The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:31]Jason: [00:00:31] The life selling wars are heating up like never before in recent months, Amazon has doubled down on its push to make e-commerce alive selling. By offering it’s livestream app and Nordstrom has just launched its own live stream channel as well. So in this episode, we’re going to dive into the topic of selling live on Amazon and explain what it is, how to do it and how to learn more about going into it deeper.
[00:00:59] Michael, are you ready for this fun
[00:01:01] Michael: [00:01:01] topic? I am indeed. Yes. Let’s get into this. First of all, Yeah. Tell me what, what made you think about this, this whole thing as, as a topic, because I’m surprised and, and embarrassed to say that it hasn’t been making the rounds amongst the UK sort of power sellers are moving along, but it’s clearly a thing.
[00:01:17] So maybe your location is helping you to get a deeper insight than mine is.
[00:01:21] Jason: [00:01:21] Yeah, maybe. Well, the thing about it is that as I reflect back on this was, I, we were users of, I guess, is, how to describe this. We had done a D. And we’re in conversations to do more deals with Lily, which is a Seattle-based e-commerce operator.
[00:01:36] I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but they basically publish a daily deals, email and do daily selling. And so we had done deals with them and they’re local. And so when we did the deal with them, we went and saw their headquarters and they operate out of the old Starbucks headquarters, which is a massive building.
[00:01:55] And, And when we went there, we were just in awe. They were huge. They were amazing. And then, in 2015, they were purchased by QVC, which is the longstanding giant TV broadcast selling company and a QVC. If you’re not familiar with it also, Home shopping network, which is, I think probably I haven’t researched it, but probably their arch enemy at one point arrival that they bought out or something like that.
[00:02:21] So QVC and home shopping network are dominant on TV selling and they bought, Zulilly, which is, you know, a massive e-commerce operator here in Seattle. And so that really caught our attention, but that was in 2015. And when that happened, I was like, oh man, QVC is coming into e-commerce, they’re coming to Seattle and buying a big e-commerce operator.
[00:02:43] What is Amazon going to think of that? You know? And here we are, whatever it is, six years later. And it seems to me that Amazon has fully implemented it. A war footing and kind of responds and tactics with Amazon life. And so to me, that was sort of the context. That was what made me aware of it. And then there was just one other bit, we work with some amazing, e-commerce sellers, as, as you know, coaches and consultant.
[00:03:09] And, it’s an honor to work with them. And one of them oriented to me to live selling probably a year and a half, two years ago. And does it very well he’s in the fashion retail space. And he pointed out actually that there were Europeans doing it in the fashion retail space very successfully. And he was copying their sort of general style and we helped him little bit tune it up and think through the strategy of it.
[00:03:33] And so those two things, brought it to my attention more. I guess my third bit here is that on prime day, just last month, if you, at least in our context for prime day, if you looked at Amazon’s homepage, they were pushing live videos all day long. That was their key signature featured thing. It seemed like to me, which I was like, whoa, what is happening?
[00:03:57] Like Amazon is all in, on live selling and who are these people? And are they. You know, employees of Amazon, or like, how does this work? And that really triggered for me. Sort of learning and discovery process. So I guess, sorry, long answer, but that was sort of what caught my attention here on this
[00:04:14] Michael: [00:04:14] task. I think context is one of the missing pieces in the world of try this latest tack kind of idea.
[00:04:19] So I think it’s good to see that it’s, a long-term trend supported by very smart businesses rather than just a little height go away. I never forgotten trying to get big on, a couple of video networks that then completely disappeared. And I can’t even remember the names off and say, this is not an overnight thing.
[00:04:34] It’s a trend it’s yeah. Do you know, Netflix trend over time. So that’s really good to know because it’s worth investing in it as a skill set as a, as a thing to explore. So tell me about this live selling war. You, you mentioned QVC versus Amazon. Obviously they kind of have really different expertise is if that’s a thing, don’t they?
[00:04:50] I mean, what what’s behind that? What is, what do you think that implies for us as e-commerce sellers?
