Why live-streaming e-commerce, popular in China, has yet to catch on in the US
- Instagram announced this week that it is ending its live-shopping feature, less than three years after it launched the service
- Unlike in China, where top e-commerce influencers draw strong viewership, few live-streaming hosts in the US have achieved comparable status
Tech giants from Meta Platforms to ByteDance face challenges in cracking the live-streaming e-commerce market in the US, as technological gaps and a lack of charismatic talent have made it difficult for businesses to recreate the popular shopping trend in China, according to analysts.
Instagram users will no longer be able to tag merchandise during live streams from March 16, owner Meta announced earlier this week, following a decision by sister platform Facebook to shut down its live-shopping feature in October.
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Other US tech companies soon jumped on the bandwagon, with Pinterest launching Pinterest TV in October 2021 and YouTube partnering up with Shopify last July to let creators and merchants feature products on their channels.
Despite those efforts, however, US consumers’ reaction to live-stream shopping remains lukewarm compared with their counterparts in China. Nearly three-quarters of Chinese respondents in a Coresight Research survey in July said they had watched and bought items via live shopping, compared with more than two-thirds of Americans who said they had never watched a shopping live stream.
Such differences can be attributed to “a mix of technicality and behaviours”, said Alessandro Bogliari, co-founder and CEO of Miami-based agency The Influencer Marketing Factory.
