Livestream Shopping

In the rapidly evolving digital marketplace, livestream shopping has emerged as a revolutionary retail phenomenon. It blends the immediate nature of live video with the convenience of online shopping. This innovative shopping experience allows consumers to view products in real-time, ask questions, and make purchases during a live broadcast, offering a dynamic and interactive way to shop.

Originating in Asia, livestream shopping has seen explosive growth, particularly in China, where it has become a mainstream retail channel. Now, this trend is making significant inroads into the U.S. market, capturing the attention of American consumers and transforming the retail landscape. The adoption of livestream shopping by American consumers signals a shift in shopping behaviours and preferences, with a growing number of U.S. shoppers embracing this engaging and immersive shopping format.

Success stories highlight the potential for brands to achieve remarkable sales figures and consumer engagement through livestream events. For instance, Amazon Live’s collaboration with JBL on Amazon Prime Day 2022 drove product awareness and sales spikes. Similarly, the Dyson Airwrap and Scrap Daddy have gone viral on TikTok.

The rise of livestream shopping has also paved the way for “dupe influencers” — individuals who promote counterfeit or knockoff products as cheaper alternatives to genuine branded goods. This presents many challenges for brand protection teams, tasked with safeguarding intellectual property rights and maintaining consumer trust in an already complex marketplace. As the expansion of livestream shopping continues in the U.S., teams need to devise new ways to navigate these new waters. They need to balance the opportunities for growth with the imperative to protect their brands against the risks posed by counterfeit products and misleading promotions.

The Mechanics of Live Video Shopping

Live video shopping is transforming the way we think about online shopping, making it a more interactive and engaging experience.

How Livestream Shopping Works

At its core, live video shopping is about bringing the immediacy and excitement of live video broadcasts to the online shopping experience.

Sellers, ranging from big brands to individual influencers, host live sessions to showcase their products in real-time. This setup allows viewers to see products in action, ask questions directly to the host, and get instant responses, making the shopping experience much more interactive and personalized. The sense of community it fosters among viewers and the direct interaction with sellers creates a unique shopping environment that traditional online shopping simply cannot match.

Integration with E-commerce Platforms

One of the key factors behind the success of live video shopping is how seamlessly it integrates with existing e-commerce platforms. During a live session, products are directly linked to an online store (such as Amazon Live). Viewers can click through and make purchases instantly, streamlining the process and reducing the time from product discovery to purchase.

The explosion of live video shopping owes much to social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, which have become pivotal in hosting live sessions. These platforms offer a vast reach, enabling sellers to connect with audiences far and wide. Furthermore, influencer marketing plays an essential role in this ecosystem. Influencers, with their large followings and trusted voices, can dramatically amplify a product’s visibility by featuring it in their live sessions. Their endorsements have the power to sway purchasing decisions, making influencer marketing a critical component of the live video shopping phenomenon.

The convergence of live video shopping with e-commerce and social media platforms creates a dynamic new retail ecosystem. This ecosystem not only reshapes how products are discovered and purchased online but also how consumers engage with brands and each other. By offering a more interactive, personalized, and community-focused shopping experience, live video shopping is setting a new standard for what it means to shop in the digital age.

Potential Risks for Brand Protection Teams

Given the unpredictable nature of livestream shopping, brand protection teams are up against several challenges that can significantly impact the integrity of their products and the trust of their customers. Layer Image

Counterfeit Products

The real-time nature of livestream shopping presents a unique challenge for brand protection teams. The live aspect makes it harder to monitor and control the content effectively, especially when products are being showcased and sold in rapid succession. Counterfeit products can easily slip through the cracks during these fast-paced sessions, posing a significant threat to brands. Addressing and mitigating these risks is crucial for maintaining product integrity and customer trust.

Celebrity Impersonation

An emerging concern with livestream shopping is the use of AI to create clones of celebrities, endorsing products with AI-generated images or videos. This not only harms the reputation of the individuals involved but can also significantly damage the credibility of the brands associated with such practices.

