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Episode 192
January 22, 2021

ShopShops Liyia Wu: “We’re Enabling a Generation of Prolific Creators”

Liyia Wu, founder and CEO of ShopShops joins the show to discuss ShopShops and the future of online shopping and how ShopShops is creating the space for the next generation of content creators and influencers.

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Liyia Wu, founder and CEO of ShopShops, joins the show today to discuss ShopShops, the future of online shopping, and how ShopShops is creating the space for the next generation of content creators and influencers. 

ShopShops and Consumer Behavior

  • “I believe the future of shopping is definitely live and video.” - Liyia Wu
  • Liyia states that they call themselves “Retail First” or “Retailtaimerce”, which is retail, entertainment, and commerce all in one as a platform that serves three sides of the market.
  • ShopShops tries to mimic the offline shopping experience for the online world: the sense of discovery via the physical spaces and environments. 
  • Because of video calls, conferences, and the rise of live streaming and video forms on TikTok and Instagram, Liyia sees a user change behavior that’s acknowledging what video can offer.
  • Instead of a one-to-one experience, live streaming becomes one-to-hundreds. During livestream shopping or livestream entertainment, consumers start seeing relatedness to the person presenting and to other consumers in live chat features.
  • ShopShops’s influencers come from backgrounds of stylists, fashion designers, makeup artists themselves: “They very much have their own way to express their opinion about beauty.” - Liyia Wu
  • Just as Instagram and TikTok brought consumers in for entertainment purposes, ShopShops wants to focus on shopping - bringing consumers in to be entertained and learn something through that.

Entering the U.S. Market and Monetization

  • ShopShops is starting their expansion into the Western market by focusing on the vendor/seller side, having them start English versions of their live streams themselves in-store. 
  • By the end of the year, ShopShops wants to open up the platform to more individual sellers who are willing to be hosts and curate their own content for the platform.
  • Currently, ShopShops charges a platform fixed fee based on seller’s transactions and in connecting hosts with retailers, they collect affiliate fees. 
  • ShopShops currently curates which retailers and brands are platformed. Because of cross-border limitations in shipping and fulfillment, there’s a higher level of curation in the Chinese market. However, for their expansion into the U.S. market, ShopShops is open minded.
  • ShopShops shares insight, industry insights, cross-border insights, and analyzed data with their creators. This helps them identify and retain their customers.
  • On ShopShops’s female-focused audience: “I think women and men shop differently. Women shop for entertainment. Men shop for a purpose…” - Liyia Wu
  • ShopShops sees millennials as their primary focus in moving Westward - because of their mobile savviness, their quick adoption for what’s new, and their spending power.

Links


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Brian: [00:01:14] Hello and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast about next generation commerce. I'm Brian.

Phillip: [00:01:19] I'm Phillip. And the next generation of Commerce. We've heard all about it. And today we're going to hear about where the future is heading as far as live stream shopping, which everyone seems to be a thought leader about on Twitter these days. So we have the Founder and CEO of ShopShops, Liyia Wu, here to talk with us. And tell us, is this the future? Is live shopping the future? Welcome to the show, Liyia.

Liyia: [00:01:43] Hi. Thank you for having me, Phillip and Brian. I believe the future of shopping is definitely live and video, and that's why we jumped on this, or since we started in 2016 with no idea what we're doing at the time, trying to build what we called  [00:02:03]Retailtaimerce, [00:02:04] which is retail, entertainment, and commerce, all in one as a platform that serviced three sides of the market. Yes, I think the growth that we have learned from our China side as we started from mostly a China focused company where that we've seen the growth on the China side. We see the adoption in the early age and then the potential growth that follows after. And I think it's still growing really fast in the Chinese market. And I think this is going to be a global adoption for a lot of people. And pandemic is just putting more fields on that learning.

Phillip: [00:02:52] You had an amazing interview last year that I listened to on the Modern Retail Podcast. And what struck me in that interview was that you sort of differentiated yourself from what people in the West typically think of as like QVC for direct to consumer, in that you turn on QVC in the United States and there are people standing in a studio with studio lights selling products via sitting on a couch or they're like selling the product to you. This takes you into the streets and into shops and into boutiques, is that correct?

