Livestream Shopping for Jewelry Brands

Laryssa Wirstiuk 00:08
Welcome to the Joy Joya podcast where jewelry is joy and everyone is encouraged to add more polish and sparkle to the world. With topics ranging from marketing tips to business development, best practices and beyond. This is the go-to podcast for ambitious jewelry industry dreamers like you.

0:31
Hi, I’m your host Laryssa Wirstiuk. Through this podcast I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and professionals so they can thrive while doing what they love. I’m passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands, and I’m excited to share my passion with you. As we all know jewelry is joy, so I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

0:55
This is episode 172, and today I’m going to talk about all the opportunities in live stream shopping for jewelry brands. I recently gave a presentation on this topic at the American Gem Society’s Conclave event. I just got back yesterday from Oklahoma City for this event so it’s fresh on my mind. The thing I loved most about giving this presentation was at the end, all of the audience feedback and collaborative discussion that was happening among the people in the room for this presentation. A number of retailers who were there chimed in to share their experiences about how powerful livestream content has been for their businesses. Not just during COVID when shoppers couldn’t come in store, but also even now, even with stores being open, customers are craving the flexibility and convenience in shopping. So giving this presentation was inspiring to me, and it truly affirmed the power of live stream shopping, and I wanted to share that with you.

2:06
But before we get to the solid gold of this episode, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both an audio and video component. So you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform, or watch on YouTube by searching Joy Joya. I love creating this content as my active service to you my awesome listeners and you can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe but also to leave a rating and review on iTunes which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too.

2:37
In this segment of the podcast I give out my sparkle award for the week. So during this segment, I highlight a jewelry brand that’s impressing me with their marketing. The sparkle award is also interactive so you can visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days, and I might feature your submission on a future podcast episode. This week sparkle award goes to Exclusively Diamonds they are a jewelry retailer based in, I hope I’m saying it right, Mankato, Minnesota. Owner Sara and her daughter Bryce attended my talk on live stream content at the American Gem Society Conclave, and they shared with the audience their own successes with live streaming. So they host a live event every Wednesday called Wine Wednesday, which according to them has become a really fun addition to their digital marketing mix and an excellent way to engage their customers. You should look them up on Instagram check out what they’re doing with live stream content. It might give you ideas for your own jewelry brand. They are @exclusivelydiamonds on Instagram. As I mentioned, you can visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days, and I might feature your submission on a future podcast episode.

3:58
Let’s talk about some recent news related to jewelry or marketing. Each week I share my thoughts about three relevant articles and you can get those links by visiting joyjoya.com/signup. Once you’re on that VIP list, you’ll receive our weekly digest filled with new episode announcements.

4:17
First article comes from mediaposts.com and it’s called consumers now spend as much time with digital payment as email according to an experian study. That’s kind of crazy. So Experian Global Insights report revealed that consumers are becoming more and more comfortable with digital payments and using them as much as they do with email. These were some stats from the study’s findings. First of the people polled 62% used mobile wallets to buy online while 63% use their credit cards and 64% use direct debit bid payments. What’s really interesting to me is this stat about Buy Now Pay Later or BNPL. These are services like Afterpay, Klarna and Affirm. So according to this survey 18% have used BNPL options in the past 16 months, and 57% say BNPL could replace their traditional payment method. Most shoppers polled who are using BNPL 80% say the reason that they’re using that is to avoid credit card debt. It’s becoming a really popular option, I would say, especially for your millennial customers, for your Gen Z customers and if you’re not offering a buy now pay later option on your ecommerce site, you could be missing that last opportunity when someone is on the fence not sure if they want to make that payment, you could be missing that customer. So it’s definitely something worth considering implementing. When it comes to data sharing and payments online, 63% of shoppers said they are willing to share data if they receive value from it. 45% are willing to do so out of convenience. So say it’s easier to open an account and 57% if it ensures greater security. The most active age group when it comes to digital payments and online spending that will be 25-39 years old.

