Live shopping, the future of retail and a great example of the new trend “shoppertainment”.
This week on the S.O.B. (Small Owned Business) Marketing podcast, Vivian and I are discussing the emerging trend of live shopping, how it is growing, and the importance of engaging audiences through entertainment as a business. We delve into the platforms available for live shopping, essential preparations needed for successful live shopping events, the need for consistency and experimentation in this new retail landscape, and provide actionable insights.
Marketing HOT TAKE of the week: As a small business, are you tired of having to also be “entertainers”, or do you find this trend of “edutainment” and “shoppertainment” fun? Let us know in the comments!
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome to our Marketing Cult! Please Leave Us a Review
06:41 Defining Live Shopping
11:24 Conversion Rates and Engagement
18:16 Target Audience: Gen Z and Millennials
21:38 Preparing for Your Live Shopping Event
29:46 Promoting and Experimenting with Live Shopping
38:00 TLDL; What Small Businesses Should Know About Live Shopping
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Vivian: Oh, we're going to do that. Next time you come over for a sleepover instead of Unsolved Mysteries, we're doing QVC Shopping Network.
Chelsea: What are we, 40?
Vivian: I am.
Chelsea: Oh wait.
*Intro* Chelsea: Hey everyone and welcome to the S.O.B. Marketing podcast. Where we celebrate to S.O.B. you are, and if you haven't figured it out yet - we mean Small Owned Business, we don't mean S.O.B...
Vivian: Listen, we know that as a small business owner you are working hard on the daily to keep your business fully operational while trying to promote it. And while some days it may feel like the business is owning you, if we're being honest with each other I bet you would admit that you wouldn't give up the insanity for anything.
Chelsea: Our commitment here at the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is to give you the real talk, what works when it comes to advertising, marketing, and promoting your business. And then what doesn't really work.
Vivian: And Chelsea and I promise to always keep the conversation real.
*Beginning of Episode*
Chelsea: Hey everybody and welcome back to the S.O.B. Marketing Podcast. S.O.B. as in Small Owned Business, we would never call you guys names. Before we get started, just a friendly reminder, we have a TLDL section, Too Long Didn't Listen. It's a chapter at the end of this conversation where one of us will summarize the topic that we discussed today so that if you're in a rush, you can get the low down real quick and then when you get a chance, you can listen to the full discussion later on. Also friendly reminder, pretty, pretty, please remember to follow, like, subscribe, all of the things.
Vivian: Yes, and we are excited to announce that you guys can support this podcast now. We have actually created a buymeacoffee.com/sobmarketing page.
If you go to that page, for $5 you guys can actually buy us a coffee. In Chelsea's case, don't worry. We're not going to be caffeinating her because we know that's dangerous.
Chelsea: Or we can make this fun and we could caffeinate me.
Vivian: I mean, dangerous for me, I think, when you're caffeinated.
Chelsea: Well, I don't know. Probably dangerous for me too. Probably not good for my heart.
Vivian: Heart palpitations.
Chelsea: Yeah.
Vivian: If you haven't already noticed, buy me a coffee is actually a metaphor. So for $5, you could buy us as many quote unquote coffees, that will actually go to fund this podcast. We hope that you guys enjoy these conversations, that you get useful information, you get practical advice, and we want to continue bringing these week to week. If you like the discussion, if you want us to continue to doing the research and putting in the time and effort to bring in these marketing conversations to help you promote your business out in the real world, right? Then go in there and help us out a little.
Chelsea: Yes. Pretty, please. Along with all the other things.
Vivian: Chelsea, what are we talking about today?
Chelsea: Okay, Vivian, today we are talking about live shopping, the future of retail. Before we get into this conversation, you know I have to talk about this week's marketing hot take.
Vivian: I think that sound alone, that - what do you call it?
Chelsea: Sound effect?
Vivian: That sound effect is worth a coffee by itself.
Chelsea: I agree. So this week's marketing hot take, Vivian. You know, when did we as small business owners agree to become entertainers? Okay, with this whole shopper-tainment and edutainment, why are we entertaining people? All we want to do is sell our products, but now we have to entertain everybody.
