Live Shopping Crash Course | What Product Based Businesses Need to Know

If you're an Amazon Seller, a product developer or if you have a product based business, this is a video you'll want to watch. You'll discover everything you need to know about live shopping to help you determine if it's a retail strategy that makes sense for you, your ecommerce brand or your product. We'll cover everything from the very basics of live shopping, to the obvious, and not-so-obvious benefits of adding live shopping to your ecommerce strategy and exactly how you can get started. You'll find out how  to decide which live shopping platfrom is right for you, and which livstreaming equipment you actually need.  And finally, you'll hear some secret live shopping tips and strategies like...

• How to use live shopping to build your email subscriber list.

• How live shopping can reduce your return rate by up to 50%.

• How to repurpose your live shopping content to drive sales and traffic.

• How to use live shopping to improve your SEO ranking long after the show is over.

• How to quickly build an audience for your live shopping event.

• And strategies to keep your live shopping audience engaged.

🎦 To learn about my "Live Shopping Academy" training course that equips you with everything you need to be a live shopping pro in 7 days or less, click HERE.

Watch the full video below and scroll down to read the full undedited transcript.

READ THE VIDEO TRANSCRIPT BELOW:

What we're going to be talking about today is live shopping in general, whatever platform you might want to do it on, whether it's from your website or from one of the many platforms that are out there or from Amazon. And many of you might know that I am an Amazon influencer and I do host regularly on Amazon live, so I do have that experience in that world and can speak to that if you have questions about that.
And then the other piece of what today is going to be. to be about is not only where live shopping is right now, but what that live shopping opportunity is specifically for product -based businesses.
So many times I see articles written on live shopping and it's really all geared toward the influencers. But what does it mean for you guys? And because I am both an influencer and a brand,
I've got my own product line, I see both sides of that. and I understand the value on both sides. So it's I'm kind of uniquely positioned to talk to you guys about this and what the different options are and how you can use it to your advantage.
Some of you already know who I am and what I do and why I'm here talking to you, but I just to go over real quickly. My name is Marcy McKenna and,
like many of you, I'm an inventor and an entrepreneur. entrepreneur. And I have actually been in the live shopping space for over 13 years now. And I was introduced to it via a invention reality show that I was on that Kelly Ripa did 10 plus years ago with HSN.
And so the winner of the reality show, her product and her would be live on HSN selling that product. So the stars were. were aligned,
I auditioned for the show. And before I knew it, I had won and was sort of thrust into the live shopping world whether I liked it or not.
And so I was not familiar with it. I had never watched QVC, I had never watched HSN and I just decided to start watching it knowing that I had to be on. And I remember so vividly,
that was my very first introduction to it was I turned around and I was like, on HSN and there was Joy Mingano. And many of you probably know who she is, sort of the queen of live shopping. And I didn't know who she was at the time.
And nor did I intend to buy anything at all. I just wanted to learn what this platform was all about. And before I knew it, I had bought four things on her program.
Because, and I thought about my gosh, how did she, because I kept hearing about how it did. QVC and HSN work, but I thought, oh, that's for old people. And that's just, you know, not for me. And then as I started buying more and more things,
I thought, what is it about this that is really luring me in and turning me from someone who was just watching to learn to someone who was actually buying. And I realized that it was that connection.
I was feeling like I was getting to know Joy Mangano. And I was trusting her and I was was trusting her advice and she would show me different ways to use things. And I thought, oh, I want to try that. That's a good idea. I could use it for that.
And before I knew it, like I said, I'm just adding to cart and then checking out with four new items. And so that was my first light bulb, like what a brilliant platform this is. But at the time it was just,
you know, home shopping as it were. Today, and we're going to get into this in just a second, it's very different. We are talking about the modern. age of live shopping. And what's exciting for you guys as inventors and entrepreneurs is that you get to have really your own little mini QBC or HSN whenever you want to have it.
And you can have that same effect on the audience that Joy Mangano had on me at that time. So that represents just right there a really exciting opportunity. And we're going to get into exactly what it's looking like for other brands independent inventors mom and pop shops all the way on up to the big boys.
