Facebook debuts ‘Live Shopping Fridays’ featuring beauty, fashion and skincare brands – ProWellTech

With this week’s launch of the Live Shopping Fridays series of events, Facebook wants to whet consumers’ appetites for live streaming shopping, with bigger brands watching live streaming of beauty, skin care and fashion content every week. The event begins on Friday May 22nd and lasts through mid-July with streams from brands like Abercrombie and Fitch, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Sephora, Dermalogica, Alleyoop and Zox.

The events are intended to encourage larger brands to try out live shopping as a medium and to raise consumer awareness of live shopping on Facebook in general.

The brands will use their live shopping events in a number of ways. They may give a behind-the-scenes look at their company or work with developers to showcase their products in, for example, how-to-style videos.

During the live streams, viewers can comment and ask questions that brands can read and answer. Buyers can also tap the products shown in the stream to learn more without leaving the video. If they want to buy, they can always add them to the cart and check out – during or even after the event is over. The brands receive the customer’s shipping information. If the consumer chooses to do so, they can also access other details such as email and phone number.

Live video purchases became publicly available on Facebook last summer after a series of smaller tests and beta tests that initially caught the attention of small to medium-sized businesses and digital-first brands, according to Facebook.

The Covid pandemic has also spurred adoption of the format in some cases as creative business owners turned to live shopping to reach their customers when lockdowns closed non-essential stores.

Credit: Facebook

More recently, bigger brands like it Petco and Bobbi Brown have hosted live shopping events – the first as part of a charity drive and the second with a live stream of tips from makeup artist Michele Shakeshaft. (In the picture)

“We think that e-commerce has made purchasing incredibly convenient. So when you have a need, pull out your phone, buy, and your order is on the way, ”explains Yulie Kwon Kim, who runs the product for Facebook App Commerce.

“But buying is not buying. And so much of what people do is window shopping to see what’s new, for entertainment. You discover something cool that you didn’t know about. When shopping, people often want to hear from a living person, get suggestions, and see the product and context, ”she says. “And more and more people are discovering and choosing what to buy on social media,” Yulie adds.

She also notes that nearly three-quarters of consumers worldwide get shopping ideas through Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, and nearly two-thirds agree that social media has become as important as other sources of information in making purchasing decisions.

According to Facebook, the live events will be presented to consumers in different ways during the summer. When you follow a brand, you will be notified of their participation. You will also see newsfeed announcements notifying you when events begin (see above). On the Facebook Shop tab you will find a schedule for the upcoming live shopping streams that will take place across the platform.

Of course, Facebook isn’t the only one to tap the full potential of live shopping.

Startups such as NTWRK, Popshop Live, Talkshoplive, Dote, Bambuser and others brought the live shopping model with them already popular in China to the US and other markets, many months before the pandemic. TikTok tested live shopping, including with Walmart in the US.

Meanwhile, Amazon broadcasts live streams on its website and on YouTube Announced earlier this year its beta testing of an integrated e-commerce experience.

As for Facebook, a live shopping platform could ultimately serve as a significant source of income thanks to the sales fees applied at checkout. While Facebook waived these sales fees until June 2021 – a Decision it claims was to help small businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic – this move is also helping Facebook take its place in the land grab of the live stream shopping market. With this in mind, Facebook also needs to diversify its earnings Apple’s data protection push third party persecution will affect Facebook’s advertising business.

Facebook’s Live Shopping Fridays series will be released this week in the US on both mobile and desktops, and will also appear on the Facebook Store tab for easy access.