Yahoo Finance’s Allie Garfinkle explores Google’s venture into livestream shopping on YouTube, as well as looking at livestream shopping trends in China.
Video Transcript
RACHELLE AKUFFO: All right, well, we’re taking a look at the livestream shopping space. Now usually when you think of this, the first image that might come to mind is perhaps QVC, or one of these other home shopping network channels. But livestream shopping is actually a growth area for e-commerce giants like Amazon and Alibaba. And YouTube is now jumping into the space, too. Senior tech reporter Allie Garfinkle is here to tell us more. So Allie, why is a platform like YouTube interested in livestream shopping?
ALEXANDRA GARFINKLE: Thanks, Rachelle. So though it sounds kind of ’90s, YouTube is jumping into livestream shopping to harness the dynamic that’s already there on the platform. People have always bought things using YouTube, but for a long time, the company has gotten the feedback that it’s a kind of a clunky process, and that it’s filled with friction. The feedback was also both from users and creators. So livestream shopping is actually a way for them to kind of smooth out this experience.
The creator you see on the screen, her name is Christine Rottenberg. She’s a creator who runs a channel called Simply Not Logical, and she is famous for her nail tutorials. She has a nail polish line. And she told me that Livestream shopping is becoming really, really key as a way for her to link up with her audience. One of the YouTube’s execs I spoke to, to that end, really described livestream shopping as kind of a win for everyone, a win for creators, a win for users, and a win for YouTube. Now, their other thing to consider is that livestream shopping is pretty major in China. And livestream shopping is not there in the US yet, but YouTube does believe the growth potential is there.
DAVE BRIGGS: In terms of the domestic market, who would be their primary competition?
ALEXANDRA GARFINKLE: That’s a great question, Dave. So e-commerce giants like Amazon and Alibaba have already been in livestream for a few years. Most famously, Amazon will use livestream for its biggest event of the year, Prime Day. But globally, I think it’s worth noting that Alibaba really rules the roost. Their service that’s called Taobao Live, it generated about $77 billion last year. I actually got to ask Alibaba what they sort of credit the success of that business to.
And for them, they actually said a huge part of it is the medium. The medium itself actually really generates loyalty and consumers. One of the things that they said is seeing a creator, talking to them about a product, whether it’s their product or somebody else’s, it really generates loyalty and keeps people coming back. And for a platform like YouTube, even though the US market still has a way to go, getting in on that dynamic, I can see why it would be really appealing.
SEANA SMITH: All right, Allie Garfinkel. Allie, thanks so much for bringing that to us.
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