Television shopping channels have been in place for a long time. But with social media and online commerce gaining momentum, they have slowly been on the back burner. But it’s a great concept- showcasing product features, benefits, and offers in a video format. How can Amazon, the biggest online retailer fall behind on such a big opportunity? The point is, it didn’t.

Amazon attempted live streaming in 2016 with ‘Style Code Live’ where Amazon presenters hawked fashion-related Amazon products. It was canned in 2017. But Amazon wanted to capitalize on the live-streaming capabilities, much to the likes of Instagram Live and Facebook Live. That’s when it started the Amazon Live feature in 2019.

So, how do sellers take advantage of this free opportunity? Let’s deep diver into this and more:

What is Amazon Live? 

Amazon Live at a very basic level is “Live sales through video streaming/videos”. It is designed to inspire, educate, and entertain customers in a format that allows real-time brand interaction. 

Amazon Live focuses on the interactive nature of live video and combined with online shopping, it enables brands to drive discovery and conversion. The service enables to bring products to life by narrating features & value in the Livestream & simultaneously highlighting them in the product carousel. This can amplify a brand’s reach on important shopping days such as Prime Day, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, or seasonal events such as Back to School or Off to University. 

Why Livestream with Amazon Live? 

As per Amazon itself, live streaming on Amazon can drive sales and product discovery. Amazon seller Watch Ya’ Mouth claims that Amazon Live “has helped increase daily visits to our product detail page by 5x and significantly grew our sales.” 

1. Drive Awareness & Consideration: introducing consumers to new products and relevant information in a video format can go a long way in driving their purchase decisions.  

2. Educate Consumers: features such as product highlighting and live promotions help in educating consumers about the product in real-time while highlighting all the necessary features and benefits in a live demonstration 

3. Connect with consumers: The service allows consumers to chat and ask questions in real-time which helps drive connection. They also get an option to ‘follow’ which enables them to stay updated about any brands or influencers. Ultimately, it gives the brands a way to build followers which helps in growing viewership.

Who can use Amazon Live? 

Any US Vendor who has a store and all professional sellers enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry can Livestream through Amazon Live. Amazon has also introduced the service for influences who have an active storefront (an extension of the Amazon Associates Program). 

How to use Amazon Live? 

 

What are the different levels on Amazon Live? 

Amazon Live rewards the creators with additional perks and benefits. They can achieve new Amazon Live levels by streaming longer and driving sales. Amazon Live has 3 levels for creators which can be either Brands or Influencers that provide different benefits. 

When you first start using the Amazon Live Creator App you enter Level 1. 

This level gives access to Amazon Live Creator Apps streaming features such as being able to go live and share streams with followers. 

• Influencers can earn commission from the eligible purchases generated from live streams  
• Brands’ live stream will appear on the detailed pages of their products  
• Amazon followers are eligible to receive notifications from the Amazon Shopping app when you go live. 
• Your live streams are eligible to automatically appear on a.) The relevant product category and the ‘Live now’ segment on the Amazon Live site and b.) Your Influencer Storefront  

Once you have streamed for 90 mins in 30 days, you are eligible to apply for Level 2 – Insider  

• An Insiders gets all the perks of rising stars including all Rising Star level placements plus they are eligible for top page placement on the Amazon Live Homepage  

• Influencer’s live stream will appear on product detail pages of the product featured in their Livestream   

When you have clocked 5K dollars in sales or sold 100 units within 30 days & have reached 2K followers you can apply to be reviewed for A-List  

• All the Rising Star & Insider perks along with Amazon Live home page placement  
• Special Access to Amazon Live shopping events  

• Priority support from Amazon Live Creator success team  

Amazon Live Analytics

Apart from all these fascinating features and benefits to grow and scale a business, Amazon Live also provides the features to measure and quantify your efforts in the form of multiple data insights that can be leveraged for future growth. 

The analytics dashboard in Amazon Live Creator App gives you metrics for the live streams done so far. These numbers help you understand how you are performing, which content viewers are responding best to, earnings so far, and how your progress is so far in leveling up. Viewers’ response to your content helps you to understand & curate content for your audience These metrics help you grow your followers and in turn your business.  

Few common metrics can be tracked on Amazon Live Creator App. 

Go Live with Amazon! 

While live streaming is still a niche in most regions, it saw immense success in China through eCommerce platforms such as Taobao. And with Amazon’s infrastructure capabilities and huge prime membership in the US, it was definitely reason enough to introduce the feature in the region.  

Only time will tell how successful the feature has been in lifting sales. But since the feature is free now, brands and influencers should definitely test out the service to introduce their products in unique ways.