Level Up Your E-Commerce With Live Social Shopping: A Go-To Guide

The Rise of Live Social Shopping

The history of live streaming goes all the way back to the 1990s when a concert and a baseball game were streamed online. Fast forward to the creation of YouTube in 2005, which democratized video streaming for anyone who had an internet connection and a camera. YouTube Live was consequently launched in 2008, allowing anyone in the world to watch global events live from wherever they were.

Its success created a chain reaction of live streaming platforms like Twitch, created in 2011 and primarily used for gamers to broadcast their sessions, breaking the mold from the popular live music and sports events streaming.

Today, almost every social media platform under the sun includes a live streaming service (TikTok Live, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and the list goes on). That’s how, slowly, the intersection of social shopping and live streaming blended to create live social shopping. But the Western world wasn’t the first to do it.

In 2016, one of China’s biggest online shopping platforms, Taobao, launched its Live section, allowing brands to showcase their products live to engage viewers and boost sales. The rest is history, as live social shopping began gaining ground outside of China, more recently making its rounds in the US.

This mix of mobile commerce and social media live broadcasts resulted in a powerful tool for brands to keep attracting and retaining customers. Now, anyone with a smartphone and access to social media can tune into live streams and visualize products more innovatively.

How Live Social Shopping Works

Most companies considering engaging in live social shopping prefer to use popular social media platforms as their main channel, especially if they’ve already gathered a significant following. The algorithm’s ability to match brands with the right audience also makes sites like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook more attractive places to start.

But these aren’t the only options available in the market. Seasoned live social shoppers might rely on dedicated platforms to find their favorite brands and browse for products.

Social Media Live Streaming Platforms:

• TikTok Live
• Facebook Live
• Instagram Live
• Pinterest TV

Dedicated Live Social Shopping Platforms:

• Bambuser
• Now Live
• Livescale
• Emplifi

Regardless of the platform businesses choose, the concept stays the same. However, they don’t just hold up a product for viewers to scrutinize — the idea is for these sessions to be engaging and highly interactive. So, live streams can be themed, like doing Q&A sessions, running polls and quizzes, offering exclusive deals, or doing tutorials.

Some are also more comprehensive than others, offering live chats for people to ask questions and receive answers in real time, embedding streamlined checkout options for the products displayed on the stream, and even showing data analytics to track performance in real time for brands to see their progress.

Benefits of Live Social Shopping for Businesses

For many brands, live social shopping has become a place to build and strengthen their community and keep a close eye on feedback and product improvements. In many cases, it feels like the gift that keeps on giving.

Increased Customer Engagement

It’s priceless for companies to directly interact with their customers and receive earnest, insightful opinions and praise that can help them improve their operations. This engagement was difficult to achieve beyond the brick-and-mortar experience in the past, and now, brands are able to increase engagement with access to technology, some creativity, and a few taps on a screen.

Enhanced Brand Awareness

Live social shopping is increasingly becoming a go-to option for companies to improve their brand awareness. As consumers browse social media, going from post to post and video to video, brand live streams or even influencer posts can expose them to new products and companies that match their interests.

Boosted Sales and Conversions

While live social shopping isn’t as popular in the US as it is in countries like China, it’s still an outstanding channel to convert and boost sales. According to studies, the average annual spending per frequent live commerce user in the US surpassed that of Europe and matched that of Latin America. By 2026, it will make up for five percent of all e-commerce sales in the country.

These trends can be attributed to the sense of urgency and excitement that live social shopping creates — seeing someone else use a product you’re potentially interested in and portray it in a positive light can turn doubters into buyers. Plus, these streams are often accompanied by coupons, discounts, and exclusive deals that incentivize people to tune in and buy even more.

Improved Customer Service

These live commerce streams also feel very personable, making consumers feel like they’re having a one-on-one with brands. During these sessions, live chats are often enabled so viewers can ask questions or leave their feedback, creating a more direct way to communicate with companies and express thoughts. This amps up customer service, adding an innovative and more streamlined channel to voice opinions.

Data Collection

Connecting with customers through a live stream is also a prime example of how brands can organically create new sources to gather data. These data points can showcase preferences, purchase behavior, and engagement practices, helping companies fine-tune their practices. These findings can also inform future marketing strategies and improve product development and customer service — all thanks to directly interacting with customers consistently.

Risks of Live Social Shopping

As with anything innovative, live social shopping has its own set of challenges and risks, which are worth underlining to help you start your journey on the right foot.

Technical Difficulties

Involving technology in any process means teams must prepare for any possible technical issues. In the case of live social commerce, poor audio or video quality, sudden platform outages, and other hardware and software-related problems can arise at any point. These incidents can turn viewers and potential customers away, tarnishing the efforts made so far during streaming sessions.

These difficulties highlight the importance of acquiring quality equipment that can withstand prolonged use and hiring an excellent internet provider.

Building an Audience

For live social streaming to yield benefits, brands must stay consistent to slowly but surely build an audience. These wins don’t come overnight and take a lot of effort, such as hosting increasingly more creative and engaging content to keep viewers coming back and standing out from other brands.

Patience, consistency, and trust in the process will soon turn into a strong community, higher brand awareness, and improved sales.

Resource Intensive

Good content requires good equipment to create it  — live social shopping doesn’t always come cheap. From dedicated personnel to a good smartphone or camera for recording, microphones, lights, and an appealing backdrop, there are certain additional costs attached to this practice. The truth is that when done right, these investments can be offset with the gains that live social commerce brings to the table.