Vivian: Yeah. I think where Chelsea's going with this, you guys, is live shopping has a mix of, what do you call it? It's called shop-utainment. So it's shopping mixed in with entertainment because you have to keep people engaged and wanting to purchase. I agree to your point. I think for this one, I actually agree with you on this marketing hot take for once.
Chelsea: Oh my God. Yay.
Vivian: But here's the weird part about it. I can tell you I signed my contract in 2017. I'm joking. I didn't. To be an entertainer and business owner.
Chelsea: So when are you going to start entertaining people?
Vivian: I mean, burn. Whatever. So the thing is, you guys, I understand we did not sign up for this. We launched a small business. We didn't think that part of that commitment included being an entertainer. But if we're being realistic, we totally understand through our own patterns of behavior day to day, through the scrolling on Instagram, through the viewing on TikTok. We ourselves are doing the thing that is creating this problem. We're the ones that are, we're going to scroll past a video if it's not engaging in the first two to three seconds. We're going to quit watching a live shopping stream if the person is very bland and boring. So I don't know. We contribute to it, but I do agree with you that as small business owners, we didn't necessarily sign a contract to become entertainers.
Chelsea: Yeah. Except for Vivian.
Vivian: Yeah. I did back in 2017 when I started launching or posting on YouTube.
Chelsea: I love that for you.
Let us know in the comments, do you agree with this hot take? Are you not looking forward to being entertainers as small business owners or do you kind of enjoy it?
Vivian: I was going to say, I know a handful of people we follow on Instagram that we know are very successful small business owners that are entertaining. One of them that comes to mind is JessC, if you're hearing this girl, you're a wonderful entertainer and small business owner. I enjoy watching your videos and then the music you pair with this stuff and then how you introduce your taxidermy, creative taxidermy stuff. I think some people just have a knack for it.
Chelsea: Absolutely. Okay, Vivian, let's talk about live shopping. So first, before we get started, let's define what live shopping is. So live shopping is a marketing strategy based on live streaming where a host presents products and viewers can purchase those products in real time. Think of, Vivian, do you remember QVC?
Vivian: Yeah. I mean, do I? Yes.
Chelsea: Is QVC still a thing?
Vivian: Yeah, it very much is. Uh-huh. QVC, lots of people made ton of money off of that, including the guy that sells my pillows, the person that did, I think, Scrub Daddy and all that.
Chelsea: Scrub Daddy's from QVC? I thought that was Shark Tank.
Vivian: It is, but I think they used QVC.
Chelsea: Did they?
Vivian: Yeah, I think, I don't know, don't hold me to it. I could just be making that up.
Chelsea: I've never actually seen QVC.
Vivian: Oh, we're going to do that. Next time you come over for a sleepover instead of Unsolved Mysteries, we're doing QVC Shopping Network.
Chelsea: What are we, 40?
Vivian: I am.
Chelsea: Oh wait. I'm sorry.
Vivian: So think of live shopping. I'm going to just glide right past that comment. Live shopping, the way, if it were an equation, live shopping equals live video and real time shopping. I understand this is something that here in the United States, we're just now kind of getting used to. Ladies, you may have seen this on Facebook. A lot of these smaller boutiques or online boutiques utilize a weekly live shopping session to be able to push their products out and to get people excited about the new clothing that they have dropping every week.
Chelsea: Yeah, I actually I have some interesting statistics Vivian that I want to share. So the global live commerce market was valued at an estimated 128.42 billion with a B in 2024.
Vivian: So last year, not even this year, that was how much?
Chelsea: 128.42 billion. So the US live commerce market is expected to grow significantly with live sales forecasted to surpass 50 billion in the coming years.
Vivian: Yeah. We want you as listeners to know the reason we wanted to cover this topic is Chelsea and I, we have the S.O.B. community. OK, so we have community members in there. Every week we do a live zoom call with them and we just talk about different trends, different things we're seeing in the marketing community. So that way it prepares them to be able to take full advantage of this, right? A lot of times this, live shopping came up for us. Part of what intrigued me was the fact that there's this whole idea that we always say China's living in the future. They are when it comes to this. China is well beyond. They utilize TikTok for this stuff, they utilize a whole bunch of their, like their entire country is doing the live shopping. They're used to it at this point The United States were a little bit of stragglers when it comes to implementing some of this newer stuff, but we are on the heels of that. We just want to bring this to the table and bring it to light so that you guys understand the power that is going to be coming in the next couple of years when it comes to live shopping.
