Zara is reportedly planning to take its live shopping shows to the UK, Europe and the US this year, on the back of growing popularity in China, where the format was launched in November.
According to a Reuters report, the fast-fashion brand is investing in new ways to engage shoppers with analysts expecting sales growth to slow after a huge post-pandemic surge.
On Wednesday, Zara’s parent company Inditex will report quarterly results. The shopping broadcasts, which can last for up to five hours, have proved hugely popular in China where there are broadcast weekly on Douyin, TikTok’s Chinese sister site. Thry have also reportedly been a catalyst for improved sales in the region.
While Western audiences are less familiar with the livestream concept, a recent GlobalData report highlighted livestream shopping as a growing trend in China. Livestream shopping allows customers to view and buy products via online video streams hosted on e-commerce platforms.
Although, still early days, there have been several recent launches aiming to tap into a new market in the U.S. Last year, online streaming platform TalkShopLive unveiled a new live shopping tool that allows sellers to simulcast their stream to multiple destinations at once, with Facebook being the first to rollout.
Shoppable Simulcast allows US-based sellers to seamlessly simulcast their shoppable livestreams to their Facebook business page as a Facebook Live, all the while keeping the shopping element intact. Retail giant, Walmart was one of the first to implement this technology.
Additionally, Agora recently expanded the availability of its livestream shopping technology across the U.S. As well as shoppable livestreams, the solution supports live auctions, personal shopper experiences, and e-commerce-related video chat for customer service.
