The Future is Online Live Selling: Why Gary Vee’s Hype Matters
In a crowded market, getting your product or service in front of the right people is paramount.
While traditional marketing avenues like billboards, TV, and print ads still exist, e-commerce has dramatically shifted the game to online.
Today, successful entrepreneurs and top influencers, notably serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee), champion a dynamic new approach:
Online live selling.
This method effectively blends interest, attention, and impulse, prompting businesses to explore how it can get them more eyeballs – and ultimately, sales.
Attention as the New Currency: Gary Vee’s Philosophy
Gary Vee firmly believes that “legacy is greater than currency.”
In today’s social media-driven economy, the company that best captures and retains attention ultimately triumphs. As chairman and CEO of numerous ventures, including VaynerX, VaynerMedia, and VaynerCommerce, he is uniquely positioned to see this play out in real time.
Now, he deems live shopping essential for every business, but maintains that its implementation doesn’t require genius.
Gary Vee emphasizes that attention is the most valuable asset in an age where the average human attention span is a mere 8.5 seconds. To effectively capture this, he offers several strategic tips:
- Chase Attention, Not Sales: Prioritize content-driven online sales that genuinely engage the audience, rather than solely focusing on immediate conversions.
- Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: Build relationships and goodwill through valuable content (the “jabs”) before delivering a sales pitch (the “right hook”) for greater impact.
- Context is King: Tailor content to fit each specific platform and its audience, as what works on one platform may not resonate on another.
- Be Authentic: In an era of consumer skepticism towards traditional advertising, live selling by creators who genuinely use the products offers a refreshing and trustworthy approach, and is more likely to capture attention and drive sales.
Gary Vee Was Doing Live Selling As Early As 2006!
Gary Vee’s unwavering embrace of change empowers his stature as a true serial entrepreneur. His early advocacy for live social shopping, long before its widespread recognition, underscores his foresight.
His early venture, Wine Library TV (2006), exemplifies this.
By reviewing wines live and engaging with viewers in real-time chat, he fostered a personal and interactive experience that significantly grew his family’s wine business. His influence has since expanded across various sectors, from media and marketing to e-commerce and digital currency.
During a CNBC Television appearance, he highlighted the transformative impact of live social shopping on businesses of all sizes, citing impressive statistics:
- Instagram boasts 2 billion monthly users.
- 83% of Instagram users discover new brands on the platform.
- 90% of users follow at least one business account.
- 25 million businesses maintain Instagram profiles.
- 200 million people tap on shopping posts daily.
These figures undeniably point to the immense potential of live online selling for every business.
However, Gary Vee’s approach emphasizes building long-term relationships over quick sales.
Inside The Hood of Live Selling: Infomercials on Steroids
Selling on social media has evolved beyond simply browsing online.
Consumers are no longer limited to static product photos; instead, they engage with live streams where hosts—often influencers or brand ambassadors—showcase products, demonstrate their functionality, and offer usage tips.
A key differentiator of live selling is its real-time interactivity. Unlike passive TV commercials, viewers can ask questions about products on the spot, inquire about sizes or colors, or even request personalized shoutouts from social media personalities. This fosters a relaxed, personal connection that transcends a typical sales pitch.
Furthermore, live selling cultivates a strong impulse to buy. With sellers quickly displaying limited items, buyers often compete in the comments to secure products. This creates an urgency that traditional sales lack, compelling viewers to act swiftly before an item sells out.
How Social Platforms Shorten the Path From Discovery to Purchase
The buying journey has been revolutionized by social media and live selling, as Gary Vee has consistently highlighted. Gone are the days of watching a commercial, traveling to a store, and waiting in line.
Instead, we now have:
- In-App Discovery and Immediacy: Leading live selling platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok enable brands to tag products directly within images and videos. Users can tap these tags for instant access to product details, pricing, and immediate purchase options.
- Live Shopping Events: Social media personalities leverage live streams for product demonstrations and real-time Q&A sessions, capitalizing on impulse buying and the excitement of limited-time offers.
