Maria Tikhonova is the COO and co-founder of eyezon – a video buying sandbox that connects ecommerce consumers with retailers by means of reside streaming.
I not too long ago caught up with Maria to seek out out extra about eyezon, the advantages of live-streaming for ecommerce retailers, and the important thing to capturing buyer loyalty.
Inform us about eyezon, and extra about your position as COO…
Eyezon launched its key product (reside video gross sales) in 2019, after a number of years of R&D. We consider that our resolution is greater than only a technical function for ecommerce; we assist manufacturers construct holistic relationships with their clients. We construct natural communication between those who begins with an actual buyer want, and our final purpose is to reinforce model belief and loyalty, not simply to promote extra merchandise. We now work with greater than 30 retailers with greater than $4 billion income.
In my position, I principally work together with Dragorad Knezi, eyezon CEO and co-founder, and different co-founders, overseeing day-to-day administrative operations, totally different capabilities of the enterprise, and probably the most priceless initiatives. I assist rework our firm imaginative and prescient into actuality, bringing to life sustainable human interplay on this new digital world.
How can live-streaming reinvent the retail expertise? Is it purely an on-demand gross sales driver or are there wider advantages?
From our expertise with varied markets, reside video gross sales is a device that’s ROI-effective from the primary day. However it additionally has a way more significant impression on brand-consumer relations. Within the digitized world the distinctive level of many retail manufacturers, a novel buyer expertise, is changed by a unified and “uberized” ecommerce expertise.
The retailer or producer model turns into a commodity, shedding private reference to its personal buyer. However once we convey again this human interplay with model representatives, it’s not solely altering the ecommerce buyer journey, it supplies a extra emotional, intimate expertise resulting in model empowerment.
How totally different is the impression of live-streaming (by way of conversions, loyalty and so on) compared to text-based communication comparable to reside chat instruments?
The apparent distinction is within the consumer state of affairs: it’s merely extra handy to have the ability to use each textual content and voice communication together with video streaming, relatively than simply plain textual content. Second, chat instruments are sometimes an AI resolution, that means that clients are literally speaking to a chat bot, relatively than an actual particular person. And even when AI expertise has reworked and improved itself loads during the last years, most of us nonetheless favor to work together with individuals, not robots.
Dwell video usually, and eyezon particularly, is a human-centric resolution. We join two individuals: a buyer and a model consultant, and it’s not a generic scripted communication. It’s a seamless on-demand expertise, as an alternative of a disruptive pop-up.
What do retailers (and retailer workers) want with a view to implement eyezon?
Our key product is a quite simple resolution that may be built-in into an ecommerce platform as an embedded code. It appears like a button with a ‘See Dwell’ name to motion.
The logistics may be very easy too: as we see from our expertise, to check the answer you don’t even want devoted workers to work as product streamers. What most of our shoppers do in the course of the testing interval is that they combine the ‘See Dwell’ button into a number of product pages and select two or three streamers amongst their gross sales workers, to then examine the conversion charges with a normal ecommerce buyer expertise. We offer our shoppers with particular assist throughout this era to make it possible for reside video gross sales combine completely with each different gross sales channel. And after that you may simply scale this up with extra SKUs and consumer eventualities [such as] connecting reside video to your after-sales service. A few of our shoppers managed to launch the check in two weeks in the course of the lockdown interval.
Considered one of my favorite examples is a style model from Russia, 12 Storeez. When all of their shops have been closed as non-essential retail, they launched reside video buying on their web site and constructed compact demo zones proper at their gross sales consultants’ houses. The identical occurred with DeLonghi, dwelling home equipment producer. They distributed their merchandise amongst a number of gross sales consultants who have been streaming reside from their very own kitchens.
In fact, later they began to make use of devoted reside video streaming zones with particular lighting and backgrounds (situated on the shops or at warehouses), however in the meanwhile once we all, the entire world, have been caught at dwelling for the primary time in our lives it was so vital to maintain this reside connection to actual individuals. Even when the video streams weren’t completely staged, it was compensated by the sensation of human connection that all of us have been lacking.
How do you construct long-term buyer loyalty in ecommerce immediately?
I not too long ago attended a advertising convention the place I had an opportunity to see a session from a psychologist, who made an analogy: once you’re having a primary date with somebody, you in all probability gained’t prefer it if that particular person would begin bragging about his/her achievements from the primary second, as if it was a gross sales pitch. And but that is how most manufacturers begin their communication with a brand new buyer. Manufacturers are preventing for shopper consideration, utilizing AI and large knowledge to determine one of the best methods to seize this consideration, and generally this appears like an intervention to private area.
At eyezon we construct our product round on-demand communication. Dwell video streaming for us just isn’t a device for “in-your-face” gross sales. It’s a device that helps retailers perceive their viewers higher, to get deeper insights into their behaviour and preferences. Interplay with the eyezon button at all times begins on demand, and we don’t require the patron to share private knowledge, or to make a purchase order. And that could be a basis for belief: when shoppers really feel that their actual wants are vital, not simply their “life-time worth”.
What do you are expecting for the way forward for ecommerce?
What we see now’s ecommerce firms (and all retailers usually) relying an increasing number of on massive knowledge analytics, utilizing new applied sciences only for the sake of it. They’re shedding their identification, and buyer expertise on each ecommerce platform is getting unified an increasing number of.
What we predict, and what we see and listen to in every single place already, is manufacturers will return to discovering their distinctive voice. As a result of in spite of everything, that’s the solely factor that may assist you to survive as an unbiased retailer in a market world.