6:35
The next article comes from smartbrief.com and it’s all about the recent Etsy seller strike which you may have heard about. So this article is called, The Etsy seller strike was about marketing, of course as a marketer that caught my eye. These sellers, they went on a week long strike starting April 11th to protest an increase in transactional fees and marketplace charges for sales through the Etsy platform. So if you haven’t heard Etsy recently increased its transactional fees from 5%-6.5% and the company says that it’s for brand marketing purposes. Last year, Etsy actually spent $500 million on advertising and they’re doing that to really stay competitive with the other marketplaces specifically like Amazon and eBay. They’re only planning to increase that spend this year according to CEO Josh Silverman. This strike was initiated due to sellers concerns about offsite product ads that the platform creates on behalf of the sellers. Basically, what happens is if the ad that’s being placed by Etsy results in a sale, the sellers actually have to pay, I guess, a portion of that fee, and they’re not able to opt out of that. So the strikers are saying that this advertising program on which they have no control over cost per click, or even on which items from their store get advertised, that that should not be a requirement to be a seller on the platform. However, despite all these concerns, some sellers actually welcome the fee increase, and they encourage those other striking sellers, to search for ways to cut costs rather than protest Etsy. I personally, maybe this is controversial. I’m kind of on the side of Etsy, because I understand how competitive these marketplaces are. Imagine trying to be a big marketplace company like Etsy, fighting with the likes of Amazon, and even eBay. You’re doing this not for yourself, but for your sellers, because your company is the sellers who are on it and if you’re not able to maintain that visibility to be in front of customers to compete among these other marketplaces, then your sellers are not going to want to sell on your platform. So it’s kind of a double edged sword in this way and I feel like Etsy is probably between a rock and a hard place. I understand nobody wants an increase in transactional fees, but what are you supposed to do in this competitive world. For me, it’s a really interesting topic, and I’m kind of curious to see how it continues to play out.

9:39
Then the last article is about something I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned on this podcast called Web Scraping. TechCrunch recently reported that Web Scraping is legal and the US appeals court reaffirms that. The US Supreme Court recently reaffirmed its original decision and and found that scraping data that’s publicly accessible on the internet is not a violation, and that it’s actually legal. So what is web scraping? Sounds kind of weird like maybe you’re taking a knife to the internet and like slowly whittling away at it. So for marketers, it’s actually a useful and popular tool, it can help save time, automate everyday tasks for marketers, web developers, other people who utilize this data. It can do things like help you collect email addresses and other contact details, and gather prices and product information. Now, of course, this is only taking data from things that are publicly available. It’s not like hacking into any sort of protected data source. But it’s an automation and I don’t fully understand the actual technology behind it. But it kind of literally scrapes some kind of public database of names, product info, email addresses, and puts them all in one database, so that marketers especially can use that data to do whatever kind of marketing initiatives they’re going to do. It’s often frowned upon because it’s sometimes misused. As you can imagine, people use that for spamming purposes. This is one quote from the article, “when companies can quickly build giant contact lists, sometimes with people who did not receive communications, it opens the floodgates for spam.” So it’s a really controversial topic and a confusing one, but from our legal point of view, the US Supreme Court says that this is okay and when used positively, it does have a lot of practical uses. It can be a way of collecting and analyzing information in a faster way. But anyone who’s using this kind of tool should do it responsibly and also be aware of like the negative consequences that can happen if you are using it in like an evil way. Really interesting topic.

12:14
As I mentioned, if you want to get the links to the articles I share in the segment of the podcast, you can become a Joy Joya VIP by visiting joyjoya.com/signup.

12:26
All right, let’s talk about live stream shopping. A really fun, interesting topic super up and coming very important, very relevant in 2022, and will continue to be relevant in the coming years. Let me give you some context and if you’re not already convinced about the power of live stream shopping content, let’s get into some data. So according to McKinsey data from 2021, Apparel and Fashion are the most common live commerce categories, and they account for 36% of live stream shopping events. Last year data from Klarna shows 60% of shoppers find live stream shopping events improved their online shopping experience while, wait for this one, 47% of shoppers would even prefer live stream shopping over in store shopping. I know that still less than half but 47% seems really high to me. Can you imagine someone would rather have a shopping experience on their phone with like a host or a salesperson presenting an item to them rather than going into a store and experiencing the item for themselves? It’s pretty startling to me. Also, if you’re listening and you sell luxury goods, well, here’s some good news for you. Luxury products have a 70% conversion rate when live video is used. So if you’re selling luxury products, and you’re not utilizing live stream shopping, you could potentially be missing a major opportunity here.

14:11
Live Stream shopping offers the best of what consumers want from a seamless shopping experience. They get convenience since they can shop from home in their loungewear and even pour themselves a glass of wine or other favorite beverage and they get the expertise and knowledge of a salesperson in store which they’re not going to get just from E commerce shopping alone, on their own, on a website, trying to figure out what they want and need. So you’re convinced it’s awesome now right?

14:46
Let me tell you a little bit of history about live stream shopping so we can get to live stream shopping in its current state today in 2022, as well as how you can implement it for your jewelry brand with some best practices.

15:02
Well, it really first took off in China, where it’s pretty much booming now. According to McKinsey, the value of China’s live commerce market grew at a compound annual growth rate of more than 280% between 2017 and 2020, reaching an estimated $171 billion in 2020.

