Livestream sales of luxury items are popular in China, but not Singapore. Why?
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Livestream sales of luxury items are popular in Mainland china, but not Singapore. Why?
Online fashion retailers Style Theory, LuxLexicon, and Vestiaire Collective cite our meaty geography equally i reason why luxury appurtenances aren't marketed more via livestreams in Singapore.
The popularity of livestream sales has reached such feverish pitch that luxury brands can no longer beget to ignore information technology. (Photo: Pexels, Net-a-Porter; Art: Chern Ling)
21 Jun 2022 06:30AM (Updated: 09 Aug 2022 xi:11AM)
With lockdowns and working from domicile now a fashion of life, it is no surprise that global eastward-commerce is experiencing an explosive growth. In particular, online sales via livestreams are booming, and nowhere is this more apparent than in one of the most digitally avant-garde markets in the earth – China.
For the style earth in particular, livestreaming is no longer perceived as a marketing tool for cheap brands selling at massive discounts. Its popularity has reached such feverish pitch that luxury brands can no longer afford to ignore it.
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The potential is tremendous. According to Jing Daily, Communist china bucked the global luxury market'due south downhill trend past posting a phenomenal 48 per cent growth in 2020. As of December 2020, Prc's livestreaming audience hitting 617 one thousand thousand, an increase of 57 one thousand thousand users since March 2020. Of this, 388 million people have fabricated purchases via livestreams compared to 300 million in 2019.
So 2022 became the year that luxury brands and retailers moved into the live broadcast arena. French luxury house Louis Vuitton hosted its start livestream on luxury retail application Little Ruby-red Book (Xiaohongshu); Internet-a-Porter sold luxury bags with A-list Chinese influencer Mr Bags on Alibaba'due south Taobao Alive platform; Kering-owned Bottega Veneta'south collaboration with China'southward "Lipstick King" Austin Li saw 230 Mini Pouch bags sold for 12,300 yuan (nigh S$ii,550) each in ten seconds; and Moncler is at present directly managing its own east-commerce following a successful Weibo livestream for the 7 Moncler Fragment Hiroshi Fujiwara collection last July, which generated 32 meg views in one solar day.
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With such phenomenal results, why then is the use of livestreams for retailing luxury items trudging along in Singapore instead?
Mrs Florence Depression, founder of luxury independent consignment platforms LuxLexicon and LuxCollate, cites a smaller land mass and proximity to the concrete retail experience as key reasons why Singaporeans are only just warming up to the idea of livestream shopping.
"[China's] geographical vastness makes livestream shopping more highly-seasoned compared to a trudge to a physical store," explained Low. "On the other paw, Singapore, with its small size and great transport infrastructure, ways i can access the products in person in mere minutes, hence providing neither a push nor motivation for livestream shopping."
LuxLexicon focuses mainly on pre-loved and brand-new Hermes bags while LuxCollate retails other European luxury brands. During last year's Circuit Billow, Low started retailing the items alive on Facebook and Instagram when LuxLexicon'due south store at The Centrepoint was close.
"The chief motivation at that fourth dimension was to maintain a digital touchpoint with our customers and enhance their engagement with our make. Also, lockdowns everywhere led to a massive increase in social media usage, and we wanted to capture and increment eyeballs to our social media feed with an improved, richer content," said Low.
Her livestreams average 300 viewers, with the highest omnipresence so far existence 651 on June six. The typical contour is female person, either a professional or business concern owner, and anile between 30 and 50.
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Duncan White, the Asia-Pacific marketing head for Vestiaire Collective, a retail platform for pre-owned style, echoes similar observations. He said: "Nosotros have seen the growth in terms of the use of this channel for fast manner and FMCG products and more recently began to also see it as an avenue for higher toll point items. However, this is notwithstanding at the relatively early stages.
"Singapore as a market is also defined past proximity, with luxury retail locations being hands attainable to consumers to interact with the product at whatever time they desire. The notion of using live commerce as a platform for luxury would also then serve to build product awareness equally opposed to purchase conversion."
So far, Vestiaire has done livestreams only for the Hong Kong market, where it works with influencer hosts to retail bags, shoes and accessories. But at that place are plans to host one for Singapore "in the upcoming months" said White.
There are pros and cons to livestreaming, he added. While it may be an bonny interactive shopping experience where popular hosts talk through the specifications and conditions of the pre-loved items, and offer styling tips, viewership can vary depending on interest level in the topic and pre-event publicity efforts.
"Equally products even so have a relatively higher sale point, users may withal prefer to view the product in person before making a purchase conclusion, Also, each particular is a unique slice, so there needs to exist a balance in terms of ensuring a good latitude of products to counter user fatigue for a better render on investment."
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Manner Theory, Southeast Asia'southward largest circular fashion platform offering rental, resale, consignment and restoration services for design apparel and bags, has held livestreams in-shop with hosts such every bit beauty influencers Drea Chong and Cheryl Wee and afterwards Instagram.
Co-founder and chief operating officeholder Raena Lim said: "Nosotros plant that what worked for our personality-led livestreams pre-COVID-19 was the high levels of immediate audience-host interaction, and the potential for hosting post-livestream fringe [concrete] events that would eternalize RSVP interest and gear up the phase for college engagement at future virtual or concrete events.
"With our livestreams on Instagram, at that place is tremendous potential for farther innovation in content and format, peculiarly as platforms themselves roll out new features to enable seamless streaming and collaboration."
Lim finds that her experiences with customers in Singapore and Indonesia have been "promising because of the openness of these consumer markets" and the credibility the brand has built over the years. The audience tends to be 85 per cent female in the age range of 25 to xl years old.
Lim said: "As an established resale platform for luxury numberless in Southeast Asia, we are also able to offer our livestream customers interest-gratis payments plans and a competitive returns policy, giving shoppers the ability to purchase high quality, high-value bags through livestreams with confidence.
"We've seen different levels of appointment across the different formats, merely typically with the addition of a KOL [primal stance leader] or online personality, viewership is higher – sometimes in the four-digit range – as we are able to tap into their following as well."
Louis Vuitton's Picayune Red Book debut was compared with other Taobao rooms selling discounted fast style, while Dior'southward broadcasts take drawn flak for wearisome conversations and a lack of diversity. The path to ringing tills is not smoothen-lined, but paved with considerations on technicalities, brand exclusivity and identity, and audition affinity.
One of the benefits of livestreaming is its ability to bring a production to life in a more experiential way, said Net-a-Porter's chief marketing officer Sheena Sauvaire. "[Customers] can run into details of the products close-upwardly, hear virtually the make story, enquire questions live and run into how our editors style each piece. As the stream is in the site, when customers are more developed in the purchase path, information technology has a greater propensity to drive product sales."
On the other hand, LuxLexicon'south Low feels that a physical store is "withal better in creating that dimension of human touch and warmth and providing an immersive brand experience for shoppers, more then for luxury retail given the need to affect and feel a physical item."
Luxury brands are thus likely to tread the livestream ground cautiously until they've a solid strategy in blending offline and online touchpoints, such that 1 inspires conviction to purchase high-priced items in the other.
Style Theory'due south Lim said: "Livestreaming, especially when live product reviews or styling elements are introduced, helps to span the gap between shopping online and trying it in person. It lends itself particularly well to luxury retail as it can provide an interactive, personalised experience that shoppers seek when booking private viewings in offline spaces. This closes the loop for them when it comes to shopping for luxury online."
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/experiences/livestream-sale-luxury-items-singapore-china-249661
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