Put this in there.
We've got the tubes.
Myriam Sandler and her husband Mark aren't cleaning
up their kids playroom.
21 products, 21 products.
Or setting up for a segment on QVC.
Tap to join me live.
Instead of TV, she's going live on Amazon.
Hi, everyone. Welcome back.
I'm so excited to be live with you.
I'm Myriam Sandler and I'm the face behind
@mothercould.
Think of it like the Home Shopping Network for Gen Z
and millennials: entirely online, hosted by famous
creators like Sandler, who have millions of followers
across social platforms.
Hi from Ohio.
Hi from San Diego.
Hello from Honduras.
Hello. Hello.
Alejandra, hi.
How are you?
We know that the vast majority of Gen Z consumers
say that they now use social media as their first
stop for shopping inspiration because they
have built trust and they've grown up feeling
authentic relationships with these people online.
Amazon, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Shopify.
They're all getting in on the game.
It's a way to differentiate a product from the millions
of others in oversaturated online marketplaces.
One of my favorite cleaning products.
It's a spinbrush.
They want somebody demonstrating it.
They really want somebody showing the product, how it
works and showing its efficacy.
And it's also entertainment.
But the U.S. Is lagging way behind China, where 74% of
consumers say they bought products through shoppable
livestream in 2022.
In the U.S., 78% say they've never even watched
one.
In China, we're seeing $200 with a b, $200 billion-plus
in sales. How do we mimic that in the U.S.?
And I think we're probably in the low-, the
mid-hundreds-of-millions.
It looks really cute.
We go behind the scenes with creators to find out what
it's like to sell via livestream and what it'll
take for the emerging model to become a mainstream way
that U.S. consumers shop.
Very cool.
So I will do like a little cucumber salad and cut
this in half and then bring this out.
And I want to give you a little demonstration.
Here we go.
Impulse purchases driven by compelling live pitches are
nothing new.
And this is the American egg.
I'm bringing it out on D-Day.
For the last four decades, the Home Shopping Network
and QVC have been broadcasting to tens of
millions of U.S. households. But as
e-commerce thrives, traditional retail has been
forced to evolve.
In 2017, amid slowing sales, QVC and the Home Shopping
Network merged in a $2.1 billion deal.
When the pandemic grounded shoppers in 2020, viewership
for the shopping networks went back up 10%.
But their biggest growth, 100% year-over-year,
happened on their social platforms.
It's no surprise the model has moved online where other
platforms are giving it a go, too.
Live shopping has been sort of the holy grail for social
media platforms for a couple of years.
Instagram tried it.
YouTube has tried it.
And then really during Covid in 2020, we started to
see it percolate mostly in Asia, where there was such a
big audience ready for shopping.
Another really cool thing about this label maker is
that it is completely inkless.
It'll never run out of ink because it works with
thermal technology.
Just like the QVC of old, personalities pitch products
live, now from the intimacy of their own homes.
Audiences can react with emojis or stars.
A chat window lets them ask questions the host can
answer live and links to the featured products make
for easy purchasing.
Oh my God. $23, you guys.
Thank you guys for letting us know.
During pandemic lockdowns, these livestreams took China
by storm. Chinese retail giant Alibaba was first to
market there, launching its livestream app, Taobao Live
in 2016.
In 2020, it exploded.
In the first 30 minutes of China's 2020 Singles' Day
shopping festival, Taobao livestreams generated $7.5
billion in transactions, a 400% jump from the year
before. That same year, the livestream shopping market
in China was valued at $171 billion, estimated to grow
to $423 billion in 2022.
People are excited by what you're seeing from China,
where you see really, really high conversion rates
on some of these experiences, much higher
than maybe a regular website would have.
You're seeing potentially up to 40% in some cases.
You might see much lower return rates because people
know what they got.
There's a rapidly growing ecosystem of new
livestreaming apps in China, too, like TikTok's
sister app Douyin and Pinduoduo, known for
rock-bottom prices.
Livestreamers in China, known as key opinion leaders
or KOLs, have made massive fortunes.
There's entire bootcamps devoted to the career craze
of becoming a livestream shopping host
KOLs there have millions and millions and millions of
fans, so even if 10% show up, that's still a million.
People want to buy products with meaning or product that
they can't get anywhere else. And that's really
what's the underpinning of live shopping in the U.S.
That's very different than in China, which is all about
just a mass population.
At 35% of the market, Alibaba's Taobao Live
remains the world's biggest live shopping player.