This could be a wonderful opportunity for you to start dipping your toe in so that you get used to, there's stuff that happens, you gotta be organized, you gotta set stuff up correctly, you gotta get your technology working. You could be working through all that now and become one of the first people to do this in the area.
Chelsea: So become a...what's the word I'm looking for? It starts with an E.
Vivian: Innovator?
Chelsea: Okay, that doesn't start with an E, but I think that was the word I was looking for. So nevermind. Being an innovator, being a leader in this new trend that we're going to be seeing in the future.
Vivian: So going back to what we were saying, how China has kind of gotten a handle on this. Remember you guys, for them, the pandemic played a big role in pushing this out. Whereas perhaps it wasn't as big for live shopping there, when the pandemic hit, then it really turned that faucet on and people started doing it and really purchasing in that way. But what I want to mention as far as the statistic is, we're not just bringing this up to say, hey, China's doing it, we're going to be doing it, it's going to be something that gets popular in the next year. The conversion rate compared to traditional e-commerce, you guys, it's 10 to 30% while traditional e-commerce is 2 to 3%.
Chelsea: That's huge.
Vivian: Yeah, and by conversion rate, what we mean is, okay, so whereas...
Having traditional e-commerce, which is basically what a Shopify site, let's say. You have a Shopify site, you sell clothing. Your conversion rate for all the people that come to your website in a month, you're going to convert about 2 to 3% of those to an actual sell. All right? That's a very low conversion rate, but that's just what it is for just traditional e-commerce. Live shopping bumps it 10 to 30%, sometimes partially because of what Chelsea's hot take was earlier, which is the fact that it's shopertainment.
Chelsea: Yeah, the entertainment part. The fact that there's a host that's there teaching you about the product, that's entertaining you throughout the entire discussion, that's keeping you engaged and involved in the entire discussion.
Vivian: Yeah. And there's something we had talked about, what podcast episode were we talking about, Chelsea? How having somebody say something creates a type of reaction, as opposed to reading it. What was it we were talking about?
Chelsea: That was last week, when we were talking about podcasting.
Vivian: Yeah, so we were...
Chelsea: That was literally last week.
Vivian: It felt like lifetimes ago. So what Chelsea, the point she had made in that episode about podcasting was that podcasting is so effective because unlike a blog where somebody is reading text on screen, having, it's kind of like an audio book. It gives it a little intonation, it gives it tone, if someone says something exciting, you know, it's easier for you to imagine. The same thing with live shopping, I think, because websites, now it's changing with AI because we're going to be able to add more features to websites, but it's still a little flat because when you go to a website, you don't have somebody walking you through the product features. You don't have somebody telling you the story of how this particular product saved them a lot of time because they're managing three kids and doing all this stuff.
Chelsea: Now that's a great example of why a lot of businesses have a video on their homepage. Because they want to create that relationship and be able to demonstrate their product features with someone else, someone talking you through the experience. So one, that's why video is becoming so popular and two, that's why live streaming and this live shopping is becoming the new trend.
Vivian: I love it.
Chelsea: Vivian, I was reading a Shopify article about this new upcoming trend, live shopping, and I want to quote something that they wrote in this article. You can inspire, educate, and entertain your viewer at the same time. That's huge. It's effective and efficient.
Vivian: Love it. Now, since you were on that Shopify article, has Shopify stated that they're going to be integrating live shopping capabilities into the website.
Chelsea: You know, that's a great question. I don't have the answer to that.
Vivian: I guarantee you, I have a sneaking suspicion the answer is going to be yes. If they haven't launched it yet, perhaps that's something that's going to be coming out in the future. Because if you think about it, everything we were just saying about websites and what they're kind of lacking, which now you could get through if you're on TikTok. TikTok live streaming and shopping allows people to do this live shopping that then creates more of that one-on-one or entertainment stuff. I guarantee you Shopify knows that's something they're going to have to integrate in the future. Listen, if you guys are listening and you have a Shopify store and you know for a fact that they have this kind of brewing, drop it down in the comments and let us know or send us a message or an email just to let us know or even better send us a voice note.