- “For You” Page (FYP) Algorithms: TikTok’s algorithm, for instance, delivers product-related content based on user interests and past interactions, allowing for organic product discovery even without active searching.
- In-App Checkout: Many platforms now offer integrated checkout processes, eliminating the need to redirect users to external websites, which often leads to cart abandonment.
Personalization and AI-Driven Commerce
Beyond social media algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) is further transforming online shopping, moving beyond generic recommendations to offer hyper-personalized experiences.
AI utilizes various data points to provide businesses with deep insights into their target audiences, including:
- Browse History: Pages visited, time spent, items viewed, and search queries.
- Purchase History: Past purchases, frequency, value, and categories.
- Demographic and Psychographic Data: Age, gender, location, interests, and lifestyle.
- Real-Time Behavior: What a customer is doing on the website or app at the moment.
- External Factors: Seasonal trends, local weather, trending topics, and competitor pricing.
This data allows AI to predict product demand in specific regions and even anticipate items that should be moved closer to potential buyers before an order is placed, significantly reducing delivery times.
FOMO: Impact on Impulse Buying and Customer Retention
Live selling leverages the power of impulse buying—unplanned purchases often driven by immediate desire. Live selling showcases products and streamlines the checkout process, making it effortless for consumers to acquire desired items. This capitalizes on the “right there” convenience of impulse buys.
The effect extends to customer retention. When customers feel understood and valued, particularly through the offering of relevant products with just a few clicks, they are more likely to exhibit brand loyalty. AI-powered analytics further enhance this by predicting customer behavior based on their real-time social media activity.
Seamless, Entertaining, and Immersive Shopping
The effectiveness of live selling stems from its ability to offer an interactive, engaging, and personal shopping experience.
- Interactive Demonstrations: Live streams showcase products from all angles, with hosts trying them out in real-time. This transparent view builds trust and enhances product understanding.
For example, a fashion brand can demonstrate what a dress looks like on different body types and answer sizing questions live, while a makeup brand can demonstrate application techniques with its products.
- Live Chat: Viewers can pose questions about availability, size, materials, or sustainability, receiving instant answers. Hosts can quickly show close-ups or demonstrate specific features requested by viewers.
- Engaging Hosts: Beyond the products, the host is central to online selling success. Whether it’s a celebrity, influencer, brand founder, or everyday person, a charming and entertaining host can make all the difference.
Hosts often share personal stories, crack jokes, and interact playfully, making the stream feel more like a fun talk show than a sales pitch.
Integrated Payment and Checkout Innovations
Secure and fast payment options are pivotal to the success of online live selling.
Digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, and Amazon Pay facilitate one-tap or one-click purchases, sustaining the impulse to buy by eliminating the need for manual data entry.
These wallets employ tokenization, replacing sensitive card numbers with encrypted codes for enhanced security and reduced risk of data breaches.
Additionally, Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) services such as Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm offer short-term, interest-free installment plans, making shopping more accessible and outwardly budget-friendly.
The Influencer Appeal
Influencers have emerged as the new celebrities.
Many brands now opt to partner with community influencers, social media personalities, and TikTok stars to promote their products. This strategy works because consumers trust influencers over traditional celebrities, especially those who appear to authentically mirror their values and understand their needs.
Building trust and authenticity is crucial. Advertising must now connect with an audience’s daily life, and influencers excel at sharing real, relatable stories.
The most successful ones come across more like trustworthy friends offering advice than aggressive salespeople. This, in turn, fosters:
- Breaking Through the Noise: Trust acts as a filter, drawing consumers to credible and transparent sources.
- Building Long-Term Relationships: Social commerce thrives on community, and cultivating trust extends beyond a single sale, fostering brand loyalty.
- Driving Engagement and Advocacy: Trust and authenticity boost engagement, leading to increased sharing, commenting, and recommendations.
Live Selling Hack courtesy of Gary Vee: Content Relevance Over Follower Counts
While Gary Vee commands a massive social media presence of over 50 million followers, his philosophy suggests that millions of followers are not a prerequisite for live selling success. The key lies in understanding and adapting to the current trend: content relevance.
