Shoppable Videos – The Next Big Thing?

Online shopping is huge. Actually, everything and anything done online means many opportunities and big business. We have consistently reported how e-commerce, driven by mobile web, is booming in the country. Despite of this dizzying growth, the true potential of online shopping remains to be exploited. Marketers and e-tailers are always on the look-out of better advertising and marketing techniques; techniques that will help them attract more customers and keep them ‘locked’ on their site. Usually, these ads follow the pay-per-click or online display ads format.

Given the competition and the sheer number of brands that are present online, it then becomes imperative for brands to find ways to stand out and to attract customers in a way that is unique and one that can ensure sales. Possibly, Shoppable Video is just the thing that will immensely boost online shopping sales. Shoppable Video is a concept that is in its infancy and is being tried on Google’s YouTube platform.

Using this feature, uses can move their mouse over products that are seen in the video; once a product is clicked on, an embedded hot link will take the user to the product page from which he/she will be able to make an instant purchase.

A few international brands like Gucci, Burberry, Juicy Couture, Neiman Marcus are already making use of this feature to boost sales. And it is working!

According to YouTube, four in ten users visited the brick-and-mortar store and/or online store after seeing a shoppable video. Companies using this online video sales promotion platform experienced a 20%-40% increase in sales. A survey done indicated that 34% of apparel shoppers were more likely to shop online after seeing shoppable videos. When Dailymotion (the European rival of YouTube) introduced shoppable (clickable) videos, the company noticed that a user will click on the on items in the videos one to three times in a minute, thus producing a click-through rate of around 55%.

With shoppable videos, the online shopping experience is definitely going to improve and get more instant. Users will no longer have to hunt for the shirt they saw that model wearing, instead it will be just a click away! Right now, it is social media sites like Pinterest, who are driving e-commerce sales. On these platforms, brands are required to continuously promote their products; while this may result in awareness it may not necessarily lead to sales as there is no way to shop directly (click on image and get redirected) from Pinterest or other social media platforms, a short-coming that shoppable videos instantly solves.

While Indian brands are adopting e-commerce and are focussed on improving their UI to attract customers, I wonder how soon they will adopt shoppable videos. To know who will be the first Indian brand to do so, watch this space.

Click here to see the campaign presented by Gucci as a the perfect example of advertising through shoppable videos.

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Image Courtesy |  video-commerce

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