What they're experiencing the ones who have already gotten started in live shopping and that's why the the UIA and I were so excited about putting this together for all of you because we're seeing what a difference it's making for anyone that dives in worse and so in as we think it through for you guys we think.
about, gosh, the success rate of inventions, as it were, is about 5%, 5 % of inventors make any money on their product. And if we can position you guys and give you tools and resources to make that number much larger,
we wanna do that. And we see live shopping as a way to really do that. So I wanna educate you on that today. And I wanna talk to you about the tools that I use for live shopping. exactly how I use them and what I'm seeing the results to be.
So I started, you know, 12, 13 years ago. Today, I'm now hosting my own show on Market .Live every week in VentureLive. Some of you have seen that.
And it is a combination of a sort of one -on -one interview with some live shopping interwoven. I do host regularly on Amazon Live. I host on Pinterest TV. So live shopping is just a very big part of my world.
And I also run the Women Inventors Club and I'm on the advisory board for the United Inventors Association. Where is live shopping right now? When did it start? What's the background on it?
Live shopping as we know it today, which as I said is very different than just QVC and HSN, that actually began in about 2016 when Alibaba began to dip their toes in.
in it. And they did that on the biggest shopping day of the year in China, which is called Singles Day. And their very first entree into live shopping, no one knew how well it would do or not do.
It ended up doing 17 plus billion dollars in one day. So as you can imagine, that really perked everybody up, including Amazon. And shortly thereafter,
I think it was two years ago. but something tells me it could have been 17. Amazon got into the mix with Amazon Live. And a lot of people think Amazon Live just started. It's been around since at least 2019.
So where is it today? So the pandemic definitely propelled things in a very meaningful way. In Asia, last year, they did $300 billion in sales.
that is billion with AB, and this year they're projected to do $600 billion in sales. And so in America, while we're not quite there, we are playing catch -up,
and we are seeing a trajectory doing this, if not this. So last year, 2022, we did $20 billion in live shopping sales, and by 2026, we're targeted to be $70 billion.
What's interesting is that in the last year, we did $20 billion in sales, and by 2026, we did me is that the projections that they've made each year, we've far surpassed. So where they thought we would be last year, we're way ahead of that and staying with the year before the year before.
And it is the single fastest growing digital marketing segment in e -commerce and has been for three years straight. So I am so glad that all of you are here because this is here to stay.
This is not. not no longer the future of e -commerce, this is part of e -commerce. And in the next couple of years, it's gonna be represented about 20 % of e -commerce. So you might be seeing that all those big brands are jumping in,
the Nordstrom, then the Best Buy and grocery stores, some really big hitters are jumping in and seeing some incredible statistics what I'm gonna get to in just a second.
second. But I wanna hit on right here, why is it so successful? And this just isn't just China and America. In fact, we're behind Europe and a lot of other countries with live shopping.
It is everywhere, but why? Why are we all the sudden becoming so excited about it? And I really thought about that and kind of dug deep just in my own mind and came up with what you're seeing here.
And that is, when I think about it, retail, when I think of really two different segments, I think of brick and mortar and I think of e -com. And each one of them has a benefit and each one of them has a deficit.
And what live shopping does in my mind is it takes the very best of brick and mortar and combines it with the very best of e -com and gives you the best of brick.
of both worlds, which lends itself to the statistics that you're gonna see on the next slide. But what are those assets and what are the deficits?
So when I think of e -commerce, what they do very well, as you all know, is they have that broad, broad reach. There is no audience they can't touch because there are no geographical boundaries.
right online you can get to anyone in any country at any time. Where they're challenged is with the conversion rates that they're seeing. So with e -commerce you might know that the average conversion rate right now is about 2 .8%.
Not super exciting. And that represents a big challenge, especially when you think of the Amazons of the world, when you as an independent vendor are competing. with all of this noise,
all of these millions upon millions of products, many of which are right inside your own category niche. How do you set yourself apart? And so that whole conversion rate is really challenging,
ad conversion, everything. Then when I look at brick and mortar, where they're challenged is that they don't have that reach, right? They do have those geographical boundaries. So they don't have that reach.
really only reach people that are within X amount of miles of where they are. But where they really shine is that their conversion rates are incredibly high. And why is that?