But the last few years have seen a flurry of U.S.
companies investing in live shopping ventures, too.
First among them, Amazon.
Two pockets, actually.
I love it. I'll show you the material a little bit closer
up.
Amazon introduced livestream shopping in 2016, then
launched its creator app in 2020, a tool for making it
easier to go live.
So the first thing that we're going to start out
with is this lovely "I just killed my husband
robe."
Tiana Young Morris was a practicing attorney when she
first started livestreaming in 2020.
The pandemic hit and I was bored in the house.
I was on TikTok just like everybody else, and it just
kind of took on a life of its own.
Videos of her trying on wigs and reviewing them went
viral long before she made money doing it.
Every other wig that we're talking about this evening
is, baby, throw and go.
Throw it on like a hat and out the door.
Like that first viral video, I was like, oh, there are a
lot of people that are going to buy the product
that I recommended.
Yes, honey. How can I make money off of this?
And Amazon just makes it so easy for you to sign up for
the Influencer Program.
Through the Amazon Influencer Program, creators
get their own storefront where Amazon users can
follow them. Now Young Morris sells almost
exclusively on Amazon Live.
As an attorney in private practice, I was making about
$100,000, like a little over $110,000, maybe like
$110,000 or so.
And now I make about six times that.
The biggest moneymaker for Amazon Live creators is
commission, which is usually 10% or less of sales
from click-throughs on the livestream, although the
rare category can be as high as 20%.
Amazon also offers some creators a flat fee for
going live regularly, and top creators can make extra
from brands that pay for dedicated sponsored
livestreams like this one young Morris did with Dove.
This body cleanser?
Give it all to me.
While brands often send livestreamers free products,
top creators build viewer trust through honest
reviews.
The length on them is not super long.
I feel like it's important to just tell the truth about
what it is, because if it's short on me and a tall woman
buys it, then they're going to realize it when they get
it anyway and they're just going to return it.
I really want it to be my opinions.
I want it to be purchased from me.
Like I spent my own money on this product.
So I can tell you it is worth spending your money on
this product. I probably decline 75% of the offers
that come my way, and I could have a lot more money
if I accepted those and I would still have community
members, but I would have no trust in me.
Celebrities like Kourtney Kardashian Barker and Paris
Hilton also hold livestreams for the Amazon
launch of their own brands.
Brands like JBL have also seen major success on Amazon
Live, where a carousel of products linked on the left
make for frictionless buying.
I've got so many amazing Prime Day deals for you
guys, and it's actually in collaboration with JBL.
Last year, during Prime Day one of JBL's Amazon Lives
hit 714,000 Views and JBl's Lauren Severson says
83% of purchases were made by first-time customers.
Our portable, waterproof speaker, so that saw an
80% increase in the two weeks following of sales.
And then we saw an increase of 22% of traffic to
any of our JBL pages on Amazon.
Mix mix mix, mix mix mix.
Sandler's career as a creator first took off in
2019 with viral videos like this one that has nearly 80
million views on YouTube, demoing playful recipes and
activities she does with her three daughters at her
home in Miami.
You are an excellent Play-Doh maker.
So my husband was an investment banker for 15
years. One day we realized that we were, or I was,
making double what he was making, and he was making a
really good living. I was like, Let's take a leap of
faith. Leave.
And he left. It's probably grown four times since,
and it's just crazy.
Sandler's @mothercould brand makes the most on Amazon,
but she has more followers on Instagram at 1.2 million
and TikTok with 730,000 followers and 11.7 billion
views.
I don't profit off any other platform that you can go
live. Everyone coming to Amazon Live is essentially
coming to buy something.
They're there for that.
I feel like if you are live on Instagram or live on
TikTok, live on Facebook, they're there to like see
what's going on.
Amazon Live is the most complete end-to-end
platform. We can say it's in the BYOA category, bring
your own audience.
So they have to come and drive traffic there, which
is a little difficult, more difficult than showing up
and just turning it on.
While Amazon is all about frictionless sales and high
conversion, social media live shopping is more about
growing followers and going viral.
Products go viral all the time on TikTok and Scrub
Daddy is a great example.
Dyson Airwrap is another example.
That's what differentiates the social platforms from
Amazon. Amazon you go there to find something you heard
about or you're looking for.
In 2020, Instagram and TikTok became the first U.S
. social platforms to launch live shopping capabilities.
ByteDance-owned TikTok partnered with Walmart for
an hour-long live, where TikTok users could buy
Walmart fashion items featured by creators.
