robust content pipeline is a major driver for Tokopedia in engaging and satisfying different viewer segments to build loyalty.”

Tokopedia Play has reaped some hefty rewards for its efforts: monthly viewership has risen 16x in the first half of 2021, and live shopping adoption rates have also experienced double-digit growth.

Beyond that, the company also transformed its live shopping platform to offer a more seamless experience. Recent features include allowing viewers to browse through products and purchase them while watching streams. The move has significantly boosted conversion rates.

The ecommerce heavyweight has also introduced a new giveaway feature that offers viewers the chance to win prizes from livestreaming merchants.

Enhancing capabilities for sellers and shoppers

Going forward, the platform is looking to develop its live shopping feature for buyers and invest heavily in its content recommendation system. At the same time, it’s looking to further integrate Tokopedia Play videos into the main shopping experience.

With such heavy investments in the platform, it is clear that Tokopedia is confident in the direction that ecommerce is heading in the region.

“Video content is quickly overtaking image content in the market, and Indonesians have proven to be one of the world’s top video consumers,” says Anais. “We’re still in the early days of live shopping. It’s only going to take off from here and be more commonplace in the future.”

Find out more about how Tokopedia’s marketplace and digital product solutions are driving the Indonesian digital economy on its website.

This content was produced by Tech in Asia Studios, which connects brands with Asia’s tech community. Learn more about partnering with Tech in Asia Studios.