Fast Five Shorts | Forget 9 To 5: Walmart Has Been Working Overtime On Livestreaming
In the latest edition of Omni Talk’s Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Avalara, Mirakl, Ownit AI, and Ocampo Capital Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga discuss: How Walmart Has Been Working Overtime On Livestreaming
For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/JwnJXUy6y20
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Transcript
Walmart teamed up with Dolly Parton for a Cyber Monday live stream.
Speaker A:Yes, Dolly Parton.
Speaker A:According to Chase Store Age, Walmart hosted a special Cyber Monday shoppable live stream on the Walmart live platform at 7pm Eastern on Monday this past December 2nd with the help of Livestream shopping technology provider Talk Shop Live.
Speaker A:I and I actually logged into it live personally from the grocery store.
Speaker A:While I was at the grocery store I put it on, I watched it.
Speaker A:I actually, I actually made a comment as you too because you're our Walmart plus holder.
Speaker A:So like that's how you.
Speaker A:So I said something that probably embarrassed you.
Speaker A:But, but yeah, Dolly was there.
Speaker A:She's talking about products with.
Speaker A:She had an interactive feed going on below and it was easy to click Buy links right at the bottom of the screen.
Speaker A:So, you know, and my question to you is this as a new Walmart plus super fan, do you think Walmart is onto something with its jump into live streaming?
Speaker B:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker B:I mean I think Dolly Parton is a great like yes, that helps make the headlines.
Speaker B:Of course people are going to buy whatever Dolly is selling.
Speaker B:She's so beloved among all of us here in humanity.
Speaker B:But I think what is most interesting to me about this headline that didn't get the coverage, Chris that it should is that not only is Walmart investing in live streaming for themselves, but they are invested in doing this for other sellers on the Walmart marketplace who can now pipe their products in.
Speaker B:They can have immediate live stream capabilities.
Speaker B:And I think that, that like this is an all boats rise situation.
Speaker B:Like yes, if you know you're going to have consistent, great quality of live streaming from Walmart.
Speaker B:You know, as a retailer themselves, bringing on people the likes of Dolly Parton, your customers are always also going to expect to see that from the other sellers on your site too.
Speaker B:You have to have consistency as that brand.
Speaker B:So I think that's really the huge part of the story.
Speaker B:Sorry Dolly, I don't want to put you in the corner but I think that's the key component here is that Walmart's going all in, in smartly as they do investing in live streaming across the platform, not just for themselves.
Speaker B:So I think that's, it's going to be a great way to continue to keep customers coming to Walmart to shop and having a consistent experience.
Speaker B:What do you.
Speaker A:Yeah, those are great, those are great points and I would, I would, the thing I would add to it is I didn't realize how active.
Speaker A:I mean you kind of highlighted a little bit, but I Didn't realize how active Walmart is with live streaming.
Speaker A:I mean they aren't just, they aren't just working 9 to 5 on this end with Dolly, they're working overtime with the likes of Serena Williams has done a live stream with them, Jordan Sparks and my personal crush and Instagram follow Christina hall even like they, they, you go on their page, they have all these live streams you can watch that are upcoming or they've done in the past.
Speaker A:And it's all accessible versus via the Walmart website too, which is something.
Speaker A:When Best Buy did this last year, we commented about how it was kind of disjointed, you had to go off platform.
Speaker A:The experience was hard to find.
Speaker A:That's not the case here with Walmart.
Speaker A:And the other point I'd make too, and we've learned this through our conversations over the years, is that a live stream shopper is a more loyal shopper.
Speaker A:And that's the key here.
Speaker A:All this revenue from these events is additive.
Speaker A:The overhead's probably pretty low.
Speaker A:It's pretty manageable and easy to understand the impact that it's having from on the income statement as an isolated event you can see what's working and what's working well and you know how much it's going to cost, right?
Speaker A:You do?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So like, yes.
Speaker B:And that's that.
Speaker B:I was just going to say like the even more important point that you're getting at too, Chris, is that this, this content, while it was live at one point in time, now can go on product pages.
Speaker B:Like you still get that engagement with the consumer, the longer lasting engagement, the bigger basket size.
Speaker B:When you start putting that on your product pages like it's a no brainer.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then the last point, going bridging the two headlines that we talked about so far, like I went and searched, I just went because I was like, oh my God, I had no idea Walmart was doing this much live streaming.
Speaker A:I went and searched live, live shopping at Target.
Speaker A:You know what it returned me and it returned me a toy shopping cart.
Speaker A:That's what I got back, a toy shopping cart.
Speaker A:So it goes back to your thing last week too about, you know, who's really, who's really investing here and who's really thinking about the next stage of retail's evolution.
Speaker A:I thought that was fascinating.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean it's, you have this happening at Amazon still very significantly with their live streaming.
Speaker B:You have it happening at Walmart, you have it happening at Wayfair.
Speaker B:Like all these major players are investing it in some way.
Speaker B:Shape or form.
Speaker B:And it's going to be critical, I think, to a retailer strategy for next year.
Speaker B:Especially with the rise of influencer based purchases.
Speaker A:20% of revenue is coming from influencers.
Speaker A:That's crazy.
