Picture this: You're strolling through a shopping district, drawn by the vibrant storefront displays and the promise of new discoveries. Your senses are alive with the products' colors, textures, and fragrances surrounding you. You can pick up that dress, feel its fabric, and appreciate its intricate details. You engage in lively conversations with store assistants who guide you to the perfect item.
But hold on. Now, let's fast forward to the reality of online shopping.
Static images replace the vibrant stores, and the friendly store assistants are reduced to impersonal text descriptions. That immersive online shopping experience suddenly seems light-years away.
Does it have to be this way? Not anymore.
Enter the realm of video commerce, a game-changing fusion of technology and human interaction that rekindles the thrill of in-store shopping in a digital world.
Picture this: browsing a virtual store, watching products come to life in vivid shoppable videos, and enjoying real-time interactions with knowledgeable hosts. It's like teleporting the entire brick-and-mortar experience to your screen.
In this article, we'll unveil the exciting world of video commerce, explore its unique benefits for retailers, and provide you with the essential strategies to seamlessly integrate it into your business. Buckle up as we embark on a journey to transform your online shopping experience.
What is video commerce?
Video commerce is the art of using videos to sell products or services online. It's a versatile tool that can be deployed on your website, social media platforms, ads, and shopping apps.
We’re seeing many brands create interactive videos highlighting product features, use cases, and unique value propositions.
With video commerce, retailers can engage potential customers and simplify buying. Instead of jumping through hoops to find the right product and order, video commerce makes it a two-step process—watch the video and place an order.
4 ways video commerce is reshaping the world of eCommerce
With over three billion views and thousands of videos, the TikTok Made Me Buy It hashtag shows how video has disrupted the way we shop. These TikTok videos deliver social proof in short, snackable videos, giving shoppers a new way to discover and purchase products online.
On top of boosting brand awareness, video shopping can benefit your eCommerce business in four ways:
For online shoppers, watching a video is a game-changer compared to reading a text block. A video brings your products to life, offering potential customers deeper insights into design, size, utility, and other critical factors influencing their purchase decisions.
This visual content captivates buyers, encourages them to explore your website, and converts them into satisfied customers.
What’s more, shoppable videos can directly impact your conversions too. Google’s research proves that companies using product videos achieve over 60% more conversions at a lower cost.
How?
Visual content replicates the in-store experience and offers the convenience of online shopping with a few clicks.
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2. Makes an immersive shopping experience
Online shopping's limitation lies in its two-dimensional nature. Shoppers can't truly visualize how a product fits into their life—how that vase would look on their bedside table, for instance.
This is where video shopping changes the game between imagination and reality.
Online merchants can create an immersive shopping experience to give customers a panoramic view of the product. At the same time, consumers can better understand a product’s design and appeal with real-life videos.
For example, creating shoppable videos improves product selection, helping buyers realistically assess every purchase throughout the customer journey.
Tropicfeel presents the perfect example of how this works. The travel gear company uses videos across its product pages, YouTube channels, and social platforms to showcase its products from every angle.
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3. Builds social trust and simplifies decisions
Let's face it; those perfectly shot product photos hardly feel real to online shoppers. They turn to customer reviews and photos to make informed decisions.
People rely on other people’s experiences with a product before placing their bets on it. You can use this tendency by converting user-generated content into shoppable videos.
These videos offer social proof, allowing interested buyers to learn more about a product and establish a human connection that drives online shopping sales. Video shopping instills confidence in buyers, eliminating the need for extensive research before clicking "buy now."
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4. Replicates in-store vibes with personalization
With video commerce, merchants can deliver in-store experiences with digital storefronts. Shoppers can gain a clear understanding of a product's look and functionality, just as they would in a physical store.
What's more, video commerce allows for personalization. Buyers can ask relevant questions via chat with sales executives to be 100% sure of their decisions, resulting in a more seamless online shopping experience.
Create an airtight video commerce strategy in 4 steps
Now that you’ve learned how video commerce can be a game-changer for your eCommerce business, you’re all geared to create content and reap the benefits. But you’ll set yourself up for failure without a solid roadmap to showcase products through videos.