When you think of walking into a store, think of walking into Bed Bath and Beyond, you get to walk up to the item and touch it and hold it and feel it. You get to try it on if it were clothing.
You get to put the color up to your face. You get to... really sort of have that tactile sensation as you're shopping. And then if you have questions about it, you sort of have this concierge service because there are people working in the store that will answer any questions that you have.
So that right there translates to really high conversions. So where e -commerce is missing is they don't have that personal touch and where brick and mortar is missing is they don't have that reach live shopping gives you both that reach anytime,
anytime a day as far as you want to reach you can reach. And it also gives you that tactile experience that white glove concierge experience you're getting to know the brand,
you're getting to hear the story about how the product was created, you're getting to ask questions about the product. about the sizing, about what it can work for and how to use it. And so because of that,
that's why live shopping right now is seeing conversion rates of 10 times traditional e -commerce. And I personally know that to be true because I do live shopping every day.
And I know what my conversion rates are and they're hovering right around 30 % that versus standard e -com, which is about 30 % is right around 2 .8%. So that, and I just scratched my head and I think,
gosh, if inventors, if entrepreneurs, if anyone with a product -based business knows that by incorporating live shopping, they can tenfold their current sales conversion.
Why wouldn't they do it? I don't get it. Why isn't, why haven't we gotten to that $70 billion mark yet? And I think it's a case of they don't know that.
They don't know the statistics. They don't know what's possible. And then the second piece to that is even if they did know, they're scared as they should be. It's a whole new frontier.
It's, you know, from, I wouldn't even know what platform to go on to. I wouldn't know what kind of equipment to use. And how would I even get people to come to my live shopping show and what would I do?
when they're there? What would I talk about? All of those things have product -based businesses sort of doing the analysis, paralysis thing, and they're not doing anything. So they're missing out on this opportunity that is just there for the taking.
And so when the UIA and I and Market Live came together and thought, how can we educate the inventor community and what can we give them to get them on board so they can see firsthand the effect that it's having.
that's what this workshop is all about. So it's about educating you on it and then giving you the tools to make it happen for yourself. So let's talk about the statistics that I keep alluding to. Now, I want you to keep in mind as you're looking at this slide,
these are average statistics of brands that are doing it right now. These aren't like the pie in the sky, like maybe you could get to this point, this is what they're seeing.
And I know these to be true. And I might even say they're higher than you. But let's leave them where they are. And I already talked about the conversion rate. Guys, 10 times conversion rate.
And that is because when someone gets to know you, when they connect with you on an authentic level, when they can ask you those questions, they're getting to know you, they're getting to like you and they're getting to trust you.
And when you feel that with someone, that's who you buy from. from ultimately. And so that's what's happening. And so that's what happened to me when I was watching HSN and Joy Magano was on. By the time the show was over,
I knew her and I trusted her and I liked her and I loved all her ideas for how to use the product. And so that sold me. And so that's the effect that you can have on your customers,
that same effect. And Sarah was talking about, she didn't know whether to do this, whether she should be the one to do it or somebody else. Do they have time and all of that? I personally believe that a combination of the two is a really great mix because I don't think there's anyone better to tell the story of your product than you.
And you don't have to be a pro on any level. You only need to be authentic. You don't have to sell on any level. In fact, I would tell you not to sell.
sell. I will tell you that the live shopping events that are most successful are not salesy at all. It's more of an experience, more of an engagement with the audience and fun.
And we'll talk about some of the ways I do that and how you can do that in very different kinds of formats. But in addition to you doing your own, I do think it's a good idea to also have another host be able to do it as well,
whether it's an influencer or someone within your own company that really believes in your product line and knows it inside and out, because it really is something to be said for that third party kind of recommendation.
So I think a combination of both or just one or the other, but something because it's just such a positive for every brand that's doing it. So looking at the second statistic,
and this is kind of obvious, and I joked on a previous workshop that I almost should leave it out because they're saying 90 % report an immediate increase in sales.
