As consumers are becoming increasingly mindful about their spending, retailers are shifting to a video-first approach thereby amplifying their online efforts while increasing the value they offer to their customers. For those who are yet to catch the bandwagon, now is the time to launch video commerce.

Making your online customer journey interactive and engaging has become increasingly important over the last three years as society has been forced to adapt to a more remote and digital first-reality than ever before. Consumers have never had higher expectations on personalization and transparency and going video-first means meeting those expectations by having interactive video at the heart of the customer experience. When a retailer learns how to connect with their customers using video, the stats are mind blowing: on average a viewer stays on-site for 9 minutes, 26% of viewers actively interact, and 12% are adding add-to-cart - not to mention that return rates decline by 50%.

Building Customer Community & Loyalty: Consumers want to see what they actually get, as well as what and who is behind the retailers they buy from. Now more than ever consumers are ‘voting with their wallets’ and video commerce opens up to both transparency and true dialogues. In a recent Livestreaming Trends Report, Coresight Research has found that a loyal customer is worth 22 times more than the average customer. Fostering customer loyalty happens through creating authentic relationships.

Shorter Conversion Funnel: For every hour (or day) that a customer ponders about an online purchase, the higher the risk becomes that they will either get side tracked, buy something else, or buy a similar product from a competitor. A retailer’s lack of information and intent is the most likely reason to sway a customer to hold off a purchase. While on the contrary - if a consumer can easily get all of their questions answered, a retailer will convert that consumer faster and to a higher degree. This video-first approach has created a transparent and engaging experience allowing consumers to get their questions answered in real time.

Make 2023 the year you go video-first. As consumers are becoming increasingly mindful about their spending, retailers are shifting to a video-first approach thereby amplifying their online efforts while increasing the value they offer to their customers.

Reduced Returns Let’s be honest, your net sales are what counts. Resources (both staff and dollars) spent on managing returns eat your margins. The solution that video commerce provides is informed purchases. Informed purchases reduce return rates. For example, with a video-first approach customers are more likely to buy the right item and pick the right size, since they've been able to verify the fit of an item directly with the retailer. Coresight Research estimates up to 50% lower return rates for products bought in live streams.

Increased Average Order Value (AOV) Whereas a typical ecommerce user journey can overwhelm customers, interactive live streams not only engage customers but also promote the cross sell of multiple items. This happens organically and is often triggered by the customers themselves. Instead of customers spending more time on-site navigating individual product pages, video commerce provides those needed recommendations, suggestions and education that influences customers to add more products to cart. Our data shows that the AOV doubles in a live stream compared to a static e-commerce experience.

When the shopping habits of your consumers change, something about how you sell will have to change too—make 2023 the year you go video-first.