Hei, og velkommen til en ny episode av Vellykket Nettverkshandel. I denne episoden skal vi snakke om direkte shopping. Jeg har vært heldig nok til å intervjue en daglig leder og medgrunnlegger av SPRII, S-P-R-I-I.io, som heter Christian Vester.
Vi snakker med Christian om hvordan de kom i gang med denne direkte shopping-plattformen, hvorfor de fant ut at det var et marked for et verktøy som hjelper nettbutikker å selge mer gjennom sine direkte shopping-show. Vi diskuterer hvordan du kan komme i gang med direkte shopping, fordelene med ulike måter å gå live på, og hva du trenger for å komme i gang. I tillegg diskuterer vi Black Friday og hvordan du kan starte med en god kombinasjon av direkte shopping og Black Friday.
Så jeg er veldig glad for det. Det som også er kult med Christian og SPRII er at det er et dansk selskap, så de har mange saker fra de nordiske landene. Vi snakker om fire norske saker som har lykkes med direkte shopping i denne episoden.
Jeg er fra Norge, Christian er fra Danmark, så vi bestemte oss for å gjøre dette intervjuet på engelsk for å unngå alle former for misforståelser. Så jeg gleder meg til å dele dette intervjuet med dere. La oss hoppe rett inn i dagens episode.
So, Christian, welcome to the show. Thank you for being part of this episode.
Thank you, happy to be here. You are the co-founder and also CEO of SPRII. SPRII is a live shopping software, as we have mentioned in the intro.
Can you take us a little bit behind your background and the journey and how you ended up figuring out that we need a live shopping platform? Yeah, sure I can. So, actually, retail has always been a part of my family's DNA, because my parents and grandparents and even my sisters are involved in fashion retail, running fashion stores in Denmark and so on. So, it goes far down the family.
But that said, I took another path myself. And before I co-founded SPRII, I was a management consultant, helping companies with strategy and so on. But then the real turning point was the pandemic.
So, the COVID, because my parents' fashion store was really hard hit by the lockdowns and also because us consumers were not allowed or we feared to go out in normal stores, right? And then my older sister had lived in Shanghai in China for six years. So, she said to my parents, why don't you try to just go live on Facebook and see if there is anyone who can see the show, see the products and maybe wants to buy. And quite fast, that became super successful.
And they had a lot of viewers. We're talking about thousand viewers and hundreds who wanted to buy through these lives. But the problem was that Facebook didn't and still don't have a live shopping solution.
So, it was a very manual process. And it took not just hours after the shows, but days to secure that people got the orders and so on. And that's where it all started, because I also tried to help them with this.
But I didn't have the tools. I only knew PowerPoint and Excel from my job. But quite luckily, a guy called Nikolai, who is today our CTO, he approached my parents and said that he might have a solution that could help them with their live shopping.
And I was actually quite sceptical in the beginning, because it was just a phase with the COVID and so on. But we tried it and I saw how amazing it was for the customer's experience and also for my parents. And then there was this story, like you said, because then we joined forces and then we built Spree.
And in the beginning, it was something totally different from what it is today, of course. You had a different name also, just because that name also became very popular in Scandinavia during this time, Elisa. So, if somebody has heard of Elisa and wondering where that ended up, that's the new Spree that we know today.
Yeah, exactly. But right now, you claim that you are the only live shopping solution on the net right now, that the only software that people really can call a live shopping solution. Explain that, what is the difference between this and just going live on Instagram and Facebook that most people are doing already? Yeah, so there is a lot of things to say to that.
But to address your concrete question here, when you go live on Facebook and Instagram, you can, of course, showcase your products, but it's not purchasable or shoppable. You have to give those who are watching a link or they have to find the products on the page on your website. With Spree, you make the live stream shoppable.
So, the customers who are watching are able to buy from the live through the common fields if it's on Facebook or if it's on Instagram. And you can also make the same stream to multiple Facebook and Instagram sites at once. So, that's the biggest differentiator.
But at the same time, the same stream, we also stream to your own website, where it's also shoppable, but it's another experience. It is actually quite hard to explain. It's easier to show.
And therefore, we also have a page on our website where you can try the experience as a customer yourself. Yeah. So, you have Spree.