15:24
If you haven’t really participated in the live stream shopping experience, whether doing it for your business or watching it as a consumer, you may have some trouble imagining what it’s like. So you might have watched some home shopping networks, then at least you have some context. But at the same time, home shopping is not exactly the same as livestream shopping. With home shopping channels like QVC, and Jewelry Television or JTV. These are examples of two companies that sold jewelry live before the birth of like web 2.0 let’s say. There are usually scripted dialogues, and a very heavy, if not exclusive focus on selling product, there’s little room for entertainment, branded content or educational content.

16:20
Some benefits that live stream shopping has that are not in the home shopping like QVC, for example, there’s interaction and engagement with the viewers, you can see in real time, how the viewers are responding, you can get feedback immediately whether people like or don’t like a product, or what they might want to see differently, you get a really authentic and transparent conversation with your target customers. It’s accessible from anywhere, it doesn’t require a television, or a paid cable subscription. So it’s accessible both from the perspective of the business and from the perspective of the consumer. It really levels the playing field for everyone and has a low barrier to entry. So it’s easier for any jewelry business, to literally say, today, I want to start live stream shopping. I mean, it might not be the best quality thing you’ve ever done but you could literally start in the next five minutes and get it up and running. Obviously, that was not possible before this technology was available and only limited to more of these cable home shopping platforms. So that’s super exciting.

17:44
With more brands, creating content on platforms where people are also going to be entertained. So say Youtube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, the line between entertainment and selling has really become blurred. Consumers, they don’t want to be sold at all the time, they want to have an enjoyable shopping experience something that’s engaging, distracting, inspiring, brings joy to their day. Definitely, if you want more information about that, I would go back to my episode about how to have fun with jewelry marketing. I forget the episode number now, but I’ll link it in the show notes. It really emphasizes again, this blurred line between shopping and entertainment as a result of the ways that we shop today on the same platforms where we go to be entertained by the influencers, by the content creators. So that’s what brands are up against and they have to create content that’s in line with the platforms on which they are sharing content.

18:57
Again, live stream shopping can be entertaining, you can take the best of the best of your brick and mortar experience, the best of the best of your brand, the things that are really fun and engaging about it, and easily show that in a digital live way. You can reach your audience wherever and again real time engagement. Live Stream shopping can also help you build brand awareness. So even if you’re not focused on selling, selling, selling all the time, live stream shopping can help customers feel a more personal connection to your brand. It allows your brand to tell a story and you can let customers know what you stand for. You can strengthen relationships with existing customers, and also attract new customers who for whatever reason may be hesitant to shop with you if you have a brick and mortar store. Maybe, I don’t know they have some preconceived notion that like if they go into your store, it’s going to be a really high pressure experience. Or I don’t know, maybe they think it’s like not for them. So they’re nervous about coming into the store. But now they can really dip their toe into your brand, with a really low commitment level and then realize, oh, this actually is for me and it can obviously help you generate sales. Live Stream shopping can inspire impulse buying, it can boost sales volume of your underperforming products, it can shorten the customer journey, and it can potentially lower your product return rate, especially in comparison with E-commerce.

20:36
E-commerce sometimes it’s hard to really know if a product is right for you. Even if you have all the pictures, all the specs. With live stream, the product can be demonstrated, it can be tried on, it could be showed in a lot of different ways. So the customer has a better idea of what they will be getting and kind of less of a chance is being taken on that purchase.

21:01
So let me give you some examples of brands that utilize livestream shopping.

21:05
Swarovski, they use live video to provide one on one virtual shopping and consultations. Online customers are able to connect with a shop assistant and get a real time virtual tour of a physical store to look at different products, ask questions and get close ups from the comfort of home.

21:24
Jared is another one. Here’s the quote from them, “We want to make sure our customers can fulfill their mission to celebrate life and express love, no matter where they’re physically located, and yet still tap the expertise of our trusted Jewelry Consultants and an expert who has her finger on the pulse of style.” So they do live streams on topics like bridal trends. In February, they had a Valentine’s Day gift guide. There was another one about ways to shop engagement rings.

21:55
Jenny Bird is another example of a brand. They use live video for the public to share products, styling tips, and they have conversations through Instagram Live as well as doing what’s Swarovski does, providing one on one virtual shopping appointments.