The early 2010s saw social media creators prioritizing follower growth through daily random content.
Today, platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube are engineered to maximize user engagement. Their algorithms prioritize delivering content tailored to individual interests and past engagement.
This means that a user consistently watching baking videos will continue to see related content, whether they follow the accounts that produce them or not. This shift empowers creators to reach their target audience directly through relevant content, diminishing the importance of follower count.
This democratization of online selling significantly benefits smaller brands and creators. Success now hinges on understanding:
- What your target audience is interested in.
- What they are searching for online.
- What they watch in their free time.
By creating matching content and selling relevant products through live streams, even smaller players can achieve widespread visibility and substantial results.
Market Growth and Global Adoption
Market data unequivocally supports the growth of live social shopping.
The global social commerce market is projected to exceed $2 trillion in 2025, with Western countries increasingly adopting live social shopping.
As of this writing, nearly 49% of consumers base purchase decisions on influencer recommendations and a remarkable 80% buying things due to the same.
This is unsurprising given how the average person spends about 151 minutes daily on social media, offering brands ample opportunities for connection and product showcase.
Early Success in Other Markets
While relatively new to Western markets, live selling has already demonstrated undeniable effectiveness in Asian countries like China and the Philippines.
Platforms like TikTok enable sellers to go live daily, presenting new collections to thousands of eager viewers. This success is underpinned by several factors: high mobile penetration, a strong influencer culture, significant entertainment value, and a foundation of authenticity and trust.
Hidden Goldmine: How The Philippines Leads the World in Live Online Selling
Beyond its prowess in virtual assistance and customer service, the Philippines is emerging as a global leader in the online retail revolution, particularly in live selling.
Live selling gained traction in the Philippines as early as 2019 via Facebook Live. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated its mainstream adoption, as online shopping and live selling became a safe, convenient, and entertaining way to purchase goods during lockdowns.
Its popularity endured even after restrictions eased.
With approximately 90.8 million social media users, representing 78% of its total population, the Philippines offers a vast and engaged audience. Filipino live sellers have successfully leveraged this, building impressive business empires.
“Mompreneur” Cecille Guinto, for instance, earned Php 1 million (approximately $17,000 USD) in a single Shopee livestream by connecting with her audience through relatable products. James Afante, a TikTok creator, achieved a record-breaking Php 81 million (approximately $1.4 million USD) in an 11-hour live selling session, attributing his success to captivating his audience by selling popular and local Filipino products.
What sets Filipino sellers apart is their natural ability to connect with audiences. Known for being cheerful, authentic, entertaining, and highly interactive, Filipinos are a natural fit for live selling, further distinguished by:
- Reliability: Filipino live sellers often share personal stories and actively engage via chat, creating a friendly, expert-like shopping experience.
- “When Worn” and Live Demonstrations: They excel at showcasing how clothes look when worn or demonstrating makeup application live, allowing viewers to see products in use and to ask questions about such on the spot.
- Personal Touch: The warmth and hospitality ingrained in Filipino culture are evident in live selling, where sellers use friendly terms like “ate,” “kuya,” “tito,” and “tita,” fostering a welcoming atmosphere.
Conclusion: Social Selling and Explosive Market Growth
Gary Vee’s emphasis on attention as the new currency underscores the urgency for brands to adapt NOW.
With billions of people spending hours on social media daily, businesses must meet customers where they are. This means the LIVE sharing of relevant photos, blogs, videos, and other content to showcase offerings that’s authentic and engaging.
The Philippines, often dubbed the “Social Media Capital of the World,” has cultivated a large pool of skilled individuals leveraging these platforms. This has led many businesses to tap Filipino sellers to promote products online via Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and other social media channels.
When great products, engaging hosts, interactive platforms, and seamless checkout processes converge, the natural outcome for customers is to buy.
The time to start live selling is now.
Syrine studies law while working as a content writer. Outside of writing and studying, she tutors, plans events, and browses social media. In 2021, she published Stellar Thoughts.
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