A notable incident occurred during a 15-hour snack sale, purportedly hosted by Taiwanese star Calvin Chen. Viewers were shocked to discover that the individual they saw was not Chen himself but rather an AI clone created using advanced deepfake technology.

This example highlights the need for constant vigilance to prevent the misuse of AI in falsely representing celebrity endorsements. It poses a significant challenge for brand protection teams tasked with maintaining the integrity of a brand’s reputation.

Instant Negative Reviews

The interactive nature of livestream shopping means that consumer feedback, both positive and negative, is immediate. Negative reviews and comments can spread quickly across the platform, potentially damaging the brand’s image in real-time.

Brand protection teams must develop effective strategies to manage and respond to negative feedback during live sessions. This involves proactive engagement with the audience, swift resolution of any issues that arise, and maintaining transparent communication to ensure the brand is perceived positively. Handling instant feedback effectively is crucial for protecting the brand’s reputation in the fast-paced environment of livestream shopping.

Navigating these challenges requires a proactive and agile approach from brand protection teams. By staying ahead of potential risks, such as counterfeit products, celebrity impersonation through AI, and instant negative reviews, brands can continue to leverage the opportunities presented by livestream shopping to safeguard their reputation.

Brand Protection Measures in Livestream Shopping

The unique challenges posed by livestream shopping have made brand protection more critical than ever. This requires innovative solutions and collaborative efforts to safeguard brands and consumers alike from counterfeit products.

Technological Solutions

Brand protection teams can leverage technology to stay one step ahead of counterfeiters and infringers on these livestream shopping channels.

AI-powered Systems

At the heart of modern brand protection strategies are AI-powered detection systems. These sophisticated tools use artificial Intelligence to perform tasks such as image recognition and language processing, which involve identifying objects in images and translating text from one language to another in real-time, enabling the identification and flagging of potential counterfeit products as they are showcased. This proactive methodology empowers brands to promptly confront and alleviate the risks linked to counterfeit goods, thereby guaranteeing a safer shopping environment for consumers.

Blockchain for Product Authentication

Blockchain technology is revolutionizing the way brands authenticate their products. By creating a transparent, immutable ledger for each product’s journey from production to purchase, blockchain provides an indisputable record of authenticity. This technology empowers consumers to verify the legitimacy of the products they’re interested in during live shopping sessions, significantly enhancing trust and confidence in the brand.

Collaboration with Platforms

A partnership with social platforms can add value to brand protection efforts.

An essential aspect of tackling counterfeit products in livestream shopping involves direct collaboration with e-commerce and social media platforms. Brand protection teams engage with these platforms to share information and strategies aimed at identifying and removing counterfeit listings.

Implementing Stringent Guidelines for Sellers

To further secure the livestream shopping environment, brands and platforms are implementing stringent guidelines for sellers. These guidelines are designed to ensure that all products showcased during live sessions are genuine and meet the platforms’ quality and authenticity standards. Sellers who fail to comply with these guidelines risk facing penalties, including the removal of their products or bans from participating in future livestreams.

The combination of cutting-edge technology and strategic collaboration forms a comprehensive defence against the proliferation of counterfeit products in livestream shopping. By leveraging AI and blockchain for real-time detection and authentication and working closely with platforms to enforce strict seller guidelines, brands can create a more secure and trustworthy online shopping environment.

How Can Hubstream Help You?

Hubstream offers a data-driven case management solution designed specifically for brand protection teams. Our software has been tailored to meet the unique needs of various industries, including retail, consumer electronics, e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, law enforcement, and government agencies.

Here’s how Hubstream can help you:

Lead prioritization & investigation insights:

Hubstream can prioritize questionable entities easily and provide insights proactively for brand protection teams. 

Link analysis:

Hubstream can connect the dots from different sources and platforms under one hub as live streamers will go to different channels to maximize their revenues.

Customizable templates:

Hubstream offers powerful investigation templates that helps brand protection teams work with cybercrime investigators to protect their customers from incidents, such as celebrity impersonation, takedowns, social engineering attacks and piracy of digital materials.