Live Video Shopping is the Future of E-Commerce

Feb 3

Interview with Sophie Abrahamsson, President of Americas at Bambuser

What is the next stage for e-commerce?

If you ask Sophie Abrahamsson, it has to be live video shopping. She is a big promoter of and leading mind in live shopping, and her influential views have been printed in various international publications.

Prior to joining Bambuser, Sophie spent more than a decade leading digital marketing and e-commerce strategies in retail and fashion. Since 2019 she has been driving Bambuser’s go-to-market and commercial strategies together with CEO Maryam Ghahremani. Currently she is responsible for Bambuser’s US business.

We sat down with Sophie to talk about Bambuser’s overall business, trends in live video shopping and Bambuser’s plans for the Japanese market.

You can watch the full interview on our Youtube channel.

Can you give us an overall perspective of the global Bambuser business?

We launched our live video shopping platform in 2019 because we were convinced that e-commerce had to evolve. All the platforms had the same old user experience while everything around them was evolving. It was a static page with a few images, some text and an “Add to Cart“ button. It just didn’t reflect how people were using the internet anymore.

So we tried to mirror the current online behaviour, like being on TikTok, using FaceTime or Zoom, on e-commerce platforms. Our hypothesis was that this would dramatically increase engagement and conversions.

We quickly gained traction in the beauty and fashion industry. These industries were used to social media marketing and working with influencers, so they immediately saw the value of our solution. This helped us grow Bambuser from 30 to 150 people within a year and we penetrated a lot of markets since, with Japan being one of the earliest where we had organic traction.

Now we work with big brands on a global scale like Clarins or Samsung as well as domestic brands like BAYCREW’s in Japan for example.

What are some of the trends in live video shopping?

When we went to market we quickly realized that it’s going into a different direction than live video shopping in China, where it was already a bi thing. Instead of being these bargain driven very long shows it rather became a channel for more complex sales, premium sales and education.

During the pandemic a lot of brands experimented with live video shopping since people couldn’t visit stores anymore. It started with a marketing driven test to somehow still interact with customers.

However, over the past 2 years we have witnessed that live video shopping is becoming a strategic element for a lot of these brands. It’s becoming an integral part of the business and I wouldn’t be surprised to see job titles like VP of Live Commerce become much more common over the next few years.

Can you tell us how your customers are using Bambuser’s live video shopping tools?

We offer our customers two options and it depends on the target audience which one they choose.

Our one-to-many product is the one we went to market with. That started as an event and became a tool to offer online customers a more personalized shopping experience, almost as if they were in a store. This is catered towards businesses with a lower average order value. So their goal is to increase the basket size. If we look at a fashion brand for example, they could show their audience how to combine their shoes with their socks and this makes it easier for customers to also buy the socks instead of just the shoes.

On the other hand, our one-to-one tool is used for more complex sales, like an expensive skin routine with a variety of different creams, or setting up a smart home, or buying a car. This solution is catered to businesses with a very long purchase funnel, usually several weeks or months. Through one-to-one video shopping we can significantly shorten the purchase funnel because all the questions customers have can be answered during the live show without having to go to the car dealership or boutique or doing a ton of research themselves.

Our most successful customers actually use both solutions and decide based on use cases when to use a one-to-many live broadcast and when to get on a more intimate one-to-one video call.

How do you see the Japanese market and what is Bambuser’s plan for Japan?

We see Japan as one of our top 3 markets. It’s one of the largest e-commerce markets and end consumer adoption is definitely high. The view count in Japan is roughly three to four times higher than other markets. They are just waiting for this to explode. Right now we rather see the retailers lagging behind a bit. They need to catch up with the end consumers. But we’re confident that will happen very soon.

An interesting fact about Japan is that the retailers here tend to use their own staff instead of hiring external creators or influencers. To a large extent brands in Japan are activating their in-house experts like shop assistants, dermatologists, designers etc to be in front of the cameras. They realize that using their own people makes them much more authentic and it helps to build a community. This is very predominant in Japan whereas in other markets we see a 50 - 50 split.

Right now in Japan we’re at a similar point to where we were in Europe about a year ago. We’re starting to build our core team and our core competencies. Our goal is to really help our clients be able to do live video shopping successfully. Every market needs those successful use cases, references and brands to grow. Then we can double down here.

In Japan we focus on hiring and partnering with the right people. People who know this market and its unique culture and retail landscape. Similarly to how we can’t use the same strategies for the US and Europe, we can’t use the same strategies in Japan. Every market needs its own go-to-market strategy.

Last but not least, what type of talent would be successful at Bambuser?

We are scaling up rapidly at the moment and to thrive in this kind of environment you need to be very driven and passionate about what we do and where we want to go. You have to be able to work independently and you should be confident in your skill set. You are selling something that will be completely new to most people you meet so you must convey to them that you’re the expert and they must trust you.

You also need to be enthusiastic and transmit that enthusiasm to your counterpart. Your customers need to understand that this is the future and they don’t want to miss out.

So if you want to be part of building something completely new, if you want to be one of those people who move the needle in Japan, then Bambuser is the right company for you.

If you are interested in what types of positions are currently available at Bambuser, get in touch with us.