Liyia: [00:03:31] Yes. We call ourselves Retail First or [00:03:35] Retailtaimerce. [00:03:36] My personal experience, I have many years as offline retail experience. That's owning my own boutique stores, started my own brand that exclusively ran on offline retail stores. And to me, I hold very dear of that experience because I think every store owner, big or small, or even multi billion dollars department stores that they spend so much time on the curation of that store, the displaying of product, alignment, merchandizing... I think that is what is unique about offline shopping, about retail shopping, is that memory trigger created during that first step you walk into the store, the sound, the music, the smell, the people who talk to you, or when you're trying on a pair of shoes, there's someone there to sort of help you decide, even if it's a stranger who's trying on a different pair and you would probably take a look at the other person's shoes and figure out, is that better or is mine better? So I think, oh, those are part of the offline shopping that we don't experience online, at least not at current online shopping experience. I often talk to my team internally that I think right now the eCommerce are designed by men, shop, paying, experience for men where you know you want a pair of jeans, so type it out and search a color, search the length and waist, and then basically you have it. But [00:05:15] I think for a lot of people who love shopping and that sense of discovery really sort of being wowed by the window display or being wowed by the things you did not know existed is part of that shopping journey. And that's what ShopShops has been trying very hard to mimic. That offline shopping experience and bring them online. I think livestream and also video is just a format that we could use or a tool that we use to really try to mimic that offline shopping experience. [00:05:54]

Brian: [00:05:55] Yeah, I think this is so important. Recently wrote an article on my, like, depressing shopping experience on Black Friday because it was so depressing and I was just thinking about what we think of as depressing right now. And Philip and I recently watched a movie called Jaspar Mall. It's about the death of the American Shopping Mall. And it was it was sort of depressing to see where people landed at the end of the life of this mall. But I'm thinking about our current shopping experiences. And if I keep shopping the way that I'm shopping all the way through to the end of my life, how depressing that would look. I think you're absolutely right that shopping is not relational, it's not engaging. It's not as entertaining as it could be. It's not just life-giving as window displays and all the reasons why in-store retail has continued to be the primary mode of shopping prior to the pandemic, even though we had eCommerce here in the US at least. How would you say that the way that people are building and growing relationships, especially coming out of COVID, is impacting shopping? And will this allow something like ShopShops to come to the US and see success?

Liyia: [00:07:06] First of all, I have to say, I definitely see that there's going to have a tremendous change on the user behavior shopping via video and livestream. So we definitely think we are on the beginning of that US growth on the livestream adoption and potential that follows. And in my opinion, probably in two or three years time for that adoption to actually occur. I think with COVID most people are able to build a fast trusting relationship via video because we've been talking to people that we know or strangers over video calls, over conferences, and then things live streaming or video forms of entertainment on Instagram or TikTok are sort of the way that people know about what else is going on in the world, besides the home or to the room that we are in. So I think that's a first of a user change behavior that allows us to really see what a video can offer. And that is more than just TV or more than just YouTube channels now. I think the a shorter video form or extremely long live stream and interactions are the two formats people will start to build a strong relationship with the content creator, either the livestream hosts or the video content creators. Because that's where the relatedness that you get to see either that person do a very good dance or has a very cute dog where you start learning about TikTok, and we all got addicted because of the either the dog or dance or the music. Same with livestream shopping or livestream entertainment is you start seeing relatedness to the person who is presenting an item or something that's bring your eyeball, an interest that brings you the relatedness either to body size, either the way that they speak or either it's just fun or relaxing to look at another person to go through different stores and browse through on your behalf. Instead of a one to one experience, it becomes one to hundreds. You probably will see other people chat over while you watch. There's other people in chats, too, and then you feel like there's people who like the same item as you do or wanted the same thing that you wanted. They care about the same discounts as you care. So I think all of that is what we've seen on the China side of user adoption. This behavior that can grow into the US side is that trust built from reality shows.

