Live Shopping: How to Create Seamless Online Retail Experiences

How to create seamless online retail experiences that drive sales

It is not surprising that we and our partners in this space – Retail Marketing Group (RMG) and Smartzer – are seeing more brands wanting to develop digital solutions that:

• Create an equally engaging shopping experience on their website as they would in-store
• Engage their consumers in a human, emotionally-connected way
• Harness the skill, knowledge, and enthusiasm of their advisors and sales team
• Create a seamless virtual shopping experience that drives sales by enabling consumers to receive the information, advice, and support that they need to make a purchasing decision and complete the transaction
• Build defined communities within their audience

Having worked with RMG and Smartzer on projects that do just this, we’re going to walk you through a recent project to show how the three critical components come together to ensure a successful online retail experience: strategy, tech, and production.

1. Strategy

A leading broadcaster and telecommunications company wanted to reach new routes to market via social channels that also engaged with their retail stores to drive awareness of their new product.

As RMG are content and live commerce specialists within the consumer electronics world that offer an OMNI-channel approach via in-store and video solutions, they offered an end-to-end solution for the client.

The strategy was built to execute two national live shopping broadcasts to increase awareness of the client’s new product. This included pre- and post-event communications, storyboarding and scripting, talent sourcing, audience targeting, and creative direction. RMG also provided project management throughout being the direct point of contact for the client.

A partnership was established with London Filmed to deliver the live production and Smartzer to deliver the live shopping platform. The project was delivered within six weeks.

2. Tech

Smartzer transforms regular live content into shoppable, results-driven experiences. The innovative tool adds a layer of interactivity to live-streamed content, allowing viewers to react, comment, and ask the host questions. When the stream concludes, Smartzer generates valuable data to create a targeted post-event strategy. On average, each viewer generates 44 actionable data points per stream. This data can also be used to retarget consumers through Google Tag Manager and Meta Pixel.

The Smartzer platform was integrated into the client’s strategy via London Filmed, as a neat solution to live stream the client’s live broadcasts to create an interactive, engaging live shopping experience.

3. Production & integration

With the strategy covered by RMG, and with the Smartzer platform onboarded, London Filmed designed, built, and delivered the live events, bringing all the elements together as the live technical production partner.

Working closely with RMG and the client throughout the project, the end result was a seamless, engaging broadcast, which was backed up by the data from the Smartzer platform. To ensure success, London Filmed held five rehearsals with the chosen hosts to make sure they were comfortable with the tech and to optimise camera positions (ensuring each speaker knew where to look and when), lighting and sound. We also rigorously tested the live stream to ensure our primary and backup solution ran smoothly and that any need for redundancy coming into play was seamless. For a broadcast-quality look and feel and seamless transitions during the live shopping event, our graphic design team created digital assets to overlay on the stream.

At the live event, we had a team consisting of Live Stream Technicians, a Director of Photography, Camera Operators, a Production Manager and a Project Manager for a smooth live delivery.