Amazon India targets first time online shoppers with live streaming content
Amazon India hopes to engage 350 million internet users who have never bought online through its interactive live-streaming content.
Amazon India director of customer experience & marketing Kishore Thota
The Amazon Live streaming platform launched in September in a bid to attract India’s growing online population with live, interactive content created by influencers and content creators. The feature enables customers to interact directly with content creators while they showcase products.
Kishore Thota, director of customer experience & marketing at Amazon India, told The Drum, “Today, there are close to 700 million internet users across the country. Much of this growth continues to be driven by users from rural India.
“Of these, around 350 million Indians are engaged in actual online transactions such as e-commerce and digital payments. Most internet users, though, have not made their first online purchase yet and getting them to our app via interactive, video content can be a steppingstone to shopping online.”
The live-streaming shopping platform launched as part of the Amazon Great Indian Festival, a major sale event similar to 11.11. Live streaming shopping has already proved extremely popular in China and across APAC markets.
Nearly 10% of all visitors on Amazon.in watched a live stream during the first week of the festival, and the “most engaging streams” attracted more than 15,000 messages per hour of streaming.
Thota said the e-commerce giant had been “surprised” by the strong level of engagement with the content.
While Amazon is hoping to attract first-time online shoppers with the feature, it’s also on a mission to engage the more than 200m Indians who are already purchasing online. By providing a direct connection between customers and influencers, Amazon wants to create a point of difference from other online retailers while also establishing trust.
“With Amazon Live launch, we want to make the shopping experience exciting and meaningful for our customers, while allowing brands to have a deeper engagement that resonates with today’s savvy shoppers.
“Providing video content from creators that shoppers already know offers the additional benefit of “Trust”. In fact, three-quarters of buyers purchase from people they know - family members, friends, acquaintances or connections.
“Some of these Internet users shop online today, but there is room to engage them further and gain “share of internet minutes” on our app with exciting, visual content,” said Thota.
In a bid to bolster engagement across its site, Amazon has also launched the #FoundItOnAmazon program, similar to the wildly popular #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt.
The program provides a stream of “inspirational and shoppable content” and curated items that aim to help customers discover products, trends and recommendations.
India’s e-commerce market has experienced exponential growth in the last few years as internet and smartphone penetration has driven low-cost data while disposable income has increased.
Online retail spending in India is expected to reach $300 billion by 2030, according to forecasts. The market is dominated by Flipkart and Amazon.