Live Shopping: the latest from Facebook and Pinterest

The Live Shopping trend is showing no sign of slowing down, if anything, it's speeding up. In May, the two big platforms announced new features in the move towards interactive shopping. 

To develop e-commerce on its platform, Facebook launches “Live Shopping Fridays”. In concrete terms, these are weekly events that will run until 16 July 2021. 

Pinterest also tested live events on its platform. Live Events enabled content creators to talk to users about subjects that interested them. 

Arcane demystifies the Live Shopping trend and the changes involved in these two new features for you.

Live Shopping Fridays on Facebook

Live Shopping on Facebook allows users to view live product presentations as well as enjoying the advantages of online shopping (easy payment, convenience, etc.).

An insight into the Live features offered by Facebook.

Live Shopping Fridays is presented as one of this summer's events. There are two objectives: 

• For brands, it's a chance to create new connections with buyers by offering livelier interactive content, as well as answering their questions easily.
• For buyers, the advantage also lies in the convenience offered by online shopping combined with a level of service similar to that experienced in a physical store.

Facebook brings this about by using its "Shop" tab which allows users to buy the product they want immediately via links.

All the actors present at the event belong to the world of fashion and beauty.  Brands such as Sephora, Clinique and Abercrombie & Fitch are all taking advantage of this new feature.

A 3-day live streaming event on Pinterest

From 24 to 26 May 2021, Pinterest offered a live streaming event. The objective was to enable popular creators to present content live on their chosen subject. 

As with other live events, the advantage for the user was to be able to communicate live with the creators. 

This test turned out to be a first trial with Live Shopping for the platform. However, the products presented could not be bought.

Live Shopping: what's in it for the platforms?

Live Shopping has been really booming in the western world since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Covid has encouraged the broadcasting of live content and new ways of selling for the brands. The platforms are now demonstrating decided creativity in the way they are organising new live events. 

This desire to get involved in live broadcasting is also a reminder of the success of the Twitch platform. Basically dedicated to gaming, it enables the broadcasting of live content above all and is now opening up to an increasingly wide audience. 

What conclusions can we draw from all this? Live Shopping (and live events in general) now seems to be firmly rooted in the digital landscape. In the end, the most important thing for brands will be not to miss the boat. Please feel free to contact us find out more about the subject!