Amazon & Facebook Work to Make Shopatainment E-Commerce Livestreaming Popular in the US

This is not new, in China livestreaming drives ~9% of online sales and it look like Amazon & Facebook is working hard to make e-commerce livestreaming popular in the US.

Amazon employs livestreaming to allow customers to bypass actual stores: live, interactive video shopping, pioneered decades ago by the likes of Home Shopping Network and QVC and now increasingly common online. This type of shopping, called e-commerce livestreaming, lets brand representatives, store owners, influencers — and really just about anyone — stand in front of a smartphone and start a conversation with viewers who tune in.

Although e-commerce livestreams are still a niche enterprise in the United States, they are big business in China, where they drive about 9 percent, or $63 billion, of the country’s online market. Kim Kardashian West went on a popular Chinese influencer’s stream and sold out her perfume stock within minutes after 13 million people tuned in. At least one Chinese college offers e-commerce livestreaming as a degree. Chinese retailers have also innovated during the pandemic lockdowns, with more streams focused on one-on-one consultations and store walk-throughs.

In 2021, the U.S. e-commerce livestreaming market could be worth up to $11 billion, up from about $6 billion in 2020, according to Coresight Research, a global advisory and research firm specializing in retail and technology.