Video e-commerce ShopperON goes live
ShopperON has gone live as the first social commerce live video shopping marketplace platform in the UAE enabling individuals as live stream hosts and stores to create and host their own shopping channels on the platform. According to a statement from the company, live video shopping is already a $170 billion market in China and $1 billion business in the US and expected to grow exponentially in the coming years.
Co- founded by Sylvia Dequito and Osman Sultan, ShopperON is an interactive marketplace where shoppers can ask questions and the livestream host can answer it live with shoppable products on the screen where they can add to cart without leaving the live events. The platform provides a real time dashboard that enables stores and live stream hosts to track their sales and commissions on real- time. The physical shopping experience has been virtualised for the local and global consumer.
Chairman of Shopperon, Osman Sultan said, “This live video shopping platform is much more personalised, bringing sellers and shoppers together in real time, making it more an interactive event. For the consumer, it is akin to having a personal shopper and for the seller it affords the opportunity to directly connect with the customer, providing in-depth product descriptions, pricing and demonstrations, making the entire process feel much more personal. With statistically an estimated 2.14 billion shoppers online world-wide, it would have been folly not to have created ShopperON.”
According to Sylvia Dequito, CEO of ShopperON, “Our platform will create transparency and authenticity as the buyers can ask and watch the item while the live stream host answering their question and shop in real time, anywhere they are. And it’s guaranteed, returns are 50 percent lower, when items are bought in livestream.”
By side-stepping a traditional bricks and mortar shop, overheads are slashed, business is not geographically limited and recognised shopping times are irrelevant as ShopperON is available round-the-clock. Ease of shopping is a big draw. Customers can see what they want to order, make their purchase and have it delivered to their door. The ease and speed at which transactions are offered is a considerable attraction to this kind of shopping and as previously mentioned, growth is assured in the coming years.
The e-commerce retail market in the Middle East & Africa is expected to grow by 20 percent in the next 5 years to reach USD26 billion in 2022, which outpaces the global growth of 13 percent smart phone usage that reaches almost 100 percent among GCC millennials.