[00:04:54] Jason: [00:04:54] Well, Amazon’s no, slouch in terms of competing and sales. And I think what’s happened is the convergence. Broadcast media and live streaming has really changed the game over the last few years.
[00:05:08] Whereas QVC and home shopping network used to be perceived as the domain of television, broadcasters, and a tool and system for. Broadcasting on television, the live streaming universe and all of the, you know, everybody’s watching, you know, multiple live, or, you know, over the top programming apps, whether you like, you know, Amazon prime or Hulu or Netflix or whatever, the one is of your choice.
[00:05:33] There’s just so many. It’s just made live streaming and ubiquitous. It’s just everywhere and easily achievable. And I think that it just lowered the barrier to entry technically to, doing the broadcasting. And, and so I think obviously Amazon, you know, they would have not been. You know, they, they, they would not have worried over the technical issues, but I think the barrier to entry has been lowered and lowered and lowered so that, the live stream selling is an opportunity now, but the other competitors in the space, are stepping into it as well.
[00:06:09] Walmart has a system for this, Nordstrom. Literally this month is a recording. That’s just launched a, a live streaming channel. And so I think everyone’s getting. I’m onboard with the program and realizing that you can do basically what QVC pioneered on TV, but just do it live now on the internet.
[00:06:28]And so that’s the war and, and I think the interesting part to me is that Amazon’s, approach to it is, It is in essence being outsourced to everyday people that their approach is a democratize. If you will, they’re putting it out so that anyone basically we’ll talk through some of this detail, but anyone can do this.
[00:06:49] And so that’s very interesting. And, so, so I think the war is on and I think it’ll only get more intense. And the question is, you know, can people perfect this model? In live streaming that QVC and home shopping network clearly perfected or have done very well, you know, on TV. So interesting.
[00:07:08] Michael: [00:07:08] I think the word democracy is interesting in the Amazon context.
[00:07:11] What I would say from the third-party marketplace model is that Amazon. Long since realized that as the first party seller, I think in 2020, it lost $40 billion having sold record amounts. So the more it sells, the more it loses as a first party seller. So the future is in being a marketplace and enabling other people.
[00:07:29] Now that looks very similar to democracy, but what I’m seeing is actually the, unless you’re a huge seller, you’re going to get treated more and more as, as part of the sort of sausage meat going into the Michigan. And I would say. That, what they generally do is they crowdsource expertise and then they allow most of it to die.
[00:07:45] So I think what they’ll be going through is a massive thrashing based. This is not based on my knowledge of live, but some sort of strategic approach over the years, helping letting a lot of people have a go at it. And then they’ll sort of maybe at some point start closing the gates. I suspect. So maybe while open west is not open forever.
[00:08:01] I suspect, you know,
[00:08:02] Jason: [00:08:02] maybe the, the fences will go up over time. A couple of comments are popping in here. M Jude says, what if wholesalers don’t have. Their own products. The beautiful part of this, just to, mention, this, we’ll go deeper into it in a moment, I think is two different approaches to Amazon life selling opportunities exist for us.
[00:08:21]Being brand registered and having your own products. So that, that is a smaller community of Amazon sellers. But the other opportunity is just simply applying for their influencer program. And if you’re in their influencer program, you can sell anything on Amazon. And so that is amazing. So MJ, that hopefully that helps answer, but this is available to you.
[00:08:42] If you don’t even have your own. If you’re selling other people’s products, old road, love your podcast. Guys learn so much from you both. Oh, thanks man. Really appreciate that. Yeah.
[00:08:52] That’s
[00:08:52] Michael: [00:08:52] very nice. That’s all the way. What you’ve just said is just mind blowing so you can sell stuff on Amazon based on being an influencer, not in being a product creator.
[00:09:01] Is, is that right? Amazing.
[00:09:04] Jason: [00:09:04] Yeah, it is totally radical. And that’s what I mean by the democratization of this. Basically you’re right. I think what Amazon might do is, they might winnow down the field to, you know, some kind of gated version of you have to have some kind of performance metrics for your lives or something, and they’re already, requirements.