And of course they do because they're, if you think about, they're adding another income stream, another way to reach their customer, new eyeballs, new audience,
of course they're going to increase. increase. So it's not a surprise that there's 90 % increase in sales. Everybody that's using it. So that's just kind of an immediate. And again, I scratch my head, if you know that your sales are going to increase,
why wouldn't you? But at the same time, I get it, because I was there, I was scared to death when I first started doing this form of live shopping. And I joke about because I was thrust into it during COVID when I used to go to HSN and have the fancy studio and the cameraman and the cameraman and the cameraman and the cameraman and the cameraman and the cameraman and the cameraman and the cameraman and the
cameraman and the cameraman and the cameraman. and the fancy microphones and all I had to do was show up and talk about my products. And then COVID hit and overnight, they said, "We need you to broadcast from your living room." And I went,
"Well, how? What kind of light? What kind of camera? What kind of mic?" All of that scared me to death, but I had no choice. And you guys are lucky because I had to do it overnight to,
they say, 90 million households. I don't know how many there are at any given time, but a lot all over the country. So it was frightening. And I went through lots of cameras and lots of lighting and so many lavalier microphones,
I can't even count because I was clueless. And so I do understand that fear. And that's why I'm now, and I'm candy's in my live shopping academy now. That is why I created that was because I thought I know everybody's going to.
need you really have no choice but to get on board with live shopping and I just want to give a straight path. I don't want you to have to go live and be scared to death and have the lighting be all wrong and the microphone.
Not work or whatever so that's it's about really kind of spoon feeding you what you need to know to go live confidently and not worry about all that. The third statistic.
This one is so important and and. first I thought, "Wow, could that really be?" And then the more I thought about it, of course it is. So that is up to 30 percent increase in the average customer spend.
So a customer is getting ready to buy XYZ and instead of buying just that, they're buying three other things on top of that, that they wouldn't have bought if it wasn't live shopping. I'm using this example because it's right here.
I've got my makeup, right? This airbrush foundation. that I actually do really like but if I'm just selling this, then, if it's just on a regular static econ image of an Amazon listing if you will,
then I probably just click and buy that. But if I'm watching a live shopping segment and someone saying, oh my gosh, I love this so much it gives you this airbrush finish, but really the way to really get that flawless makeup application is to use it with this brush.
the bristles on this brush are just ultra fine and they really give that kind of blur that we're all looking for. So if you get this you guys really this is over important.
So suddenly they're getting this. And then I say and if you really want to get sort of those hide that look of the high cheekbones, you might want to add this, this contour that I just discovered and I'm really loving and here it is.
And it is just goof proof. flawless, and the combination of these three is amazing. And so before you know it, now they're buying these three. So you can imagine, and that can just keep going and going,
and you can imagine how that average spend goes up so quickly and stays up there. Because again, they're trusting you, they're listening to you. So why not?
Let's try it. And so if you are an inventor, if you just have one product or multiple products, you're in development on a product, be thinking about that just in general. Even if you're not with live shopping because it really is one of the biggest initiatives of most companies right now,
one of the biggest KPIs, key performance indicators, is they're trying to get that average cart amount up. I just was on a company wide HSN call.
That was one of the number one initiatives. was we want that average spend. They use a different acronym for it that I always escapes me, average cart something, but they're trying to get that up even more.
I mean, they already have a high one because they are live shopping, but they're looking for strategies to do that more. So that's something that if you can add that and you can, as you're developing your product, be thinking about those products that you could develop alongside with it so that you can sell more at one time.
But even if you don't have the wherewithal or that's not where you are right now to sell more products, you can always get products on the outside that complement what you're selling or what you've created.
And you can sell those along with, even though it might not be your invention, so to speak, they can be your recommended, you know, complementary products. So that's just kind of a side something to think about.
Number four. huge one. If you're already in retail, you already know how huge this is. 50 % reduction in returns. You know that returns can absolutely kill a business.
