AliExpress, the Alibaba subsidiray, has just launched ‘AliExpress LIVE,’ a video service which allows customers to buy the displayed goods immediately. Thus sellers, bloggers and brands will benefit from a new channel to promote their offerings on the marketplace in connection with social networks.
The video service is available only to brands and bloggers approved by AliExpress. There are 68 participants in total to data, 20 of them covering Russia, a country where AliExpress has become the number one e-commerce platform.
Among the Russian participants are lingerie brand Ardi and several popular bloggers.
Zharabya is among the first bloggers using the AliExpress LIVE video service
AliExpress is the first global marketplace to offer such a service, according to Mark Zavadskiy, CEO at Alibaba Russia, as quoted the Russian business news site RBC. The new service uses the technology of Chinese platform Tmall, which is also owned by Alibaba.
Such live streams were launched started last year in Alibaba’s marketplaces Tmall and Taobao in China. According to the company, these streams helped increase conversion and sales. As many as 320,000 goods per one million views were added to the cart during a single live streaming session via Taobao. However, the number of goods actually purchased has not been disclosed.
On AliExpress, the first experimental live broadcast took place on March 21 in seven languages — English, Russian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian and Polish. The service will remain in test mode until May 2017. It will then be made available to all AliExpress users.
The future of e-commerce
The social dimension of the service is key, since live streaming via Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki (the two leading social networks in Russia) and Facebook is gaining momentum in Russia, says Zavadskiy.
“We strongly believe that social networks and retail put together are the future of e-commerce. Bloggers can better monetize quality content while sellers get another marketing and sales channel,” he said.
YouTube launched a similar service called “TrueView” in May 2015. Thanks to the service, potential buyers can see goods information and purchase by clicking on a link shown on the advertisement while watching a video.
According to the service, the brands which tested it pointed out its efficiency.
Earlier this month AliExpress announced that it is in the process of opening a local representation in Russia.
E-commerce is growing fast in Russia. Last year sales of physical goods reached $16 billion, including more than $4 billion for the cross-border segment from such platforms as AliExpress (see EWDN report).
Source: RBC