[00:09:20]But this is a, this is interesting because you can literally apply for influencer program, get access. And take Amazon product off the shelf that you just like, and go live, sell it. And you know, what you’re doing basically is using a FA the affiliate system on Amazon. It’s their product, it’s their marketplace.
[00:09:45] You’re just serving as a host. For a live show and, building your audience and doing well by it. So, Jacob jumped in and said, yes, apply for the Amazon influencer program, or be brand registered. So there you go. Exactly right, Jacob, and thanks for joining us. So, okay. So let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening at scale.
[00:10:02]A few quotes I think, would be appropriate from this article, Michael, you and I just, as we were looking at this topic found Washington post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, just published an article and I believe the title of it was. Where is it? Do I still have it here? The future of selling looks like a lot, like QVC or something.
[00:10:21] That was something like that was the title, which is amazing. And a few quotes. They said Amazon hosted more than 1200 live streams during its prime day. And. Then the other other bit is, monetary. It says live stream shopping events generated an estimated 5.6 billion in sales last year, a market that retail and analysts, project will balloon to $11 billion this year.
[00:10:48] So it’s $11 billion opportunity and nearly $26 billion. 2023. So it’s going, it’s doubling basically every year live selling revenues are doubling right now. We are in this hockey stick growth, you know, S curve, element to this. And, that’s really interesting as sellers. It is,
[00:11:12] I’m
[00:11:13] Michael: [00:11:13] suddenly more interested in when I’d QVC is something that I personally have occasionally experienced.
[00:11:17] And as a consumer, I happen to greatly dislike it. But when I look at numbers like that, I’m suddenly extremely interested. It’s not Jupiter because that is, that is massive. I mean, that, that explains why Amazon feels the need to start competing. There’s no point in having a part of a market that is invaluable.
[00:11:32] In dollars and cents, but once it starts to be, Amazon’s definitely needs to get in there before it seeds ground to something that could become so big that Amazon actually becomes a shrinking entity again, eventually. So very interesting. And also the other thing that w that was mentioned in the article was, is like more than once, actually that come up in e-commerce that the Chinese are kind of.
[00:11:52] Not the early, but the sort of middle level adopters of e-commerce at scale compared to the United States or Europe. And this is another thing, isn’t it? This live format that’s become very popular in China. I understand from the article for about more than five years. And so for them, it’s not new, it’s new to the U S and it’s relatively, it’s new to me and it’s new to Europe.
[00:12:10] So what do you make of that?
[00:12:12] Jason: [00:12:12] Well, something’s new to people when it’s new. But that’s the it’s like, whatever I’m still used to say. It’s like there’s known knowns and unknowns and unknown unknowns or whatever the phrase is, but, but technically a livestream selling has been happening for years now. And as each of us get oriented to it in our, you know, it kinda, it breaks through to our own consciousness.
[00:12:37] We were like, wow, this is a new thing. So in it, that was my circumstance a year and a half, two years ago, when my client told me about these Europeans who were doing it. So to me, I was like, Hey, Michael probably knows all about this because I learned about it from a fashion retailer who said Europeans were doing early effectively.
[00:12:56] You’ve read an article that says Chinese. So e-commerce sellers have been doing it for five years. I think it’s emerging. And I think we’re at the early adopter phase. I, I know some clients who are doing live selling that. That are doing really well. They’re crushing it. In fact, they’re, they’re ramping up to start doing it.
[00:13:16] What they already do well on Facebook, they’re going to take to Amazon, and, and already have clients who are doing well with it. As I mentioned, that oriented me to it, but the, I have other clients who I know would crush it with live selling, who just, you know, it’s just not on their radar yet.
[00:13:31] And they’re doing well. They’ve got their own systems, their own priorities and yeah. It’s just not a thing to them yet. And so I think early adopters are ones who are hungry. They see it, it clicks for them and they’re like, I could do this. I could make this work and there’s no technical barrier to entry and I’m hungry for it.
