I Love That for You: Why eBay and Etsy should be dominating live shopping and the future of commerce.
If you aren’t familiar with live shopping, think: QVC for this generation.
As small businesses and individual resellers figured out how to build audiences and be the face of their own online storefronts, video and reliable WIFI meant many of these selling opportunities became dynamic shopping experiences — dare I say, shoppertainment.
Traditional retailers and e-commerce giants that could justify the logistics and production investment to implement video slideshows (in place of static photography) have been part of meeting an increasingly sophisticated shopper, who happens to have significantly better broadband. And whether these video-based shopping experiences happened on-site or in the social feeds, an increasing volume of appointment-style shopping has taken hold.
That was until March 16, 2023, when Instagram users were no longer able to tag products while livestreaming. Meta appears to have walked back live shopping functionality across its platforms, both Instagram and Facebook, potentially stalling live shopping’s grip on consumers.
But this morning, the New York Times published an interesting glimpse into the world of live shopping, making clear that “The market for selling goods in real time online is relatively small, but a number of start-ups and big tech names are betting American consumers will catch on.”
And as The Business of Fashion writes, “outside Asian markets, companies have yet to see lasting success in melding social media and e-commerce. But platforms and brands continue to adapt social selling to meet their respective consumers.”
Even though the stay-at-home captive audiences that boredom-shopped for hours when life was in lockdown have started to return to their pre-pan shopping habits, there is a trending demand as both the NYT and BOF point out.
So which platform with the audience and the technology is willing to take a leap? And why should it be the Pinterests or TikToks of the world? Why not a retailer? Why not a reseller?
I was walking past Etsy’s HQ in DUMBO, Brooklyn this morning, marveling at the new businesses taking up more space in the adjoining warehouses and offices — the ones that had been eerily quiet during the pandemic, while shoppers were spending a fortune in the cloud, so to speak. It was easy to imagine Etsy taking over some of that space to create a rentable studio for its top sellers to come and shoot amazing content for their stores, and even produce live shopping segments with sound-proofing, proper lighting, tabletop and green screens. There are certainly enough creatives, photographers, and producers knocking around the area who could build a slick shopping/selling studio service.
What if eBay did the same thing in its midtown offices or any of the currently unoccupied space all over the city? The company certainly has the inventory, audience, community, and algorithm to turn itself into a dominant live shopping player.
There are little studios popping up in Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and all over the city for podcasters and creator/influencers to do their thing. Why not offer up a similar solution but do it in a way that rev-shares and/or keeps your best sellers loyal to your platform?
For all the head-scratching around why live shopping continues to boom in some markets and sputter in others, it is clearly not dead. Not yet. And probably not at all. The Gen Zs alone are hustling like mad to build storefronts and turn passion projects into businesses. If Etsy or eBay aren’t the right players, I am sure The Real Real or YouTube will soon figure out that monetizing and professionalizing reseller content is a healthy business.