Best Practices for Successful Live Social Shopping

In light of the benefits and challenges posed by live social shopping, we’ve gathered the best practices brands should keep in mind to enhance their risk management strategies, responsibly hop on this rising trend, and come out on top.

• Define the objectives and target audience: Before starting any new project, it’s paramount to have clarity regarding who you’re targeting and what you wish to achieve with it. Keeping this true north will help you make the right decisions, focus on what’s important, and get back on track whenever issues arise.

• Choose the right platform: Once you’ve settled on your target audience, deciding which platform will suit this demand best will make the difference between growing or staying stuck. For example, platforms like Facebook might appeal to Gen X and Millennial audiences, while TikTok could capture Gen Z more easily. From a practical standpoint, choose a platform with the ideal features for your business, whether that’s embedded checkouts or a low-latency live chat.

• Plan and prepare: Live streams will be a direct reflection of a brand. Going into a live stream without a plan will result in a disorganized and unappealing event, which won’t be any good for a company’s reputation. For this reason, it’s much better to brainstorm ideas, make a schedule, and write a script or outline of the entire livestream. That way, presenters are well-prepared and know what’s next, and products are ready for display and use.

• Built a strong online presence: The work doesn’t stop at planning and live streaming. For live social shopping to work even better, brands must market them on their social media, website, email newsletter, and any other communication channels. This way, they build hype and excitement for live events — an opportunity to connect directly with the brand.

• Leverage influencers: It was recently reported that 50% of companies will increase their influencer budget in 2025. The numbers explain it: the industry is set to be worth $24 billion by the end of the year. Leveraging influencers to promote your live streams and participate in them will help strengthen your viewership as these personalities will bring along their massive following.

• Optimize for mobile: Although companies might want to run their live social shopping stream on desktop mode, the truth is mobile reigns supreme. Most people will be tuning in from their phones, so it’s vital to stream on mobile-friendly platforms like social media or ensure your embedded live stream adapts to mobile screens.
• Analyze and iterate: Practice makes perfect. The more live streams your brand does, the more data you’ll have to make key improvements. For example, analyze which streams got the most traffic and why, and try incorporating some of those winning elements more. Also make sure to gather customer feedback and truly take it into account so they can feel heard in future live streams.

Insurance Considerations for E-Commerce Companies

In today’s day and age, modern retailers big and small leverage e-commerce to increase their exposure and improve their buying experience beyond physical stores — live social shopping comes as an evolution of these online practices. As more people become online shoppers, hosting your store online is a great opportunity (even as an independent eBay or Etsy seller) to grow your retail business — ensuring your services are protected from the numerous rising risks.

From ever-evolving cyberattacks to data privacy regulations, and shipping and returns issues, companies must be ready to take on these challenges with proper risk management strategies and the relief that e-commerce insurance can provide.

Packages can vary depending on company needs, but here’s an overview of the coverages relevant to e-commerce businesses.

General Liability

Whether you also have brick-and-mortar stores or not, general liability is the quintessential umbrella coverage for all businesses. It covers personal or property damage and bodily injury occurring at the workplace, which can adapt to those who sell online.

Cyber Liability

This coverage is unmissable for those operating online. From data breaches to outages, and these incidents’ ensuing effects, cyber liability protects e-commerce companies from third-party legal claims stemming from electronic activities.

Workers’ Compensation

Growing your team can be an exciting endeavor which also comes with important responsibilities. These include covering medical costs and lost wages after sustaining work-related injuries, making workers’ compensation a primordial coverage to give you and your employees peace of mind.

Employment Practices Liability

Alongside workers’ compensation, employment practices liability (EPL) is a foundational protection that helps cover the legal costs in the wake of employment-related allegations, such as discrimination or breach of contract.

Product Liability

Product liability supports companies upon claims of property damage or bodily injury caused by their products. Such lawsuits can be costly for e-commerce companies, bringing about massive reputational and financial damages that a company alone wouldn’t be able to shoulder and come back from.

Property Damage

Behind the scenes, e-commerce businesses might count on office locations and equipment to deliver the best products and services. If anything were to happen to these assets, whether they’re lost in a fire or stolen, property damage insurance reimburses those costs directly so companies can get back on track.

Transit & Transportation

E-commerce companies thrive on shipping their products from their warehouses. If anything were to happen to these goods while on the road to customers, transit & transportation insurance helps businesses reimburse customers for these losses and cover lost inventory as well.

Directors & Officers

Any promising company must protect their leaders as competition gets more fierce — especially in the growing space that is e-commerce. Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance does the job right, covering the company and its executive team whenever they’re accused of certain actions.

Business Interruption Insurance

Things might not always go as expected for a business. Whether there’s a cloud outage that completely halts an e-commerce’s operations or any other unforeseen that forces the company to cease work, business interruption insurance helps companies recoup the lost revenue after such incidents.

Live social shopping is becoming a new and exciting opportunity for retailers to reach new audiences, build a strong community, and improve their sales performance.

Although there’s no silver-bullet practice to do live streaming perfectly, setting priorities, planning, and employing the best team and equipment can help businesses get the best benefits from this innovative form of interacting and selling to customers.

Ensuring your e-commerce company is protected from the challenges that come along with the retail industry with proper insurance coverage gives you and your team extra peace of mind to continue growing and thriving.

Insurance Rebuilt, End-to-End

We've supported startups from stealth mode to huge funding rounds.

Get a Custom Quote