Chelsea: Oh my gosh, yes. Send us a voice note. We absolutely want to hear your voice. Also this is something that I'm definitely interested in. So I'm also going to keep an ear to the ground, stay invested in this. If you want an update when we get an update, you can join the SOB community because as soon as I have information, I'm going to share it with our community members.
*S.O.B. Community Ad*
Vivian: This episode of the S.O.B. Marketing podcast is brought to you by the S.O.B. Community. If you are a small business owner that is neglecting your marketing and you feel like you've wasted time and money on marketing help that didn't deliver. Or if you're just craving support from people who actually get what it's like to run and promote a small business, then our membership community is for you. Visit skool.com/sob to sign up today to get instant access and weekly support. That's S-K-O-O-L dot com slash sob.
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Vivian: All right, so let's go ahead and rattle off some of the platforms that you can currently use to do live shopping for your small business. Those include Instagram live shopping, Facebook live shopping, TikTok shop, Amazon live, and there are standalone platforms like Comment Sold, okay? So like Comment Sold, we kind of touched on this a little earlier. There's stuff that needs to happen in the background. I know we'll talk about that later in the episode about the actual steps and things you need to think about ahead of time. But it helps with the automation of being able to track which item you're selling and who it goes to. So then you could appropriately package it and send it out to the right person. Right?
Chelsea: Seems important.
Vivian: Yeah. Very, very important for the functionality and the process, the actual operations of you integrating this into your business. But speaking of platforms, that kind of leads me to something I wanted to bring up, which is you guys, Gen Z and millennials, they love this sh-. Okay, I'm not going to say that. They love this stuff, okay? The reason they love it is because they're already used to being on social media. So it's right up their alley. They're like, hey, make it as seamless as possible for me. I'm already scrolling through Instagram. If I see that you're doing a live shopping event and you have a bracelet I want to buy, great, I'll pop in there. The other thing is it's very personalized and it's not just going on a generic product page, which we talked about. Lastly, it makes it really easy for people to pay. Okay, remember people nowadays are doing this Apple pay stuff. They're doing all that. Like we said, what?
Chelsea: Did you finish your thought?
Vivian: Yes. Easy paying. They're already scrolling on the platforms. That's why the younger generation loves this.
Chelsea: Yes. I am the outlier y'all. I am a great example of it matters what your target audience likes, not you.
Because I'm not using Apple Pay. I don't need it to be easier to buy things because then I'm going to buy more things. I don't need to buy more things, you know? I don't need to spend more money. One, two, I don't buy things off of social media. I don't feel comfortable with that.
Vivian: Really?
Chelsea: I don't feel comfortable sharing my card information, any of my payment information on social media platforms. So I'm just weird like that.
Vivian: Here's the thing though is you've been the recipient of something I bought on Instagram for you a few years ago for Christmas, or maybe your birthday. It was that embosser.
Chelsea: Oh my God, I love that thing.
Vivian: Yeah. So she has a ton of books. so I-
Chelsea: I'm starting a library.
Vivian: Yes. So it was a thing where she can emboss her name and it had a little skull on it and stuff because that's very creepy and right up her alley.
Chelsea: It says from the library of Chelsea Mojica.
Vivian: Skull. But I ordered that off of Instagram and it was super easy. I will say I have most of my Google pay stuff kind of attached to it. So I use the Google pay that then, so it doesn't run it directly through my credit card, even though it does. Case in point, we're always reminding you guys that the less steps people have to take to go from point A, which is viewing your product, getting interested in your product to point B, which is actually purchasing the product, the more...
Chelsea: Likely they are to purchase because that is specifically why I won't do it.
Vivian: Right. Because you know you will buy things.
Chelsea: I know I'll buy it. But if I create more steps for myself, then in between the steps, I know eventually I'll be like, I'll talk myself out of it. So you don't want me as an ideal customer.
