Twitter will broadcast its first retail livestream on November 28th at 12 p.m. ET, the company said today, making it the latest social media site to embrace the practice.
The "Cyber Deals Sunday" stream will be a partnership with Walmart and will take place during the post-Thanksgiving weekend, which is normally linked with major sales campaigns. The webcast, which will be presented by Jason Derulo, is described on Twitter as a "30-minute variety show" with "electronics, home products, fashion, seasonal décor, surprise special guests, and much more."
Twitter has joined a rising trend of shopping-focused social media livestreams, offering a modern QVC-style buying experience with influencers and integrated purchase links.
In just the last month, Meta's Facebook launched a test of a "Live Shopping for Creators" function, Pinterest unveiled a live shopping series called "Pinterest TV," and YouTube expanded its livestream shopping feature with a week-long shopping event dubbed "YouTube Holiday Stream and Shop." It's a trend that's well and firmly taken hold in China, according to Bloomberg, where Gen Z customers are gradually migrating away from traditional e-commerce stores and toward making purchases through social media.
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| The components of the shopping interface. |
Twitter's live shopping interface is split between a video broadcast, an online catalog, and a feed of tweets, as shown in promotional photos. If you click on a link to a retailer's website, the stream will continue to play in picture-in-picture mode. According to Twitter, the shopping components will initially be available exclusively on iOS and PC, while Android users will be able to view the live but not interact with its purchasing capabilities.
Twitter is framing its Walmart webcast as a "test," and it has declined to comment on the format of future livestreams. However, it did reveal that for the time being, companies would be able to hold shopping livestreams rather than average Twitter users.
Twitter's new livestream shopping feature follows the company's July test of a new Shop Module, which allows select companies to put a shopping area at the top of their accounts. Twitter said it will spread the functionality to other businesses in the US "in the coming weeks," after it initially started with about a dozen companies. The platform hasn't been shy about diversifying its income streams outside traditional advertising, and it's also released premium membership features in an effort to generate money more directly from its users.
You can use the Twitter Blog Website to learn more about this.