“Live commerce videos do the job of long product description pages”: Myntra's Achint Setia

Brands now have an opportunity to woo people who’re looking for one online destination for inspiration as well as shopping. These two things are usually available on different platforms, and not one. People get ideas from social media and then buy things from an e-commerce platform.

Leading e-commerce player Myntra recently diversified its social commerce offering with the launch of its live shopping platform M-Live. Speaking to afaqs!, Achint Setia, VP and business head, social commerce, Myntra, says that M-Live has built a large content plate that includes on-demand and live videos.

In simple words, live commerce combines instant purchasing of a featured product and audience participation through a chat function or reaction buttons. Live commerce provides several benefits for all the stakeholders, i.e., the brands, influencers and customers.

Today, China is one of the most mature markets for live commerce. Brands there have been using it for the last five years and have now scaled up significantly. According to industry reports, it is a $150 billion market of live streaming that attracts about 500-600 billion customers annually. Its contribution to the annual revenues of the country's e-commerce industry is 10-15 per cent.

In India, social commerce's market size is around $16 billion. Content and video commerce is worth about a billion dollars, with fashion and beauty brands getting the lion's share. Startups like Bulbul and Meesho have been working with the live commerce model, and are in the early stages of expansion.

While shopping online, it is common for people to seek instant advice and information on various aspects, like shipment, product quality, material, etc. Says Setia, “The M-Live platform will be like an offline assisted shopping experience held live through technology.”

M-Live will enable brands to build and engage with their communities in more meaningful ways. Brands can use influencers through Myntra and bring interesting experiences to their customers. They can also engage with the customers to get instant feedback on products, launch new products and even get their own experts.

Setia mentions, “Some of our brands have already built fairly large communities on Myntra Studio. This is 50 times larger than what they have on some other influencer-led platforms. The engagement level is about 3-4 times higher on Myntra Studio.”

Myntra Studio is a personalised content destination that helps users get access to original and personalised fashion, beauty and lifestyle content such as celeb inspirations, Bollywood, etc.

Getting the right kind of influencer is critical to making the most of the live commerce experience. Setia informs that Myntra is building a brand and influencer interface, wherein the creators can edutain (educate + entertain) followers with their content and fashion expertise, and also inspire them to shop.

But how does this benefit influencers and why would they come on-board?

Setia says, “In addition to the love and recognition from our customers, influencers will also get the opportunity to connect with brands and engage with the brand’s followers. Additionally, to make this business viable for them, we will be creating significant monetisation opportunities by allowing them to partake in the sales outcomes.”

Myntra will also experiment with sharing a commission with these influencers so that they can inspire more people to shop. Setia adds that live commerce will lead to the rise of a different segment of creators who are confident sellers, and can communicate and hold the audience attention for 45 minutes to an hour.

Apart from M-Live and Myntra Studio, Myntra Fashion Superstar is another important proposition of the e-commerce player’s social commerce business.

Myntra Fashion Superstar is a fully shoppable digital reality show that provides a platform to budding fashion and beauty creators to take their message to the audiences and also enjoy the limelight.

Sharing some learnings from Myntra’s pilot run for scaling its live shopping platform, Setia points out that customers want to engage with content and use it as a way of understanding fashion better.

“Video is a critical part of that process as it drives stickiness, attention timespan and also offers a better idea about the products. Live videos do the job of long product description pages on an e-commerce platform. Imagine an influencer talking about a product that you had an urge to buy and telling you about the five different ways of using it. Suddenly, the intent and appreciation for the product goes up.”

Explaining the key takeaway for brands, Setia says, “When you build a community with the right customer base, your propensity to attract the customer goes up disproportionately. In future, we see brands running a lot of campaigns to reach out to these customers, thereby creating efficiency for themselves, in terms of engagement and ROI, at a unified platform.”

As per Myntra, last month, close to 20 per cent of its monthly active users engaged with the social commerce content. There is good traction already and the platform expects to grow this number to 50-60 per cent over the next 3-4 years.

Although the major chunk of the target audience includes young social media users, Setia believes that it is less about age and more about the fashion provenance of a customer.

“Today, we see many women in their mid-30s, who are extremely fashion-savvy and are also heavy users. We have also seen significant traction coming from Tier-II and III towns. In future, we would like to go deeper into these markets, become more vernacular and also find creators from the local markets who can be more relatable to these audiences.”

afaqs! reached out to industry experts to know how the live commerce platform will benefit Myntra and its partner brands.

Sowmya Iyer, founder and CEO, DViO Digital, says M-Live is a monumental step towards changing the way we consume content and shop.

“It will add a new dimension to content creators’ landscape. Brands will be able to see, on a real time basis, the impact a content creator has on the audience and sales. It will, thus, enable better measurement of ROI which, in turn, creates stronger marketing strategies that drive revenues. As social and live commerce picks up, brands would want to leverage influencers directly on the platform. This will also help them clearly stand out from their competitors.”

Kavita Shenoy, founder and CEO, Voiro, a media monetisation platform, adds, “Social and live commerce is becoming an integral part of retail marketing. It will move from being an add-on strategy to a full-fledged mainstream investment, once it becomes more formalised. It will open up newer avenues of content monetisation for platforms and a way for them to keep the viewers engaged.”

Shenoy also says that live marketing is an exciting fillip to regular retail sales cycles. In an era focused on influencers and content creators, brands leveraging popular influencers in live commerce may definitely see higher rates of trials and also inspire brand loyalty.

“E-commerce companies can play a pivotal role in formalising live and social commerce for brands, as part of their existing ad programs. This form of advertising will give the audiences a chance to choose which ads they’d like to consume, thereby making the consumer experience more relevant,” she signs off.