The duo did another livestream in 2021 after
reporting the first event netted seven times more
views than expected and grew Walmart's TikTok
following by 25%.
I think TikTok is going to be able to leapfrog everyone
else is because they have so many users now.
They have a billion active monthly users, and every
time you use the platform, it's learning your behavior,
learning your interests and serving you what it thinks
you like.
But right now in the U.S., shoppers on TikTok have to
navigate away from the app to make a purchase,
eliminating a big potential revenue stream.
So in the fall, TikTok started U.S.
testing of a new function called TikTok Shop.
It allows users to buy directly in the app, and
although it's invitation-only for creators
and merchants in the U.S.
right now, it has already launched in Southeast Asia
and the UK. Now, Shopify and YouTube have teamed up
on live shopping efforts, too.
Announced in July, the partnership expands live
shopping capabilities so viewers can click and buy
without leaving YouTube.
It's not just like, here's yet another thing that's
distracting our youth with video selling, but it's
actually here is a new way that business is evolving
and adapting to how the world is going to look in
the future.
Business owners like Cassey Ho can go live on YouTube
and elsewhere to promote their own products.
Ho first went viral with this pilates workout video
under her screen name @blogilates 13 years ago.
Viewers asked her to sell merch featuring her screen
name.
I was like, What?
You want stuff with my screen name on it?
And so I was like, okay.
So then I remember buying like these shirts from
Forever 21 and like screen printing @blogilates on it
and put it up on Facebook.
And then it sold out within minutes.
Shortly after, Ho launched an activewear brand called
PopFlex and started posting design process TikToks that
get millions of views.
37 weeks ago I attempted to make the perfect legging.
She tries on PopFlex clothes live on Instagram, which she
says leads to far more sales than TikTok.
Right now, across all my social platforms, we have
about 15 million followers and subscribers everywhere,
And on YouTube, over 2 billion views.
And then in terms of sales,
PopFlex on its own is an eight figure business.
And then Blogilates on its own is an eight figure
business.
Ho said she had her best sales hour of the year
before Black Friday during an hour long YouTube live
shopping event.
Sweatpants. They are happening.
Tonight is happening.
You need to go get them because I don't think
they'll be lasting long.
There's also a handful of startups developing new U.S
. platforms devoted entirely to live shopping.
There's Ntwrk that focuses on sneakers and collectibles
. Supergreat and Trendio for beauty products.
And the biggest among them is TalkShopLive.
TalkShopLive.
TalkShopLive. TalkshopLive.
Where Walmart held 150 live shopping events in 2022.
And celebrities like Dolly Parton, Tim Tebow and Jamie
Foxx have gone live.
And TikTok is reportedly in negotiations with
TalkShopLive about outsourcing its live
shopping efforts to the U.S .-based startup.
TikTok currently faces bans in several states due to
concerns it could hand user data over to China.
I have a feeling that before it gets banned it'll
probably sell or do other things to placate
authorities, but I don't think that it's going away
anytime soon.
And it really is the backbone of pop culture
right now because it is the chosen platform of Gen Z.
Despite trending hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt, one
survey found U.S.
shoppers are hesitant to pay for products directly on
social sites. In turn, retailers miss out on the
click-through and conversion data that's owned
by the social sites.
It's a big barrier to success for the business
model and one that's not an issue for Amazon Live or
Alibaba's Taobao Live in China.
As e-commerce platforms and not social networks, they
keep buyers on site all the way through the sale.
Amazon continues to grow its livestream efforts,
launching Amazon Live in India last September.
Meta, on the other hand, is scaling back its focus on
shopping. It halted live shopping on Facebook in
October and removed the shop tab from Instagram's
navigation bar this month.
So we're bringing Create down to the bottom, front
and center and we're removing the Shop tab.
And in China, the government is enforcing greater
supervision over private industries, including
livestream shopping. Some of its biggest live shopping
superstars have been hit with massive fines or taken
sudden, unannounced breaks.
So, yeah, this is the tablet and this is the case.
In the U.S., it remains to be seen whether livestream
shopping is just a fad that took off while consumers
were stuck at home during the pandemic, or if Amazon
Live and social platforms have created a big enough
draw for it to stick around for good.
One thing I've learned about merchants: they're
incredibly resilient entrepreneurs, and when they
find something that works, it spreads.
So yeah, let's hope that this is the year that we see
that real explosion in live selling.
Thank you so much.
Have a great day.
Hop this off.