Phillip: [00:10:09] I have to ask the question that I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is like, how does this not exist? How is this not more prolific here in the United States? And I have to believe that there is probably some sort of cultural difference. There's a chasm between the cultural impact or the cultural acceptance of the influencer economy in Asia versus what it is here in the United States. I have to wonder what people would think of me if I started walking around the Nordstrom here in Palm Beach Gardens and I'm talking into my phone and no one else is really engaged with me. I'm engaging with other people while I'm in public. How did you overcome that? Or was that already sort of the norm when ShopShops launched?

Liyia: [00:10:57] Oh in the beginning when we launched ShopShops, it was a team of five. Me and my partner were both our sort of initial hosts because we had no one else. No one else knew what we were talking about. And we started on Alibaba type of platform where we started with the store called ShopShops. It was a trial to start with because at the time where we built ShopShops it was for Chinese tourists using it as almost like a Yelp version for shopping. At least that was initially how we pitched and got into our first incubator with the idea of building a shopping directory for people who travel and shop. So with that in mind, that's how we started trialing or testing out livestream. First live, before we started, I was like, oh my God, who is going to watch it because right now everybody's watching livestream. At the time 2016, people will watch livestream in China of someone else eating a bowl of rice at home. And millions of people would tune in and watch someone else eat a bowl of rice.

Phillip: [00:12:12] Wow.

Liyia: [00:12:12] And I was like, OK, this is not people going to buy a thousand dollars items or even hundred dollar items or even five dollar items while I walk around on the streets just to see feature products. So how would that relate? But we gave it anyway. Five minutes into the show, my partner and I would at different ends, I was in Beijing, and she was in New York and we were chatting on the side and we were so excited. We were like, oh, my God, this is what we have been trying to tell people how to mimic that offline shopping experience online. This is what shopping should be online. And so that was the moment we both believed this is the future where people will shop interactively via live or via video. So I think you really have to do it before you really understand why it's so exciting. I think there's the element of other people watch you, which you can become an influencer. Second is where that there's people engage with you in real time. There's the way that we talk about products or how it's presented. It's part of the learning that we built ourselves into influencers. So I think there is definitely that culture difference in terms of Asian market, or especially Chinese, has been more eager to buy cross-border and they're willing to see what's out there and be able to test and try. I think besides that it's also where China has been more mobile savvy. We have adopted two online mobile shopping instead of online web shopping. So people are more sort of experienced with the mobile shopping that whatever's available. So that's where I think the US with COVID actually, I think it pushed everyone towards more of a mobile experience focus comparing to pure web experienced technologies. So I think that's the two differences I see where the next generation or even the millennials will adapt to this quickly because a lot of us will be stuck to our phones like twenty minutes to two or three hours a day.

Phillip: [00:14:46] There's the concept of what we had digital natives, we had social natives, and now we have a platform or entertainment content creator natives. And I think there's this skill that's being developed right now by another generation where they are not only prolific consumers of content, but they're prolific creators of content in their own right.

Liyia: [00:15:11] Yes.

Phillip: [00:15:12] How is ShopShops enabling that generation to be prolific creators? And give me some examples of success in creating the next live shopping host stars on your platform.

Liyia: [00:15:27] We have been engaging our content creators initially, mostly for the Chinese market, so initially when we seek out these talents, they are people who have fashion backgrounds, people who are creative in terms of they are designers themselves. They are stylists, makeup artists themselves. So basically, they very much have their own way to express their opinion about beauty. And they also have a very strong understanding of the product knowledge. When I say product knowledge it's really the merchandizing knowledge, because when you are on live, the host itself is not just showing, oh, this is my favorite earring and that's it. Like the difference between a post on Instagram and a live stream is a post you can actually edit. You only need to show it beautifully, but in a livestream, you really need to describe it clearly, authentically, and beautifully. So that is the difference where it requires the hosts enough knowledge to talk about that item, the material, the make and craftsmanship of a particular ring, or how is it the design? Why is it being created? I think all of these are very direct presentation of how skill and knowledgeable this person is and also her own style, her own authentic way of describing why and how to create this product make sense. So I think this is sort of what we look for in our hosts. There's a true passion about design or being creative. There's a true passion on why she loves or he loves a particular category. So when I recruit hosts right now, I always say, "Do you love shopping? Tell me the shopping experience or the most memorable shopping experience that you have," because this is really how you create a moment for your viewers, not just to sell a product, but create a moment that they remember that moment they bought it. I think that's where we are trying to be differentiated compared to other shopping platforms or just a shopping platform.