And what's happening, what happens on Amazon all the time, and the returns can be extremely high because people are just, it is many times just that static image. They're reading some reviews,
but when they get it home, they might not be using it correctly. correctly, or they might not know that yeah, it works great on this, but not so great on this. And so back it goes in the box and back it goes to Amazon and back you get charged.
But when you have live shopping in the mix, and you're able to again, create that connection with the audience, and they're able to ask you questions real time about the product, you're able to show them exactly how to use it,
and exactly how not to use it. it so knowing like what are those mistakes that people can make in using your product and how can you teach people not to make those mistakes. And I use the example I did in the last workshop.
A personal example that is almost embarrassing to talk about but I'm going to for the betterment of all of you that you learn from my mistake. But when I went on QVC with one of my inventions.
the style stick, which is a temporary fashion adhesive. So it's a bit like double stick tape, but it's in the form of sort of a glue stick is what it looks like. So it's this flawless, easy to use.
If I wanted to, in fact, on air, I would hem my own pants while they're on me. I have a pair of white jeans and high heels. And I've hem them right on camera. And I did all these other demos too,
it's very demonstrable. So... So as you can imagine because it's so demonstrable and so problem solution, we sold out immediately and it was so exciting. I mean within minutes we had sold thousands of them and so I just went oh gravy train this is going to be so much fun.
I can't imagine how big the next order is going to be and so we waited for all the reviews to start to come in. We're waiting for the next order to come in and I'm looking at the reviews and I'm seeing half of them quite literally it was almost down the middle five star reviews one star review and I went oh my god where am I missing what's going on and in hindsight I looked back and I read all the reviews and
because I was so pressed for time as you often are on hsn and qvc you get x amount of minutes I didn't talk about some really key things I didn't talk about the fact that style stick works on about 80 percent 85 percent of fabrics.
There's this handful that it won't work on and here's why. And what was the other thing? And I didn't talk enough about how to use it that you do have to actually press firmly for 30 seconds before you do jumping jacks or anything like that.
So because of that, people were getting style stick home. They were using it on the materials, some of them that it doesn't work on. and they were angry.
I don't blame them for being angry. They thought it was a piece of junk, and this is a product that doesn't work, and she's selling us snake oil. So they would go on and write the one -star reviews. Meanwhile, everyone that used it on the right fabric were thrilled.
So that was a very expensive lesson for me. I luckily had the chance to go take the product to HSN, which I did. And there I had a chance. I had learned from my mistake, and that anti -cell is just so...
so important. So when you are live, that is your opportunity to say, hey, it works great here, doesn't work great here. Let me show you how you really need to be careful when you use it,
follow these steps. And here's where you could mess up, but if you do this, it'll work like a charm. And so if I'm watching that and I'm learning directly from you exactly how to use it,
and I'm also seeing all these tips for how to use it. it in other ways that I would have never thought of on my own. Then I'm not sending this back 'cause by the time it gets to me, I know exactly how to use it and I know how to use it better than most people 'cause I just watched the segment that taught me all these things I would have never figured out on my own.
So not only am I not sending it back, but looking at number five, because now I know you and I wanna help because I'm connected to you, I'm gonna write a positive review.
Most people don't take the time to write reviews because then why would they? They're busy. And it's some, a lot of the companies on Amazon, it's some name I can't even pronounce.
Who's this brand? Why would I take a time to write review about this? But if you've bought it through a live shopping segment and you've gotten to know the person that created it and they've taught you exactly how to use it,
not only are you going to love it and so you'll want to write a positive. review, but you're also going to want to help that person and help their business. And so that's why almost unanimously,
unanimously, people that are doing live shopping are seeing 50 % reduction in returns and drastically more, not only more positive reviews,
but higher stars, more stars. So that, I mean, you can imagine how important that is in today's e -commerce retail landscape in general, just those two alone. And then the last one is that 30 % customer engagement.
And I think for a lot of us, me included, when I heard that it sounds so intangible, like, huh, like, does that really matter that you're getting higher engagement? And I'm here to say it actually really matters.