22:12
Habib is another one. They are a Malaysian jewelry brand with both an E commerce presence and multiple brick and mortar showrooms throughout Malaysia and I work with them so I have kind of a soft spot for this brand. They use live video amazingly. It was something they started out of necessity during COVID when all of their showrooms were closed. They were looking for new and innovative ways to connect with their customers. So they use live video to share products, styling tips, product information, education, showroom and factory tours and more through Instagram Live and you can check them out @Habibjewelsofficial that’s H-A-B-I-B Jewels Official, they do an excellent job too of promoting their Instagram Live sessions beforehand, and then posting information on the main feed and through stories. There’s also an option for followers to set a reminder for the live so they don’t forget.

23:14
Then another brand is Judith Ripka. They bring on guests, and customers can even RSVP for the lives on the Judith Ripka website by entering their email address.

23:25
So what are some of the most popular platforms for live stream shopping? Definitely Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, are the major players, also YouTube and then Amazon live if you do sell on the Amazon marketplace.

23:41
If you want to get started with the live stream shopping strategy, definitely set your goals and I mean specific goals. So do you want to increase your revenue by a certain amount within a specific period of time? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Do you want to just educate your customers? Do you want to use live as a way to inspire people to come into your store? Whatever it is have specific goals around the live stream shopping, then of course you want to brainstorm content. You want to have topics maybe at least for three months out, how often are you going to be doing these lives? What are the themes going to be which products do you want to be highlighting? I would definitely recommend integrating this into your overall marketing calendar so that the topics for your lives also match products or collection you’re highlighting, your email marketing campaigns, your regular social media posts so that everything is consistent and feels integrated for the customer.

24:47
Obviously, you’ll want to choose a relatable, charismatic, dynamic host, someone who feels comfortable on camera and if you are a one person show this might be a little bit of a stretch for you, if you feel like you don’t have the practice of being on Instagram Live, but I can tell you from the talk I did at Conclave, after I finished and people from the audience had a chance to chime in, many of them very small teams, or even one person teams who started doing live stream shopping. All of them said, it was a little bit awkward and weird at first. But with practice, it becomes better, and you start to learn what customers respond to. So I would say that practice makes perfect for this kind of thing and you just have to get started. If you keep putting it off, because you think you’re not good at it, you’re not going to get anywhere with it.

25:44
Choose the right space and location, you want to have good lighting, a clear non distracting background, maybe a branded background with your logo behind you. You can see in my video, I’m ducking, so you can see my logo marks on the wall. If you’re watching this on YouTube. You will need, if you’re doing it from a computer, maybe a webcam with HD functionality, a microphone that you can purchase on a site like Amazon, maybe if you don’t have good natural light, a ring light or some kind of lighting setup.

26:23
Then you definitely want to choose your key performance indicators, the data that’s going to help you know whether or not you are achieving your goals and then pay attention to the data. So that you can make adjustments and changes as you go, whether that’s changing the time of day, the day of the week, which platform you’re using, the length of your videos, these are all things you can adjust based on the content.

26:50
Then try to experiment with a regular schedule and stick to it for a certain period of time, maybe like three months to really let it work. Because if you’re constantly shifting and being inconsistent, then you’re never going to really gain traction for it.

27:06
Then here are some tips for success. So definitely promote it before the event. Unless you already have an established audience, and one so that you can do it spontaneously, and people will just hop on. But that takes a pretty long time to get to that point, you want to schedule them ahead of time and again, give it the time and space to promote it. Choose products that really show up well on camera. So maybe avoid those like dainty little pieces with the fine details that will be difficult to translate for a camera and maybe practice beforehand just with yourself to make sure that they are showing up well. Tell a story about the products, really show passion and enthusiasm behind the products that you’re showing. Try to incorporate some interactive elements to really build and encourage engagement. So maybe those are things like quizzes, polls, giveaways, Q and A’s. Those are my tips.

28:05
Sorry, I kind of ended that abruptly. But I would love to hear if you have experimented with livestream content, like what has your experience been? I have just been learning so much from listening to all of the ways that people have taken this on because both the beauty and the challenge of this is that there are no rules. So I can tell you all these best practices and guide you. But I can’t necessarily give you a roadmap because you are able to take this and run with it and really make it your own and adapt it to your brand into what your customers want and need. So that looks different from brand to brand and it requires some creativity, some testing, willingness to try new things and personally I find that to be really exciting.

29:04
So what did you think? You can always email me Laryssa, that’s L-A-R-Y-S-S-A@joyjoya.com. If you love this podcast, please share it with a friend who’d appreciate it and don’t forget to subscribe as well as leave a review on iTunes.

29:19
To purchase a signed copy of my book Jewelry Marketing Joy. Visit joyjoya.com/book for more information.

29:27
Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more information about working with Joy Joya visit joyjoya.com where you can sign up to download our free eBooks about various topics in jewelry marketing.