Vivian: So now that we know you don't want Chelsea as an ideal customer, Chelsea, why don't you tell us a little bit about what actually, what do people need to know about live shopping in preparation? If they're interested, if they're like, yeah, this sounds like maybe I could sell my products on here.
Chelsea: Yeah. Okay. Well, first thing you need to think about when you're like, I'm going to start doing live shopping. Think about your products. What products are you going to be promoting? You cannot try to sell your whole store on a live stream.
Vivian: I mean, you could. That's very long live stream.
Chelsea: It's going to be really difficult and your consumers, your customers are going to check out probably.
Vivian: All right, I'm going to stop you right there because, don't you think maybe we first need to talk about the fact that you guys need to announce this live stream shopping event or whatever you're doing about three to seven days in advance. So whether you're utilizing stories or sending out emails to let people know, hey, I'm going to have a live stream event. Wouldn't that be the first step?
Chelsea: You know what Vivian, I think this is a great example of how you and I have different marketing styles.
Vivian: Okay.
Chelsea: Because I personally think you should figure out your products and your live stream first before you start promoting and picking dates or anything like that.
Vivian: So you're thinking because you probably could give them a preview of stuff.
Chelsea: Yeah. So if you decide on your products first, like you said, then you can, when you are promoting those five days in advance before your live stream, you can tell them what kind of products you're going to be displaying. But you could do it either way, y'all. Whichever way you want to do it. There's no wrong answer. It's just whichever take you want to.
Vivian: Just be sure you consider all the things worth.
Chelsea: Yes. Consider all the things.
Vivian: So definitely you want to announce it. You want to kind of promote it ahead of time. Be sure that you don't just do it from one date to the next because then people aren't going to be able to actually plan for it. So share with them the date and time that you plan on going live to sell this stuff. Chelsea says you want to go through your products.
Chelsea: Most people, when I was doing research, suggest no more than 10 products at a time to make it easy on yourself because think about it, the more products, the more behind the scenes stuff that's going on. Especially if this is your first time live streaming or live selling.
Vivian: Doing anything, live anything.
Chelsea: Live anything. Then you're probably going to want to stay under that 10 number.
Vivian: And don't be afraid to use notes, you guys. You don't need to have an entire script left written out. To Chelsea's point, if you're going through and you want to look at your products, the products you're going to feature on this particular live shopping event. List out a couple of things that you want to make mention when you're reviewing these. So whether it's a strong product feature, whether it's a story that you can pull top of mind, do that in the notes section. That way it kind of releases, I think, some of that stress with being live and saying something that you're like, am I going to trip up? I going to do something? At least you have notes to guide you through each product.
Chelsea: Yes, I love that. Next very important step, Vivian, is you need to actually pick which platform you're going to be using. So you can use a live shopping platform and that's going to help you with all of the background stuff.
Vivian: So all of the tracking inventory, invoices.
Chelsea: Who purchased what, making sure when a product sells out you know that so you can stop promoting that product, all that stuff. Usually to be on those platforms, it's probably going to cost you something.
Vivian: Well, and I've seen it both ways. I actually had a friend who had a home decor business locally. When she started doing it, she utilized live shopping every week. I think it was every Thursday, her followers knew that she'd be going live, around what time, and then she would show the product that she was wanting to sell. One of the things that was interesting was her and I had a conversation at the very beginning. She was doing all of it kind of on her own before she found a platform, and there were a lot of moving parts. So she had to have somebody help her. So that's the other thing is if you guys are going to go a little more of the manual route, as opposed to, maybe you don't want to splurge quite yet to get a big platform to help you with.
Chelsea: So you want to use like a social media platform like Facebook or Instagram.
Vivian: Right. Then what she was doing was she had somebody who helped her who was responsible for keeping track of anytime someone wanted to buy, then they had to send them an invoice for however many products they bought. Because remember, the other thing is, if you are selling or spotlighting 10 products, one shopper can be on there buying five different things.
Chelsea: That's what you want. You want them to buy multiple things.
Vivian: Yes. They don't want five separate receipts or invoices to pay. They want one consolidated. Then you're going to have to figure out, how do I consolidate these? Sending them the information to their email address or to their account, their Instagram account, whatever, so they can pay it. All of this stuff. That all requires a lot of mechanics. If you're interested in this, just start doing a little research on these platforms and see which one may be a good fit for you.