And that is, it's another one of those KPIs that companies-- are really striving for right now. Because what that means is that's a customer for life. When they're actually engaging with you,
communicating, chatting back and forth and live shopping, when they're writing a review, then they're probably sharing the product with others and telling others about how great it is and what the story is.
So they're becoming your own little tribe, your PR team, without you getting involved. And so that engagement really is translating to a big difference for these companies on their bottom line.
So they're really looking at that and seeing a big positive with live shopping with customer engagement. So those are just some of the core key stats.
I could go on and on about each one of these and I can probably think of six more. But I don't know. going to switch slides here and take you to this one, which is specifically about it's as key benefits for inventors and entrepreneurs.
This is really where me, the inventor is thinking is seeing the benefits and this is how I'm personally using it and this is the part that I want to screen from the rooftops.
to our entire inventor community guys this. this is what you can be doing with live shopping that most people don't know about, but it is so valuable. And so the first one you're seeing there is growing your targeted email list.
And many of you probably know, if you've heard me talk at all, how strongly I feel about the value of your own targeted email list. I give the example 'cause it's just happened about a month or maybe six weeks ago that one of my Facebook followers accounts was shut down out of nowhere.
Luckily, I have three accounts. One of them completely gone, no forewarning, no idea why, no explanation why, just gone. So all of those followers that as you know,
we work really hard to get are gone. And I think about some of the platforms that come and go. I think about TikTok right now. Yes, people are having huge success with TikTok.
but look what's happening around the world. Look at all the countries that are banning it. Who's to say that we're not gonna be the next one and we're putting all of our eggs in this basket and it could be gone tomorrow. And think back,
my space, where's my space? You just don't know. And so that is so out of our control that that's frightening. Whereas when you have a targeted email list, that is yours, nobody can ever take that away from you.
And that is mine. so targeted. Where if you put a video out on TikTok, who knows who's seeing it and liking it? And are they really gonna buy your product or are they just liking? But when you have somebody that cares enough about what you're saying that they wanna give you their email address,
which by the way is so coveted these days, people guard their email addresses like nobody's business. And so when you have somebody on your email list, that's it. a big deal. That's a very warm audience for your product.
And so I use live shopping to grow that list. And I never grown so fast as with live shopping because there's so many ways to grow it.
And probably the number one way that I use is through giveaways. I love doing giveaways. They're fun and everyone gets excited about them. But when it comes to live shopping, shopping, not only do I get their email list for a giveaway that is specific to my product.
So I know they're interested in that product. So I'm building it that way. But then also I'm getting viewers to my live shopping segments because they want to see if they won. And then once they're there, they're staying to the very end because that's when I announced the winner.
So it's creating this fun environment that people kind of, you know, really look forward to and they can't wait. wait to find out if it's them. But it's also really helping me by growing my targeted list.
But in the process, I'm connecting with them and we're having fun with it. So it's just this win -win all the way around. And there's many, many other ways I use live shopping to grow my list. And that's all things that I teach inside the Live Shopping Academy.
The second one I wanna get to, as you can see in all caps with an exclamation point is content, content. content because I know because I am exactly where I'm still exactly where you are in the sense that I mean we're all in the social media world where we're we struggle with what to post what is anybody going to care about what oh my gosh I have to come up with something again what am I going to post about
should it be a video should it be a still what platforms all those things when you have live shopping when you do live shopping on a regular basis basis, or even if you just did it once, the amount of content that that generates for you is endless.
So one live shopping segment for me, if I'm doing Amazon live, let's say, and I'm talking about five different products, and I know this is going to be different, and I'll get to that, but when I'm doing my Amazon influencer things,
and I'm talking about five different products, when my segment is over, I'll download that, and I can turn that one segment into five smaller segments, one for each product.
And then I can take that smaller segment and create content, turn it into a post that I can put on all the different platforms out there that drive traffic either back to my website or back to Amazon if I wanted them to be there or wherever I want them to be,
I can drive through that one piece of content. I can also create content. still posts that drive to my full live shopping segment. So there's all different ways to use that to go back to wherever you want it to go to.