[00:13:49] And you know, but then, you know, that’s an early sliver of users and, and the question is, do we want to be those people and pioneer it and get the, the early mover advantages of doing it, which are truly, truly powerful these days on the internet. That’s true.
[00:14:06] Michael: [00:14:06] And what’s interesting to me is, is to differentiate between, oh, this is yet another fad and something I’ll need to learn and, or dedicate team time to, if you’ve got a bigger team versus the actual revenue size of the market and the value of the market is doubling, you know, annually or whatever it is at the moment, which implies to me, it’s not a fad, it’s actually a skill set that you’re going to have to decide whether you want to get into or not.
[00:14:27] So, which then let’s talk about let’s transition from the bigger picture, a little bit more into. You know, you’ve got some clients successfully doing it. Do you think this for everyone or do th the, the first obvious question to me is very simple, which is, do you think that most e-commerce sellers are going to be good on video to the extent that they can sell their products?
[00:14:45] And I’m bearing in mind what you were saying about this sort of person who wasn’t necessarily articulate or gorgeous in the traditional TV style and yet was doing really, really well. So given that reality, Should re should e-commerce small business owners be doing the selling themselves, or is this something I’m mostly going to need to outsource to somebody else?
[00:15:02] Well, I think
[00:15:02] Jason: [00:15:02] the question is what’s the technical requirement and then what’s the core requirement for success, you know? And so the technical requirement right now for Amazon live is you need to be brand red. Yeah. To do Amazon lives or, be an approved, Amazon influencer program participant. Now, Jacob just said he, on the chats here, he said he has applied for that, previously and was turned down to be an influencer program.
[00:15:25] I don’t have any secret suggestions for how to get approved for that. So look through their criteria. You know, whether they’re looking for a large off Amazon audience, like a big influencer, community on your Instagram account or a large email list that you have or something, you know, some other external metrics, I don’t know.
[00:15:43] But, I would go through that process and see if you can get accepted, learn. Well, you know, how to, how to go through that. And so that’s one thing. Those are just the technical requirements, but I would just say this Amazon live is just one way to do live selling. I’ve already mentioned we have several clients doing it effectively on Facebook as well.
[00:16:01] So, you know, if Amazon turns you down, you can still do all of this stuff on, on Facebook. So those are the technical requirements, you know, on Amazon. But then I guess the thing that I would encourage everybody to do is just go look at amazon.com/law. And watch what’s happening. Michael, you alluded to a comment I made before we started recording the podcast, but I was just watching this morning, Amazon live, turned it on just to look at it.
[00:16:24] Yeah. You can get to it directly from the menu top level nav menu on amazon.com or it’s also almost all the time now on the home page as a, you know, a feed store strip, I guess you could say, go watch what people are doing and just look to see who’s there doing what and what audience they have.
[00:16:42] And I was just saying this, the, the, the lady that, when I turned down this morning had 250 viewers live. She was, you know, kind of middle age gal and did not look like, you know, polished home shopping network host. She just looked like she was sitting at her kitchen table talking and 250 people were watching herself stuff.
[00:17:02]And, and so, you know, I don’t think the, elements of success are necessary to be like, you have to look like the weatherman or. Girl on a local TV, you don’t have to be, you know, on camera, super polished. I think what people really probably like is the interaction. They like your authenticity and they like the basics of clean, simple, easy presentation that feels right and good.
[00:17:29] And, you know, you know, conversational, answering questions is a big part of the forum. You have to, in terms of service, if you’re going to do these, I’ve heard you have to agree to interact with the audience through the commenting tool. And so, you know, I think these are the elements of it that come into play and, and the people who will be good at it are probably a mix of on-camera, you know, co comfort.
[00:17:53]Have a data mindset in terms of when to go live, what the audience management stuff and have a product point of view that they can talk through. And yeah. Who will win at the end of the day, I guess, people who probably take the best advantage of these opportunities that Amazon is handing out freely, you know,
[00:18:11] Michael: [00:18:11] interesting.