It's S-P-R-I-I dot I-O. So, if you want to go in and see more of these examples. And you have been working with quite a lot of companies so far.
You're not a small company anymore from the pandemic. It's like 2,500 companies on your list. Can you share some good case studies, maybe even Norwegian case studies that your customer have been trying out? Yeah, absolutely.
So, first of all, we have worked with a lot of different kinds of companies. So, it's just if you are having a fashion store, a beauty store or a fishing gear or something like that, we have a case we can show you. But, yeah, and it's also quite important to tell that many of our users, especially in the new markets like Norway, are a bit shy of showcasing their results because they see it as their secret weapon.
So, they don't want their competitors to do it as well. But luckily, there are some who want to share a bit or I can share what I'm allowed to. So, in Norway, for example, we have a small fashion brand called Mys By Mari, who have had a big boost in their customer engagement and also sales through live shopping.
And I can talk more about that. But we also have bigger companies like Kidd and Ligekasten. And they actually recently hosted a live together with Ligo.
So, it was only Ligo that they were selling. And I can share some numbers from their live. They had 32,000 views, 2,600 who were watching at the same time.
So, you have to imagine, to understand how many that is, that over 2,000 people are in your store right now and looking at you and also hearing about your products, your services and so on. And it also ended up with more than 20,000 comments and it generated millions in sales. And I say that because that's what they have said to a newspaper in Norway.
So, I can say it in that way. Yeah. We also have... Power have gone live quite a lot with Spree as well.
And last year when it was Black Friday, they sold for more than 10 million kroners. And yeah, but it's not only about that you can sell a lot. It's really also about how you can differentiate yourself from other stores or make your audience aware of you, right? Because that's also one of the things about why we want to have the lives on social media.
That's because there is an organic effect. So, if you, Thomas, are looking at a live tonight and if the algorithm sees, okay, Thomas thinks this is interesting content, then the algorithm asks itself, right? Okay, who looks like Thomas? Who can we expose this content to? And then a broader audience is exposed for this live. So, it's also an effective way to get new customers or build up your brand awareness.
Also the notification because like we've been working also with Mies by Mari and Moon and Kool. And I'm a big fan of these guys. And this thing that it even popped up this morning when I was on my phone that Mies by Mari is going live.
And that thing doesn't happen anymore if you just posted a post or a new carousel or a new reel. You don't get the same exposure, that notification to all of your followers that you are going live. That is mostly now just with the live thing.
So, if you want to be more in people's faces, try go live and see what happens because people will get notified and see you. So, but what more can you tell about the Mies by Mari experience? Yeah, so just to add one thing to that Thomas is that we also have developed a feature that we call Live Reminder. And that's where a company like Mies by Mari can send a direct message in Messenger or in the Instagram DM where they say, hey, Thomas, we're going live in five minutes.
So, you're not only depending on if Facebook decides to make a notification, you can also build up a list of customers you want to write to. I think the thing with Mies by Mari is that they, from the beginning, have had a quite clear vision of using live shopping to grow their brand. And to be honest, it has really been amazing to follow their journey.
And the way they connect with the audience, I think that's just through being authentic. So, they are just themselves and they are just talking about what they love. And that is their clothes and how it fits.
So, they try to close on. And I think they are just making a good experience for the customers in this way. And some stats for them is that since they started, the biggest challenge was actually their conversion rate.
In the beginning, it was 1.5%, but now it's over 50. So, we have really secured that the conversion rate is higher there. And that's also about how you communicate with the audience and so on.
And at the same time, the return rate had also dropped. And we actually see that in general with live. And I think that's because you as a consumer have the possibility to ask questions or because I, as a host, have the possibility to say, if you want to buy this vest, please be aware that it is a bit large in the size.
So, if you're normally a medium, you should take a small or things like that. Yeah, because that takes me a little bit into the next question, like what is the benefit here with live shopping for both the retailer, but also for the consumer? You know, like there is, as you mentioned, that you can actually ask questions live, which when you just log into the e-commerce store, there is like no way of, maybe you can send an email, maybe there is a chat bubble, but you don't get that instant response, right? That you can do on a live. What other benefits do you see? Yeah, so the main benefits for the host or for the company really depends on what brand you are and what you want to achieve, right? Because for some, it's all about sales like power.
