By Vasudeva Rao Munnaluri
In 2023, the live commerce market size amounted to $695 billion and is predicted to grow steadily and surpass the US$1 trillion mark by 2026. Extremely popular in East Asian economies, live commerce is now making a cultural shift in India with large e-commerce businesses launching their own live commerce platforms. During the Great Indian Festival, Amazon Live had over 1,000 hours of live streaming with more than 300 social media influencers helping customers make informed purchase decisions.
Speaking to a salesperson face-to-face is still a valuable part of the sales journey for many businesses, but it is not easily scalable and accessible to all customers. A recent study by Edelman found that 89 percent of Indian customers consider trust and authenticity as the primary factors that determine purchase. Coupled with India’s high smartphone penetration, there is a real, promising gap for live commerce to fill.
Live video transforms customer experience
Live commerce connects businesses, big-name influencers, and celebrities to customers, who can shop for products in real-time. It increases consumer engagement with brands by leveraging interactivity with customers while addressing their concerns in real-time.
During a live-shopping stream, customers can choose to simply watch, or interact with influencers presenting the live stream and support agents with a single click. It is a unique and compelling experience, primarily because it solves the biggest pain point for customers—they don’t have to scroll through numerous web pages before making a purchase. According to Zendesk’s CX Trends Report 2024, 82 percent of India customers dislike the need to navigate through multiple web pages when making a purchase. Live commerce delivers a shopping experience from browsing to sales all in one window.
Apart from creating memorable customer experiences, live commerce improves the bottom line. A McKinsey study found that adding a live video stream to sales channels delivers a conversion rate of up to 30 percent—ten times higher than the average for normal e-commerce. This is perhaps why 88% of CX leaders are partnering with external vendors and experts to implement conversational commerce.
Customers in India find live commerce valuable for product demos, reviews, and sales. A recent study by Statista showed that 75 percent of Indian customers have used live commerce to purchase an item. Another study by Statista found that the top two reasons Indian customers use live commerce is due to quick answers to questions before and after sales (54 percent), and quick answers to product-related queries (50 percent). It is clear that speed is of the essence.
As live commerce gains popularity in India, brands need to ensure that the live-shopping experience, and everything around it, runs without a glitch. This is where AI-powered CX can help. It ensures that shoppers can have their queries quickly answered during the live-shopping event, regardless of the channel of communication they choose, and it helps support agents handle surges in ticket volume seamlessly.
Adding AI-powered support to the live shopping experience
Live shopping is only as good as the experience brands create. Customers can only enjoy it if everything around live shopping runs without a glitch and to the highest possible standards. This requires brands to integrate customer support seamlessly into the experience.
If a shopper has a question or a problem during the live-shopping event, they must be able to get help with the touch of a button, through whatever channel customers choose—be it live chat, an AI-driven bot, or email.
Generative AI-powered solutions, built on large CX-specific data sets, can elevate the live shopping experience by providing support agents with all the necessary product and customer information at their fingertips to address queries in real-time. In a setting where time is of the essence, generative AI-powered CX tools can analyse customer sentiment and intent to intelligently triage queries to the relevant support agent, particularly when specialised knowledge is required, and craft the perfect responses for agents to quickly review and send. Customers can also start a chat with AI agents to get intelligent responses that pull relevant information from the brand’s help centre or suggest other relevant products to purchase.
Live commerce is on the rise in India and holds the promise of growth for many retail and e-commerce businesses. Those keen on leveraging this new avenue for sales must invest in AI-powered CX tools to offer customers a seamless and memorable shopping experience. Doing so will give brands a competitive edge, helping them increase conversion rates, improve brand engagement, boost sales and ultimately grow.
The author is RVP India & SAARC, Zendesk