[00:18:12] I mean, I don’t know, obviously it clearly don’t have much of an idea about life selling because it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s all fairly new to me and I haven’t. Had friends, hadn’t even been offered it much on our Amazon feed. I was just checking quickly while you were mentioned that it was showing up. So maybe they’re sort of rolling it out in, in phases as they often do.
[00:18:28] And any big companies will do, but one thing I’d say is this what you’ve just described to me sound like different types of people and a friend of mine happened while I’ve got a few friends of my work for the BBC. And one of them is a very, very good producer at a high level of, of rifle. Program or to hear radio programs mostly, but some TV and the producer has the mindset that is their data management.
[00:18:47] When you should go live, how the audience sort of analyzing things, the analytical mindset, the sort of person that does well in front of the cameras, I’ve worked with a lot of actors in the past as well in, in past lives, as it were done, multiple different careers, which just kind of feed into this stuff.
[00:19:00]They tend to be very unplanned convey spontaneous. They’re often very beautiful. If that actors, as you said that, I think the beauty is not important, but I do think personality probably is. And I wonder if some types of people that really thrive on balance sheets and spreadsheets, which is a lot of successful entrepreneurs.
[00:19:15] I know will be the last person I’ve put in front of the camera, but they may have somebody in their business who would actually be much better in front of the camera, which often strikes me. W what are your experiences with the clients who’ve done well at this? Do they personally go on camera or is it like a husband and wife team, and one of those better?
[00:19:29] How does it actually work for you, your experience?
[00:19:31]Jason: [00:19:31] I have, the two clients who have done live, consistently regularly and do well with it. It’s just one person on camera and they are the principle, you know, sales person for their business, and they just get comfortable talking about their products.
[00:19:42]I’m reminded of a funny, other little, Situation where my mom’s 77 and, and, so she’s on Facebook. Sometimes she posts stuff and she’s like, well, I didn’t mean to post that. But one of the feeds she’s tapped into on Facebook live videos is a Southern gal.
[00:20:00] That’s probably in her. Late sixties or seventies who baked or who does baking and cooking. And this lady has millions of Watchers and, you know, followers and fans on Facebook. And when I watched it, I asked my mom, what are you watching? And she’s just showed me this lady. And, and, it’s the most.
[00:20:23] Personal sincere down to earth, fun, conversational, cooking show. It’s just some lady in her house and she just has a charm about, or she has sorted in the Southern draw and it’s just very charming and, but not fancy. The house is not special. The lady’s not, it is just like a normal. No person. I think these are the elements that people are drawn to.
[00:20:46] It’s not about camera quality or the facade or the, the, the, the, you know, I’m a, I’m a beautiful, you know, cover girl and that therefore I get to be on TV. There’s no moral. Yeah, there’s no more of that. Now. It still exists, but that’s like saying newspapers exist. This new world is people buy from people.
[00:21:10] People like people, people are drawn to people who, you know, can speak their language and relate and answer their questions. And it’s just, it’s a fun new universe. So I think the, in the many, many ways the barrier. Completely destroyed or removed for entry and the barrier for quality or for, for doing well is all new.
[00:21:32] And it just goes to basic human interaction and quality relational kind of work. You know,
[00:21:39] Michael: [00:21:39] I think what you just said reminds me very much of a quote from a latest Seth Godin book. And I can’t remember which one it is. The thing is this is marketing, but it’s all very good. I’m a big, big fan of him. And one thing he said is.
[00:21:49] Basic marketing people like us do things like this. And I guess if you relate to this person in the living room or, you know, this person with the relate-ability in the kitchen yeah. Then that does the job and everything. Other technical barriers, as you say are irrelevant. I have to say, one of the things that I adapt see detest about QVC and HS and that sort of stuff, or the, the British equivalent to, I got stuck in a waiting room.