And for others, it's about building brand awareness, creating a strong community and so on. And for us, it's just to speed up the process of converting customers, right? So, it all comes down to what kind of strategy you have. I think the big benefits for everyone is that the return on investment is really high and also come quite fast because it don't take much to get started.
If you look at Mish by My, it's a really simple setup and everyone can do that. You and I could go live tonight. The only thing we need to know is what do we want to sell? Of course, if you want to make a show like Power, you need to prepare it a bit in advance because it's more like a TV show.
So, I think the biggest advantage is that you can get results super fast. And from the consumer perspective, it's a convenient and an experience with a high information level as well. And in other cases, it's just entertaining.
So, for example, the Lego Live with Ligekassen was really high on the entertainment part. There was competitions and so on. But at the same time, they were also talking about Lego and new, I'm not sure what it's called, but new cases you could buy and also the conversation.
So, I think that's the benefits from it that you can... And another point is also that if you want a new pair of jeans, for example, Thomas, you can go to Zalando and then there is 10,000 options for you. And actually, it's not a very nice experience because you are hit with decision fatigue, right? There are so many options. But when someone is watching a live, there is a host who really knows what she or he is talking about.
And instead of presenting you for 10,000 different jeans or shirts, he is presenting you for three different options and he talks about these and maybe tries them on and so on. And the information level is just way better than on a Zalando page. And also, there's a difference of seeing the product images on a website and then seeing it live on a video, right? It's like, okay, now I see it.
And she also, among many of the good hosts, are explaining the touch, the feel of the products, you know? So, but maybe before we move on, you could tell a little bit about how do you prepare for a good live show? Because we have in Monaco, we have a live shopping course, a small little course that we did, and planning is a huge benefit because one thing is just going live and then, let me see if I find something and then maybe this one is interesting, right? So, you should do some planning, you should sit down, use an hour, maybe two, and then figure out all of the things. And then maybe also from the technical things, like the phone is okay, right? With a little bit of light. Yeah, if you have a place with good lights and not a lot of noise and a new iPhone or smartphone is totally fine to make a good live shopping show.
And we also have some of the biggest retailers just using that simple setup because they are going live multiple times a week. But we also have some who have one big live show per month to kickstart the new campaign. And of course, when they are preparing for a live, they use a bit more than some hours because it involves quite a lot of things because they also are doing retail media.
So, they have the brands to pay for the things that are in the show as well, right? But for an e-commerce with 20 employees, of course, the first two to five live shows demands some preparation. And it's a good idea to have a plan for what you want to do in the live. But it's not that you have to have a script because the thing is that it feels like this is something that is going on live and you actually can answer the questions that are coming in.
It's quite key as well. So, that's a big part of it. But when we started Spree and also during the last three years, we have always thought that we should be a software company.
But we have also experienced that it's really necessary for us to be a company that can advise, give tips and tricks, do some don'ts and also be a part of the planning if our new users want that. So, a huge part of our team here is actually success colleagues. And that's just those who are helping users with getting to know about what is live shopping, what can it do, what is your success criteria and how can we achieve them? Because there is not one fits all formula for success here.
No, no, no. If you look at Kit and Legecast and Power and MySpyMy, they are all doing it in four different ways. And that's also to try to find your own way and that's not done after the first live.
You know, if you do your first live ever and you sell for 500 kronors and it's like, okay, I will never do this again. It's like, no, that just gave you a lot of things to learn and what you did wrong this time, try to make it better in the next one, you know? And I liked also this, I see many are using this, this small competition, you know? It's like, we're going to pick a comment from this live and next live, which is next Wednesday, next Friday, we're going to pick the winner for that one, you know? So keep coming back again. So there's some small nuggets there that I'm sure that your success team is on top of.
And you also have like webinars on your website that you can join to learn even more. But you mentioned Black Friday with one of the cases and there is apparently a Black Friday coming up not in too long. Is there anything we can use live shopping for during Black Friday or to prepare for Black Friday? Yeah, so I'm not sure how it is in Norway, but I can say in Denmark, Black Friday is not just Black Week.