And again, these are strategies that I get into, but I want you to just start to imagine what a content machine you have when you do live shopping. So if you're someone you're not an Amazon influencer or an influencer,
you're just talking about your own products. products. So you could do, let's say there's so many different ways, your segments don't have to be just about actual live selling, so to speak.
It could be, you could do one segment that's all about FAQs. What are the most frequently asked questions that your customers ask? And then you can talk about what those answers are. And let's say you talk about five of them.
You've just created five pieces of content that you can now push out to all the different platforms out out there. Maybe you have an expert on one time and you talk about a few you ask him or her several different questions.
Each one of those questions and answers just became a piece of content that can go across multiple social media platforms. So it's gold, gold in terms of social media content and it's effortless because you're you're doing this lifestyle in a segment anyway and now it's it's like cha -ching.
Here comes all your social media content for the next month or two months. And if that scares you, how to edit it and how would I put it out there? And all of that, I get it. And I personally did get a virtual assistant to help me with that.
I do know how to edit my videos, but it does take a little time. So I hire someone from Fiverr or Upwork. Very, they do it for very little money. They'll take that. and turn it into as many different little segments as I want.
And then they give them back to me and now I can go put them out. Or you can have a $10 an hour virtual assistant who's scheduled all that for you and gets it all out there for you. But imagine how that just exponentially extends your reach of who would have seen your product without live shopping to who's gonna see it now.
Not only because you did the live shopping segment but because of what you've seen. did afterward. And the brands that are doing live shopping are saying that on average, 70 % or more of their sales happen after the segment.
So if you're someone that is sitting there watching this going, okay, fine, I get the value, I know I need to do this, but who is going to come watch my segment? I want to tell you that if zero people watch your segment,
it's okay. and it doesn't matter because you've got that content now and you're going to get that content out there. So it's what you do with that content after even if you have no eyeballs.
The very first time I went live, I had three sets of eyeballs and I do joke that it probably was my mom and my dad and my brother. So that was the first time.
But then each time you do it, you get that consistency. consistency is really really key and you'll be surprised how quickly those numbers jump and how people want to come back again and again.
And so you're creating that engagement and that connected relationship that is going to serve you for years. It's so valuable. I'm not going to hit on every single one because I could just go on and on but you're seeing the bullet points there the only one I did.
do want to touch on because it might not be so obvious is the excellent product customer and market research tool. I really do see live shopping as such a gift for inventors and entrepreneurs who are in development on a product or already have a product that's out there and they're thinking about what's next or they're thinking about different versions of the product.
Sarah, I'll use you as an example with your product. I could imagine that you think about different sizes that you might be considering bringing out. Or I can imagine that you think about different uses for it.
I mean, what I have found, like I have, my beauty case is one of my hero products. And what I have learned through live shopping and through asking my customers questions,
any questions. even people who aren't customers yet asking them questions. It has changed the game and I attribute so much of my success to that because it's taught me how to sell my product differently.
If I do a live shopping segment about that beauty case and I get to chat with people and I say how are you using yours and they say oh you know what I use it for. I use it for all my medications and I keep it up on the shelf in the pantry and I hope you family knows that it's all perfectly organized.
I was like, hello, I would have never thought to use that for medications. So they taught me that. And now I talk about it in my HSN presentation because so many people, when I said that, that great,
great use. I use it for when I'm thinking about coming out with, or not thinking about, I'm launching a new, a new color selection in Q4 for holiday.
holiday. And so I'm kind of stumped on which colors to come out with. So then I'll host a live shopping segment and invite people to get their opinion. And I'll tell them, I want you to come on because I'm getting ready to do a new launch and I want to get your opinion on colors.
And they love it. They love being a part of your process and learning how that all works. And then when they're a part of your process, what's so exciting is that now they're like,
they're feeling they're on the product development team. So when you launch, you can bet they are going to be there for that launch and they're going to buy and they're probably going to tell all their friends to watch too,
because they had to say so in the colors that ultimately ended up in the next collection. That is true story. I use that all the time for many, many of my products.
