The dream of being able to buy a product directly from a TV show dates back to the beginning of the new millennium. But despite the many technological breakthroughs over the past 15 years, this holy grail of e-commerce is not yet a reality for the vast majority of consumers.
One of the main reasons shoppable video has yet to become a widespread phenomenon is user behaviour. While there are certainly instances where people are so excited by a new product that they are ready to buy it right away, most video viewers want to continue watching their content without interruption.
For shoppable video to reach its true potential, two things need to happen:
1) Next-generation bookmarking
To avoid interruptions, there needs to be the capability for consumers to see a product in a video and revisit it after they’ve finished watching their content.
Already, we’ve seen how platforms like Pinterest have helped consumers move from browsing to purchase consideration by giving them a place to store product pages and other content containing goods they might like to buy.
To take these bookmarking platforms to the next level, we need to link them directly to the point of purchase and make it easier to single out individual products from the video content people are consuming.
2) Universal shopping carts
Once these next-generation bookmarking tools are in place, the sky is the limit for shoppable video. Due to its unique combination of sight, sound and motion, video allows brands to connect with people on an emotional level that simply isn’t available with display ads and other mediums. And with global retail e-commerce sales set to top $2 trillion this year, web users have never been more comfortable making purchases online.
As you read this, companies like Shoppable and ShopStyle are hard at work building universal shopping carts capable of allowing users to store products from a variety of retailers in a single location one click away from checkout. In the not-too-distant future, consumers will be able to use a single shopping cart for all of their e-commerce activity.
(Source: Venture Beat)