I think it's Black Month. So I think November is all about grabbing consumers' attention, right? And we really see that that's what they are using live shopping for because the consumers are ready to spend. But the question is on what, where and when, right? So live shopping is quite a great way to stand out and capture the attention of the consumers.
And we also see some of the brands and retailers kickstart Black Friday sales with live shopping shows weeks before. So they are doing the same that you can expect from Black Friday, but they are just doing it early on to build anticipation or drive early sales and so on. Because from an e-commerce perspective, you actually want to broaden it a bit out.
So it's not only a peak on Black Friday, but you want the sales to begin quite early, right? And you can do that with live shopping. And especially because the event is live, it is possible for you to make an event where there is a lot of viewers and thereby also a lot of consumers who are watching your show. Yeah, we have some amazing cases with a company called Cool Shop, where they are making lives every day and also sometimes four times per day in the Black Week period.
When they did that, their traffic on the website doubled compared to the year before on Black Friday. So that's really a success. So this year, Black Friday is on 29th of November, I believe.
That's the main, main, main Friday. The last Friday before December. So how early should people prepare for this thing? As you said, there is a little bit different from company to company, and there are so many ways of doing it.
But what do you guys recommend? You are holding your own webinars about this thing as well. What are you guys sharing there? So for the large companies, live shopping is now a part of their marketing mix. So when they prepare for Black Friday, live shopping is a part of that.
So it depends on when they begin. But for brands where it's the first time they want to use live shopping, I would recommend to make a live shopping show that's not about Black Friday, just to test things out. So do that here in October or as early as you can.
But after that, you can prepare. The main thing why you should be two weeks ahead is because it's a good idea to begin to market for your live shopping events. So use your regular marketing channels to tell about that you have this event.
But we have also seen some who have joined Spree on the same day that they wanted to have a big live shopping show. So it's not that it's impossible. We have integrations to Shopify, My Store, and so on.
So the technical part is easy to get started with. The thing that needs preparation is more that you have to communicate it, especially on socials, and that you know that this is the theme. We want to do this, and we want to showcase these products.
It's the content of the show, basically. Yeah, it is. Yeah.
And for some, it's easy. And for others, it requires some preparation. So hopefully that rings a bell for somebody out there that are ready.
You also have this opposite thing, the people that don't want to be part of Black Friday, which is a little bit of a growing community. It's this thing of overspending, shopping, and throwing away. You know, you have all of these concepts.
But it doesn't mean that you don't need to. I mean, you can do sustainable Black Friday campaigns, you know, with selling actually good products instead of just the products that is going to be used and thrown away. I mean, there are so many ways of packaging this in.
And it is the biggest shopping event of the year for retailers. People are looking for stuff that is on sale. So do you have any example of that, maybe, like how you can do it in a more sustainable way? So there are many approaches to how your live content should be.
And I think you can say the same for email marketing. And email marketing is not always about now our January sales is starting. It can also be that we have a new product offering or it can be about an other communication, for example, something that is sustainable.
So you can definitely make a show where that is the case and where you just want to sell about your brand and your products without making a lot of, what should I call it, things that make you buy, right? But you can use live to secure that those who are buying are well informed about what they are buying and why it's beneficial for them. But we have a lot of cases where the live is not about shopping. So, for example, we have lives with a festival, football teams and companies that are selling houses and so on, because it's just a great way to inform an audience about a service or product or get them closer to, for example, a football team.
And so you can use it in many different ways. Yeah, absolutely. So let's say that I sign up today because I'm ready.
I'm intrigued. You sold me. This sounds like something I should get started with.
What will then be your, let's say, top five tips to be successful? Yeah. So now you're saying that you have signed up, but if you signed up today. Yeah.
OK. And first of all, it will be very important for you, but also for me in terms of advising you is to understand your success criteria for the live show. So due to your point about if I'm not interested in making an event that's only about sales, then the success criteria is maybe it's more about, OK, how can we make the viewers engaged? Is there other information that we can get? Do we want them to sign up for our email or for our club or whatever we have? So it don't have to be about sales.
