Pedestrians walk past a Nordstrom Inc. store.
Ben Nelms | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Department store chain Nordstrom announced on Wednesday that it will be launching its “Livestream Shopping” channel as part of its broader ambitions to address e-commerce live streaming, which is already a huge phenomenon in Asia.
Retailers like Nordstrom are catching up in the US on a trend that has been prevalent overseas for years, in large part thanks to the early efforts of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
Buyable livestreams, similar to QVC, have struggled to take off with Americans. Experts say this is partly due to American consumers being less receptive to buying goods via livestream and the lack of so-called multichannel networks (MCNs) offering live streaming services to businesses. MCNs are more common across China and can help brands build audiences online.
In the coming months, Nordstrom will host a styling livestream on “How do you wear Burberry runway looks?”, A happy hour for the spring beauty trend and a chat with British makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury, among other things. During each event, customers can shop the mentioned fashion products available on the Nordstrom website and participate in a live chat room.
“We have so many ways to get closer to our customers,” said Fanya Chandler, senior vice president at Nordstrom, in an interview. “We hope customers will see this as an opportunity to seamlessly shop and attend an informative and fun event.”
Amazon pioneered live streaming on its home lawn. It debuted on Amazon Live in early 2019 – as a kind of livestream home shopping network. Facebook has now concentrated its shopping more on its social media platform of the same name and on Instagram. TikTok has hosted shoppable livestream events with Walmart, allowing users to browse the TikTok developers’ Walmart fashions without leaving the social media app. Beauty conglomerates Estee Lauder and L’Oreal have also used streams for some of their brands.
“As more retailers and brands turn to this channel to stay competitive and acquire customers, the market will grow significantly,” said Deborah Weinswig, Founder and CEO of Coresight Research, in a report on the state of e-commerce. Live streams in America.
In particular, social media influencers are likely to have a greater influence on the shopping behavior of younger consumers in the future, added Weinswig.
In China, according to Coresight, live streaming generated sales of around $ 125 billion in 2020, up from $ 63 billion in 2019. In the United States, the market was and could be worth around $ 6 billion last year Reach $ 11 billion in 2021. The U.S. e-commerce live streaming market is expected to eclipse $ 25 billion by 2023.
For Nordstrom, the idea of launching a live streaming channel for purchase did not take long. The company decided to experiment in space late last holiday season, relying on China’s game book to do so.
“I’ve been watching what’s going on in China for a while and it’s exciting that you can instantly make that connection with the consumer,” said Chandler of Nordstrom. “Honestly, Covid really accelerated all of the things we wanted to do.”
The Nordstrom share has risen by around 43% since the beginning of the year. The company has a market cap of $ 7.05 billion, which is larger than Macy’s but smaller than Kohl’s.