And I mean, I'm probably everyone on there on here. I don't know what everyone's different different products are, but I'm sure your wheels are spinning about ways that you could do that. And for us to invent in a vacuum and come up with products and sizes and colors and things because we think maybe the audience will like that,
versus being able to literally turn it on and ask and find out and do a poll, that is so valuable. So that's just one more thing that I just had to hit on.
on of why I'm so excited about this platform for you guys and product launches on there too. I'm working with an eventer right now who is launching something at the end of May and we're working together to create a whole product launch runway of different live shopping segments where she can get people,
get people really pumped about it and doing different kinds of live shopping segments, just building. building to this big launch and doing giveaways of it. And so her email list is gonna grow and all these different things can happen moving toward that launch 'cause she's so afraid she's gonna launch and there's gonna be just crickets.
And I said, no, not if we put all these pieces in place with live shopping and you have access to do that. And it costs almost nothing and you can do it whenever you want. And so that's why it's,
I mean, it's almost. of all the different segments out there that I can think of who benefits most from live shopping, it's us, it's inventors and entrepreneurs. It's all about connecting with the customer,
letting them ask questions, showing them things up close, giving them different ideas on how to use them, telling them where I have some of the most success is when I talk about gifting.
Like it's, Like as soon as I start saying this is such a great gift for, it's amazing how many more quantity each customer gets. Because you start them thinking about,
"Oh yeah, I could get that for so -and -so for a wedding gift and oh that would be a great housewarming gift for so -and -so." And so that's again going to that average customer spend. Like the beauty case, when I'm live with the beauty case,
people are buying 10, 12 of them at a time. time because I'm talking about all the different ways that you can gift it and what you could put inside and when they open it, how great is that gonna be when you've put a couple of different toiletries in for the vacation that they're getting ready to take?
Stuff like that cannot be translated in a simple e -com static listing, it just can't. And so that's why people are buying one and many times sending it back 'cause it wasn't the size they thought it was.
was going to be because they didn't get to really see it up close and personal. That's the downfall of e -commerce. But live shopping changes the game completely. One thing I do want to hit on on this slide.
It's really that live stream event quality, because there was school of thought of, oh, the greatest thing about live shopping is you have to worry that anything you could just turn your phone on and just. sell live and be done with it." And while that would be great if that was true,
what we have found is that it's not so true, but that doesn't mean it's daunting and can't be done. You just have to have those tips and tricks to do it correctly, but if you ever go on Amazon Live,
you'll see that at any given time, there's tens of hundreds of different lives going on and some of them are truly unwatchable. unwatchable. Like clearly they did just turn their phone on and they forgot to turn the lights on or the phone's up here and their product is down here.
So it really, they've done studies on this and what is it that keeps an audience engaged and wanting to watch and having that good quality where you can really hear clearly where the picture is a nice quality that really draws people in and makes them want to stay.
stay. The poor quality, the mic kind of crackling, the different, you know, different elements not being thought through, that's where you lose them. So I do really believe in that. And that's why one of the reasons I created the Life Shopping Academy is because it took me so long to come up with that well -oiled machine of all the,
whether it's the equipment or whether it's where to set the lighting or how to keep my audience engaged when they're on and how do I structure the show to keep people wanting to stay until the end? All of those things took me so long and so much trial and error.
And so that's why I created the Live Shopping Academy 'cause I want everyone to be able to take advantage of what's there, but to be successful and to feel confident when they're doing it. And if you know all of those things,
then you will feel confident and you will be successful. And then also the pre -event promotion and the repurposing of the content. We talked about that briefly, but that's also what's inside the Live Shopping Academy is we talk about all those different ways to drive viewers to your segments. And then once they're there to keep them engaged and then probably most importantly,
is after that segment how to repurpose the content and how to do it effectively. - So thank you guys so much for being on here. - I hope it was valuable. I hope you-- you no matter what that you've been enlightened to the world of live shopping and How you can use it and how valuable it can be for you and for your product and for just the future of your business Because it is here and it is not going away and
the idea of you guys getting on board When it's still relatively new and when you can really have a chance to set your brand apart and to really shine through live shopping I think it's super exciting.
So I hope you guys all take care advantage of it. And I hope to see you guys inside the live shopping Academy.