How livestream shopping marketplaces are trying to become mainstream

Seven months after adding live video to its social commerce app, Verishop is expanding the feature by building a “pipeline of influencers,” who get paid 10% commission for sales, co-founder and CEO Imran Khan said. It recently brought on Elle magazine as a live video partner.

The average time users spend on Versihop has gone up 50% since the live video update, and the streams are generating a 4x higher conversion than the overall rate. Khan views video as a means of helping shoppers to discover the independent brands the platform specializes in. Verishop does not provide user or sales numbers, but its base is 80% female... See more

Already the norm in Asia, Coresight Research predicts that the livestream shopping market is poised to reach $6 billion this year and $25 billion by 2023. In the social media space, Facebook, TikTok and Google-owned YouTube are turning to e-commerce and affiliate marketing as another means of monetizing content creators, whose videos garner hundred... See more

Online shopping sales in 2020 grew 32.4% from 2019 to $791.7 billion, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Commerce. E-commerce ended last year accounting for 14% of all U.S. sales, up from 11% in 2019.