Live Streaming Is Rising Overseas, And Facebook And Others Are Launching New Features To “empower” Cross-border E-commerce

Live streaming is a general trend in e-commerce marketing, and the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic has promoted the development of live streaming. In the past few months, almost all major social media platforms in the United States have expanded and developed the function of live streaming to promote the integrated development of social media platforms and e-commerce.

This article summarizes some innovative measures taken by mainstream social media platforms in live streaming:

Facebook: Facebook launched Live Shopping as early as August 2020, allowing businesses to sell their products in real time while interacting with shoppers live. This year, Facebook launched “Live Shopping Fridays”. During this period, e-commerce sellers can showcase their products through Facebook’s live shopping feature. During the live broadcast, customers can click on relevant items to learn more about the product, add the product to their shopping cart, and then check out to purchase.

Instagram: The platform first launched a live shopping feature in May 2020 for merchants using its in-app payment system, Instagram Checkout. In March this year, Instagram launched the live broadcast product Live Rooms, allowing three anchors to jointly promote goods in the same live broadcast room.

Pinterest: In late May 2021, Pinterest held its first in-app live broadcast event, with 21 content creators serving as anchors. Viewers can interact with the anchor through comments and purchase products promoted by e-commerce sellers during the live broadcast.

TikTok: Following the pilot of its live shopping program in December 2020, TikTok partnered with Walmart to host a second live shopping event on the platform in March 2021. Walmart has not yet provided sales data for its first live broadcast event, but according to public data, Walmart’s actual views in March were seven times higher than expected, and the number of fans on its TikTok account increased by 25%.

Looking at the world market outside China, live streaming is still in its infancy. As functionality expands and improves, live streaming is expected to become a major driver of e-commerce sales growth. In a GlobalWebIndex Q4 2020 survey, 22% of US and UK livestream viewers said that offering a "buy" button during a livestream was the biggest driver of purchase.