Sam Blumenthal

Instagram’s livestream shopping feature is now over a year old, and beauty brand adoption has become widespread.  On September 19, Instagram concluded its “10+ Days of Live Shopping” campaign featuring a range of consumer brands, including many in the beauty and fashion categories. Beauty participants included one of the first Instagram livestream... See more

Livestreaming as a medium is a conflation of a product as well as as a distribution channel. It exists on a spectrum of being pure entertainment on one-side and a new go-to-market strategies on the other, with different kinds of monetisation models for each side. While western startups have centred around the 'livestreaming as product' theme,... See more

“That was the moment we realized that livestreaming was going to change everything,” Yuan said. “We were literally dealing with hundreds of customers, just three of us, addressing each customer’s sizing concern and questions.”

With inflation beginning to rise, retailers and consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) companies may need to raise prices to cover their costs. Simultaneously, they face increased competition from start-ups and from companies with relatively inexpensive offerings. But, if consumer reviews of a company’s products are less positive than those of competitors,... See more