[00:22:10] And I was put all while ago waiting for something for an hour. And they had, they had home shop. Network or the equivalent on for an hour. And it’s like torture to me. And the reason it was like torture is because number one, the person was kind of acting like they were charming, but they weren’t really number two.
[00:22:24] They clearly knew nothing about the product and they weren’t going to get given a random product the next day they knew nothing about, and while there, those are two things, actually that’s enough. I’ll make it stop you there. Hello.
[00:22:34] Jason: [00:22:34] Wow. That’s it.
[00:22:36] Michael: [00:22:36] I hate it because one of the things I think you’ve talked about is I suppose that authenticity and I suppose you can’t fake that, but also.
[00:22:42]Sharman engagement. And again, some people have it in some don’t I’m in my experience of acting college is surprisingly rare to be able to just stand in front of a camera or in front of an audience and be engaging and natural and relaxed. I guess you get better at over the time is what if, what you’re saying?
[00:22:56] Wrapup-Michael: [00:22:57] Hey there folks. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the e-commerce leader. So very interesting one today, I was sitting there being educated by the Shopify expert in Amazon, which is kind of embarrassing, but it shows how quickly Amazon live is kind of going through. A niche, little thing to mainstream, I’m kind of just missing it because it doesn’t seem to have hit the Amazon sellers that I know yet, but it’s obviously working out very, very successfully for some of Jason’s clients.
[00:23:21] And obviously the most important thing that came out of this for me is just the sheer size of live selling and how quickly that that revenue is growing from a few billion last year in 2020 was a huge year for e-commerce of course, to this year as in 2021 on track for. Doubling almost 11 billion and on and on.
[00:23:42] So something that’s growing that quickly as a trend that we can’t ignore, we don’t have to necessarily action it in our own businesses if it’s not appropriate, but at least I think it’s something worth very much considering. So very exciting topic. Obviously the big players QVC, previously and now Amazon.
[00:23:57] Are seeing this as a very essential at play. And so we need to think about it ourselves. Really. So, the question is, I suppose, how you think that you might implement this for yourself and Jason’s given a few hints of media, it sounds like we don’t need to be frightened about being abused for people or being.
[00:24:14]You know, perfect and slick in our delivery. I didn’t consider that I started off as a beautiful person ever, and, and certainly didn’t start off as slick in the podcasting. And yet I’ve been doing that for a few years and building something outside of the e-commerce space, but sort of related influencer marketing for sort of training and consulting.
[00:24:30] And so I can say from my own experience, it’s not live. But we doing lives and things like that, that you get better over time. And their, a little bit of planning goes a long way. But also that you just got to start sometimes. And if there’s a blindingly obvious opportunity, that is so big and so potentially valuable.
[00:24:47] Yeah. That, and there’s some kind of spark in you that, that thinks that you could do this. I’d encourage you for once. And I’m not normally the person to say this, normally, Jason, to get cracking and go and learn how people are doing it and give it a, give it a whirl. And don’t just do it once or twice, but doing quite a few times that you can even get a feel for, is this something I could do?
[00:25:05] And to accept that as my old Russian piano teacher used to say, The first pancake sticks to the pan. So the first time you do something is quite often just a trial run and the technology goes wrong and you sound rubbish and you think you’re rubbish. And five people watch you don’t be put off by that. I would encourage you to, to really, if you’re going to have a go at this and you think it makes sense for you and your brand and who you are to really give it multiple goes before you write it off, because, you know, the first time you do something is not necessarily going to be the slickest version.
[00:25:35] So that’s it for me. The final thing to say is, Don’t forget to subscribe to the show. You can actually get paid for that. If you go to www dot contest dot the e-commerce leader.com until the end of July. So we’re just about my catch this on this episode, when it goes live, we are running a contest where you.
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[00:26:16] So www dot contest dot D e-commerce data.com is the place to go to enter that. And, you know, whether or not it’s in the contest, we’d encourage you to subscribe to the show. We’ve got lots of, topics coming up that we’re, opening up to keep you up to date and to help you be the best must be there that you can be.
[00:26:34] Thanks very much for listening.
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