Chelsea: Yes. Heads up. YouTube does have a live selling setup, but it is for their partners. So you do have to meet their requirements first. Amazon live, that is an option. So if you're selling on Amazon, that might be something to consider. Shop Shops is an option. It is a live stream shopping app for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products. Then there's also What Not. Just an example of live shopping. I was about to say live streaming. Live shopping platforms that you can consider.
Vivian: Didn't our friend Rob go with what not?
Chelsea: Yes, he did.
Vivian: Okay. That was interesting. This is the other recommendation I personally have is, don't be afraid to experiment. So before committing yourself as a store to doing a live shopping event every week, why don't you first try one? See what the kinks are that you would have to fix before you could do this on a weekly basis. Cause the other thing is you don't want to burn yourself out. Now we want you to completely capitalize on live shopping because like we said, the increase in actual conversion rate, that 10 to 30% conversion rate is nice. But we want you to be able to know upfront what that looks like. You guys are probably going to have to address your setting. How are you going to want to sell? Or what area are you going to use? Are you going to use the storefront? Are you going to use the back room? What type of lighting do you need in order for the products to look good. Yes. Because that's the other thing is if you're selling product, you want it to shine. So you don't want to be in a closet and then not have good lighting. Then everyone's going to be like, I really can't even see the product.
Chelsea: I mean, maybe you're selling blackout curtains.
Vivian: There you go.
Chelsea: Don't tell anyone you're in a closet. Just say, I'm using my product.
Vivian: There you go.
Chelsea: Vivian, you already touched on this a little bit, but this was actually at the end of my to-do list, which was pick a date, time, and length. Again, this just comes to us having different marketing styles. I personally feel like you should have all the kinks figured out first and then pick out your date and time and length. That's important. How long are you going to be live streaming? Because one, you don't want to burn yourself out. Two, you want to be very clear to your customers the timeframe that they have to make a purchase. Again, when you pick the date and time, you can promote that. That's the big thing. Even if you're just, like Vivian just discussed, you're doing a one-time thing, you're just testing it out, feeling the waters first, that's great. You still need to promote it as much as you can. Because if you don't, then you don't really know how it could have gone.
Vivian: Yeah, and remember when we tell you guys that these algorithms don't push all of your content out to all of your followers. We're not the algorithms, we don't know the rhyme or reason to it. So don't feel bad for feeling like a broken record, okay? I mean, my goodness, someone's going to accuse you of promoting your business. Shame on you, right?
People need to be reminded. Some people may not see your story. Some people may not read the post. So just feel confident and comfortable in going out there and reminding them of the live shopping event you have coming up.
Chelsea: Related, y'all, as an example of don't feel bad about being a broken record. I had a dentist appointment, okay? I had the, you know they give you the business card. I had it on my fridge. For months, because I schedule mine out six months in advance. So I had it there the entire six months. Then a week before they sent me an email and a week before they also sent me a text. Then two days before they also sent me another email and a text. You know what I forgot?
Vivian: What? The appointment?
Chelsea: My dentist appointment. But they texted me three hours before, hey, don't forget your dentist appointment. I was like, oh thank God that they reminded me because I had forgotten already.
Vivian: To add to that, health care marketing girly here, the reason they do that, the reason these appointment reminders go out is because the cost in them incurring to send out those reminders is very minimal compared to the cost of you missing your appointment and them having nobody booked. Right. So at least if you cancel it, if you reply back to the text and say, hey, I'm not going to be able to make it. They can put somebody else there. So their revenue doesn't dip because of that. Just to move that conversation forward to remind you guys, there's a reason people do this stuff. The reminders you need to be telling people and constantly reminding them of stuff. Cause people like Chelsea here will literally get 20 of them and still have no clue where she's supposed to be that day.
Chelsea: Absolutely. I was like, what time was it supposed to be at? Thank God my dentist is five minutes away because.
Vivian: I did want to mention one other note or recommendation that I have. This is one that comes from personal experience. You heard me talk earlier that back in 2017, I started posting YouTube videos.
Chelsea: Yeah, you signed your contract.