And for me to advise you, I really need what your criterias are. But I also think it's just there are some general tips, and the first one would be, first of all, don't be afraid. And what I really see out there is that fear is the one thing that hold people back and live shopping is actually all about being authentic.
So it's not that hard. It don't have to be perfect. It's OK if your audience can see that this is real and there are some unscripted moments.
That's just a good thing. And the next thing, the second thing is that you just have to get started because there will be a lot of learnings doing this and we can have a lot of tips and tricks and cases from other parts. But you are the one who know your audience and your products.
And we also see companies, especially the big ones, that are overcomplicating their lives in the beginning. It's a good idea to just keep it simple, try things out, figure out what works. Yeah, and then you can look at what what others are doing.
So, for example, Thomas, if you had a baby shop, I could send you 10 cases from other Nordic companies and you could pick the things that you found relevant for your company to do. Yeah, kind of the same tips that we are saying here in email marketing, you know, like look at other people's newsletters. You know, what do you like? Why did you click that in that banner? You know, or that or that product in that newsletter? Was it something about the text, something about the copy, something about the set up? Like, did you like the colors? So this is a lot the same when when you're watching other live shows as well.
You should watch other live shows used to see how they are doing it. But also you need to put your own spin on this thing as well, because if they come in, as you say, you're watching power doing their live shopping, you are probably not there yet. So find somebody on your own size and see how they are doing their live shopping event, you know, just from your phone camera and and the way that it's set up.
Yeah. I think that you also mentioned this thing with other success criterias. So in my mind, when I'm going on a live shopping, there is mostly this product that pops up that I can click on.
But is it also then a good way to get new emails on your email list? It's like there is forms, there is other elements in there. Is there like polls I can put up for more engagement? Yeah, so we can make different kinds of competition. It can be polls, but it can also be guessing competitions or it can be we have something called treasure hunt where people can sign up to be a part of the of the of the competition.
But we all where we get the most email and membership signups is on Instagram and Facebook. And here we just write or say to those who are watching or it's or it's or you can see it in the overlays, write a keyword and then we have some kind of keyword that match your store. And when I write that keyword, I get a message back from your company where it says, hey, Christian, thank you for participating.
Do you want to be a part of our members club? Just click yes. And then you click yes. And then we normally have the information already from Facebook or Instagram.
And then you are signed up to the member club. Or it could also be something else that we want to do with the with the customer. So you're talking about the DM automation, right? Yeah, that if you have been familiar with like many chat or some similar company, this is one of these viral hacks that if you just put a comment underneath, you get an automatically DM.
That is a call to action for something. Yeah. And when we are doing that on on site, on our own website, often those who are watching is already someone who are a part of your what's called your environment.
So they are already on your email list and your member club. And therefore, we are so focused on if that's your focus to get more signups, then we have to do a lot on on the social channels where we have the have the algorithm effects as well. Yeah.
And it was also help you to build up your follower base on on the socials as well. Right. So people will like subscribe and do everything like this.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm brand new.
I signed up to Spree. And as you said, we have some success criteria we need to talk about. But it's still like, should I have run my shop for a while? Is there any criteria? Is there any income level my shop should have any conversion rate I need to think about? Or like, what do you guys look at before you let somebody in the door? Yeah, very good and relevant question.
Actually, what we look at is what we call a social presence or social performance. And we look at how many followers you have on Facebook and Instagram on. And also how many of your followers who are active on your account.
So, for example, if you only have 100 followers on Facebook and Instagram, there is something we should work on because you need to have built up some audience to get started. But if you don't have the audience in the beginning, we have other tricks we can do. We can make paid marketing or we can use an influencer or something like that.
To secure that there will be a lot of viewers on the show, right? What if I have a good email list? Yeah, you can use that. Definitely. So you can also send to your email list.
We are going live on Facebook, Instagram and maybe your own website. And then, of course, we will have some viewers. But I just think one of the biggest powers of live shopping is the organic effect we can see from our data that if you have a live where there are 500 orders, then on average, 250 of those orders are someone who have not brought from you before.
And I think that's extremely powerful because if you can give them a good experience, then they will come back, right? And we really want that when we have an e-commerce business. Yeah. So when I'm going live with Spree, I have the option of going live on Instagram and Facebook.