Thankfully, you don’t have to look far to learn how to create your own video shopping strategy. Here are four quick and actionable steps to get you started:
Begin with the basics—assemble a team and outline their roles. Putting together a team will create more room for diverse opinions, creativity, and collective brainstorming.
Once you’ve assembled your dream team, the next step is drawing the big picture. Outline your objectives for this strategy to establish clear expectations of what you want to achieve—greater brand recognition, higher customer engagement, or more sales. Be clear about your goals and choose a North Star to advance your team.
Use these goals to determine the next steps and the workflows for streamlining all the moving parts in your video commerce plan.
Consider this a high-level overview of your shoppable video strategy—a blueprint of key deliverables, milestones, timelines, resources, and other aspects to implement your plan.
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2. Establish your brand messaging
The next step is all about your brand. Invest this time to create a stellar brand messaging framework if you don't already have one.
Messaging is essentially how your business talks to a buyer. It reflects your personality through your content's brand voice, channels, and values. It also reinforces your brand’s positioning in the market.
For example, an outdoor apparel brand like Huckberry differentiates itself in a crowded market with its unique brand messaging. The company appeals to its customers with storytelling-driven video content that romanticizes the outdoors and positions Huckberry as their ultimate partner for any adventure.
Here’s a YouTube video by Huckberry spotlighting its 365 Pant as the best versatile pants you can get. It shows a person wearing these pants in an open park, explaining their unique features. Interested in buying the pants? Just click the link in the description.
The perfect example of how your messaging can become a massive differentiator for your video shopping efforts. So, remember to get it spot-on before you start creating videos.
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3. Tap into different video types to match buyer intent
While some buyers prefer watching testimonial videos, others might enjoy influencer content or explainer videos. Every buyer has a different taste.
You have to cater to these varied preferences by identifying what your target audience wants and experimenting with different types of videos.
Here are four popular ones:
Product videos
Give consumers a full view of your products with a shoppable video featuring a single product. Choose your best-selling, newly launched, or more complicated products to spotlight in interactive videos.
Artsabers created spectacular product videos to show potential buyers how their lightsabers worked in real life. These shoppable videos were both entertaining and immersive to increase conversion rates.
Influencer videos
Influencers and creators rule the world of social media. An effective way to maximize conversions on these platforms is converting influencer content into shoppable videos. So, when your target buyers see a familiar face on their feeds, they’ll likely pay more attention and hit the CTA button.
Promotional videos
One of the best use cases of shoppable videos is when you’re offering discounts. Promotional videos with a discount code can potentially throw your sales off the charts because buyers have an added motivation to purchase.
Here’s how Arata used shoppable video ads on social media to spread the word about its sale. The video features an influencer reviewing different products and highlighting what she likes the most about each one.
User-generated videos
What better way to build social proof than to convert UGC videos into shoppable ones? UGC can add credibility to your name and win consumer trust quickly.
That’s exactly how Duradry converted its UGC videos into shoppable videos and used them on its website. Here's an example of one of its shoppable videos where a satisfied customer shares his thoughts about the products he bought.
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4. Choose a feature-packed video commerce platform
Selecting the right video commerce platform is critical. With so many tools to choose from, the decision can seem overwhelming.
Platforms like Videowise offer comprehensive solutions for producing, hosting, and analyzing videos.
It delivers an impressive store conversion uplift and maximizes your added revenue from direct video orders across various platforms. Moreover, it can significantly increase website visitors' time on your store without impacting your site's speed.
You can read our case studies if you would like to see what results Videowise brought for some of our top clients, such as True Classic, Dr. Squatch, and more.
Unlocking the full potential of video commerce
Shoppable videos can set your brand apart and build strong customer loyalty in a world inundated with eCommerce options. Bookmark this guide and embark on your video commerce journey with confidence.
The power of video commerce lies in its ability to recreate the magic of in-store shopping and take it to new heights in the digital realm. Stay tuned for emerging trends and innovations to enhance the video commerce experience. Your journey to a more immersive and engaging online shopping landscape has just begun.