Vivian: I signed my contract to be an entertainer. Please go back and watch one of these videos from 2017. You're going to see I immediately got fired as entertainer. I was not a good one. But the reason I bring that up is as somebody who has posted a ton of YouTube videos, I mean, over 250 at this point. Going live is very different than just posting a video post-production. A video, even like this, this podcast episode that you guys may be watching on our YouTube channel. Chelsea has an opportunity to go in and edit it, right?
Chelsea: Yes. I have cleaned this up.
Vivian: Yes. That is a final product. When you go live, it's very different because I think even for somebody as seasoned as us who are used to being on video, so video, being on video doesn't bother us, right? Having a microphone in our face doesn't bother us.
What kind of increases the stakes is having a live stream going where potentially I could say something wrong or I could say something I didn't mean to say and then I'm going to be like, wait, wait a second. I kind of want to adjust that. The reason I bring this up in my ultimate recommendation is find a friend, find a partner, find your parents, whoever, a family member, your children. They'll be honest critics, you guys. If you have not met kids, they will be honest, but practice a run through with them. Without doing the live version of it, because I think it's going to help to kind of ease that stress of when you're live and you're looking at the camera, you do kind of get those butterflies. So practice it a couple of times, even, or practice it on your own, you guys. But when I say practice, mean, actually say the words out loud, have a camera pointed at you and maybe record yourself. That way you can watch it back and be like, I could have done maybe this a little differently or next time, I don't want to use that story. I just want to focus on the product.
Chelsea: That's a really great tip. I love that. Seriously, you see us right now, if you're watching, you see us right now, we look real comfortable. This is edited.
A live stream. It does. It gives me butterflies because that's a whole different level.
Vivian: I'm actually doing an upcoming live stream with somebody on their Instagram in November, later in November. It's interesting because that is a thing I just have to account for. It's like, an adjustment, just know it's going to be different. I can't be saying ums, I can't be going back and reiterating the same thing.
Chelsea: Well, I have one last tip as well. Mine is *uh*, now I said um. You've got me in my head. My last tip is live shopping is like any other marketing initiative and you need to give it time to work. The first time you do it is not going to be a success. Well, I mean, I'm not saying it won't be good, but you're not going to hit it out of the park. Okay? We're just being honest. It's a learning experience. You can't do one or two events and then just give up on it. If you want to be successful with it, then you need to keep doing it. People have to get used to the experience. Consistency is the key. It's something that you're going to have to commit to.
Vivian: Yeah, absolutely. And to add on to that, be okay, you guys, maybe the first couple of times if you do this live shopping, there may be people that don't show up. All right, so it could kind of be, I'd imagine if I was doing a live shopping event and maybe I saw that three people were on there, you can't quit midway through because three people are watching, right? So you gotta commit. If you're going to do it, you're going to do it. That's where the promotion part of it comes in because really that's what you want. You want at least a handful of people on there so that you're speaking to them and you're not speaking to just the camera.
Chelsea: Yes. Love that. Okay. We ready for the TLDL?
Vivian: Let's do it.
Chelsea: Okay. So this is the TLDL chapter. Too long didn't listen. If you skipped ahead, I'm going to give you a brief summary of what we talked about today. but, but when you get the chance, go back and listen to this entire conversation. So today we talked about live shopping. It's the new retail trend that everyone is doing, which is basically live streaming with shopping involved.
People enjoy it because it mixes entertainment with shopping, which is a big deal nowadays. If you decide that you want to do the live shopping route, make sure that you're thinking about what platform you're going to use, what products you're going to sell, date, time, length, and make sure you are promoting the heck out of it. Also remember that it's not going to be a hit right off the bat. It's like any other marketing initiative. You need to give it time to grow and you need to be consistent with it.
So thank you so much for listening today. If you enjoyed this conversation, then send it to a fellow small business owner. Make sure you are followed or subscribed and liked. All the things on whichever platform that you're on. And hey, how about you send us a coffee? That'd be really cool of you. It helps us keep doing this so that we can continue to do the research and share with you guys all of the marketing tools, tips, information, updates, everything that we can to help your small business grow. So go be the best SOB you can be.