Livestream Ecommerce Supports Both Goal-Oriented and Impulsive Shoppers

Summary: On ecommerce apps, livestream helps answer user questions in real time. On social-networking apps, it encourages shopping as a new way of entertainment.

Livestream ecommerce is a form of ecommerce where store sales representatives and influencers sell products and services via online video streaming. The hosts can show products in a lively way and answer the audience’s real-time questions .

This form of ecommerce has gained great popularity in China. According to PR Newswire, during the annual Single-Day Global Shopping Festival (November 11th, the biggest shopping day for Chinese online shoppers), the transaction amount via livestream sessions reached $25.6 billion and accounted for 16.3% of the total amount resulted from sales during the year.

Recently, we conducted a usability-testing study in China with 10 participants with different levels of experience with livestream ecommerce. We included a few exploratory tasks and interviewed them before and after the study. Participants showed us how they watched livestream sessions and how livestream sessions helped decision-making while they shopped online.