EXCLUSIVE: Macy’s, Guess, Beauty Brands to Take Part in Coresight’s Holiday Livestream Event
Coresight Research’s livestream shopping event is back for the holidays.
This year’s affair, again dubbed the 10.10 Shopping Festival, features a smorgasbord of retailers in the apparel, beauty, accessories, technology and home goods sectors, including Macy’s, Guess, Vera Bradley and Neighborhood Goods, all hoping the event will incentivize U.S. shoppers to purchase products by way of livestream during the holidays.
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“Livestream shopping has grown from a zero to a $300 billion industry in China in a very short period of time,” Deborah Weinswig, founder and chief executive officer of Coresight Research, said in a statement. “We are very confident that the U.S. market will reach what we are seeing in China, [even though] U.S. retail and consumer adoption has been slow.”
A March 2021 Coresight Research survey found that just 31.5 percent of U.S. consumers have watched a shoppable livestream event. But Weinswig added that her firm is anticipating the use of livestream e-commerce in the U.S. will more than triple by 2023, compared with 2020 levels.
For the second annual 10.10 Shopping Festival, which takes place on Oct. 10 from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET, the research firm has partnered with livestream shopping platforms Smartzer and CommentSold, as well as retail selling platform Ghost Retail.
“We are incredibly excited to be part of the 10.10 event, giving brands and retailers access to Smartzer’s live shopping technology,” said Karoline Gross, founder and CEO of Smartzer. “We are very interested to see how different brands and retailers in the U.S. will approach shoppable livestream content throughout the event, following the huge success of the format in China, where nearly 15 percent of all online sales now come from live shopping. Results from live shopping in other markets are already showing engagement rates of up to 75 percent, strongly suggesting that this format will become core to e-commerce.”
This year’s lineup will feature an added assortment of beauty and cosmetic brands, including indie start-ups such as Organic Apoteke, Auda B., Skin Authority, Shielded Beauty, 100% Pure, Yensa Beauty, hair care brand T3, DefineMe Fragrances and beauty e-tailing platform Beauty Barrage. Jewelry and accessories brands Adina’s Jewels and Astouri will also participate, along with apparel brands and food and home goods names such as Fifth and Cherry, Longaberger and Organic Candy Factory.
Lisa Mason, formerly of QVC and Home Shopping Network, and Sarah Williams, on-air host of Amazon Prime, CBS, E Network and Yahoo Productions, will be hosting the event.
In addition, retailers have pledged to donate at least 5 percent of sales from the event to charities such as the American Heart Association, National Breast Cancer Foundation, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and more.
Meanwhile, despite the recent surge in the Delta variant around the nation and supply chain headwinds abroad, retailers remain bullish on the upcoming shopping season. Mastercard recently released a report, anticipating U.S. retail sales will jump 7.4 percent, excluding revenues from automotive and gas, in the all-important fourth quarter, compared with 2020 levels. Those numbers include gains across apparel, jewelry and luxury categories, as well as online shopping.
Retailers including Kohl’s, Walmart, Target and Lululemon, are preparing by hiring additional staff.
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