And there's probably others as well. But I can also embed the whole thing on my e-commerce shop so I can have it there. But just putting it live on the shop, thinking that I don't want to have users going away other places, you know, I want to keep them in my shop, it's probably not the best idea because it's a lot more marketing to bring people to that show.
Yeah, I agree. So what we have seen is that in the beginning, quite many big companies tried to make live shopping only on their own website and their shows and especially their KPIs did not meet expectations because it's very hard to get a lot of viewers on your own website at one point in time. But there are still quite some good things about making live shows on your own website, and that is that you can build your own content house.
So, for example, if you're a beauty brand, Thomas, then you can have small lives on maybe 10 minutes lives that are approaching different problems that will occur over and over again. So it's more about that you have a content universe where there are questions, where there are good information. So lives on your own website is more information heavy and lives on social medias are more about, OK, so we have a thousand viewers right now.
How can we get something out of that attention that can be a sale? It can be an email sign up or a third thing. I like that strategy, especially with the content machine as well, because you can have this makeup videos, you can have this baking, cooking shows where you are selling your own oils and everything, maybe even bringing your visitors behind the scene if you're doing a candles. You know, it's like, but then the videos stay there somehow in your blog, on your website, in the product page.
And you can also buy it directly from there. So that also makes a lot of sense. Yeah, exactly.
So if we then look into the future, we're now in twenty twenty four. There is a ton of A.I. out there going crazy. Almost you don't need to have a photo shoot anymore.
You take a picture of the product with your phone and A.I. just fix it on models and everything. We have Mark Zuckerberg of Meta that is going to introduce glasses and that's going to be the next thing that you're going to have on you until twenty thirty, he said. More glasses than phones.
In all of this madness of technology and the future, where do you see live shopping moving forward? First of all, right now, we are not looking five or ten years ahead. We have a lot to do in the market just one, two and three years ahead. But what I can imagine is that the authenticity and the community feeling will still be a thing, even though there are A.I.'s and it's called internet glasses out there.
I still think that it is important to make some environments where you feel that you are together with other people. And that's also the thing about live. It's not only the connection between the host and you as a consumer, but also all the other consumers who are also contributing to the experience.
So I think that's a huge part of it. If you look at Myst by My, for example, in the common field, they are almost friends and they are advising each other and saying, hey, I bought that dress two weeks ago and I love it. And so on.
And I think. Sure, the biggest companies will be in front with that, but I think to to give smaller national companies some power back, it is to make authentic content like like the one we we provide all a cheer for. And that's something I can definitely not do at this point, not in the same way.
Yeah, if there is an A.I. model of Myst by My holding a live show, I think yeah, it's not the same authenticity that she is doing it herself in her Swedish-Norwegian voice that is just very, very nice to listen to. And yeah, you trust her when she's saying that these clothes are comfy. Exactly.
And I think it's hard to build the same experience and trust if, you know, maybe you can't see it. But if you know that it's an A.I. model behind the show. Yeah, yeah, 100 percent.
Anything else that you want to add in the end here? Just that if if you are a bit interested in figuring out if live shopping is something for your business after you hear this, it's not hard to test it out. You can either just try to go live and see how it performs. You can also call us and have a discussion about, OK, what is your strategy for your business and how can live shopping support that? Our business model is revenue based.
And that means that if you don't have success, Thomas, we are not going to have a good business. And therefore, we also have, I will not say a lot, but we have we have quite a few customers, potential customers every week where we say we don't think live shopping is for you right now. And that is because we we we we as a business can only have customers where we can see that they can become successful with live shopping.
So it's just to tell that it's not you don't have to be afraid of trying it out. It's not a big investment in terms of of money. But of course, there is an investment in terms of resources, right? You have to use a bit of time in in trying it out.
Yeah, perfect. Thank you so much for your time, Christian. I hope so many people are that are listening are at least a little bit more knowledgeable about live shopping.
And remember, if you want to learn more about Spree, it's S-P-R-E-E dot com. I-I-S-P-R-E-E dot I-O. Thank you so much again.
And I'm looking forward to talk to you again very soon. Thank you, Thomas. Thank you.