Brian: [00:18:04] This is super interesting to me. So there's a few things that have come out of this that I'm going to have questions about, but I'll try not to ask them all at one time. {laughter}

Liyia: [00:18:13] Ok {laughter}

Brian: [00:18:13] So in particular, you said you're recruiting hosts, which I find really, really interesting. So your platform is gated. Is that true? So you can't just go on and any person in the world can go on and sort of become a host. You actually have a process by which you sort of select and curate who actually can be a host.

Liyia: [00:18:38] Yes. And at this stage, as we enter into the US market, we are curating the hosts that to onboard to ShopShops first. I think is because we are still in the I call baby step of getting to know the market and also our users and what the expectation is from our users, in terms of the level of content that we provide. Second, we also service a lot of our retailers that we have been servicing to our Chinese market. For some of these big or small retailers, there is a standard where they've expected their brand presentation to be aligned to their brand. So basically right now we are handpicking or curating the hosts that could go on ShopShops. But the ultimate goal is the opening it up for everyone to be a host. I think this is also the learning curve where that we can make everyone to be a host. I can make you, Brian, be a host if you're interested.

Brian: [00:19:53] {Sing songy} Shopping with Philip and Brian.

Phillip: [00:19:55] I like it.

Liyia: [00:19:56] Yes!

Phillip: [00:19:58] It would be mostly Brian in Costco figuring out in the aisle what is the price per ounce of this? {laughter}

Liyia: [00:20:09] Why not? I would love to watch someone tell me what to buy at Costco. It's a zoo out there.

Brian: [00:20:18] Right?

Liyia: [00:20:18] Exactly. Like why is this cheese better than the other cheddar? Like no one can tell me. Is there tasting for all of them? No. But I'm supposed to buy like a whole bag that will last for like a year, but without knowing what it's like. So, I mean, I don't think ShopShops is focused on just fashion or luxury. We are... Like today we had one of our hosts in Miami actually went into a pet store, her favorite pet store, and she had listed five puppies. Not just I mean, it was just fun and we were all looking at it. And then we are internally talking, "Can we have an office dog?" Like we don't even have office anymore. But do we need an office dog? I think this is where it gives us a lot of room to to see that everything or everybody could be a host. The host is really just recommending and sharing your information, your knowledge on things that you already know to other people and other people tune in because they appreciate the sharing element of it. People could share a luxury bag. People can share on Costco cheese [00:21:35]. I think this is just a time to adopt that behavior, just the way that people adopted TikTok or before to Instagram. But for those two platforms, I think people tune in for entertainment purposes. We get there, we get relaxed or addicted to certain category of content. But I think for ShopShops, we want to focus on shopping. So basically people who want to shop come in and try to learn something through that journey. It might be learning about dogs or cheese or a Chanel bag. That's where we believe shopping entertainment is. It's a twenty four hour live shopping channel. [00:22:20]

Phillip: [00:24:14] There's something really powerful you said there, which is the purchase intent in your example, was an office dog, which I so love. I love that so much. I miss having, like, offices where we had dogs running around. It was amazing, in the before times. But like this intent that was probably already latent, it was there. It was brought to the forefront of your mind by someone else's interactions, like by someone else's engaging content. And that's something that I think is really difficult to do with the traditional mode of eCommerce right now. To your point, earlier, the way that we shop is very much in the spear fishing variety. It's very difficult to have that moment of serendipity and discovery. And that's so incredible what the power of a platform like yours could unlock. I'm curious, you know, what is your plan for penetration here in the West? How are you... You said you have folks in Miami at the moment. I'm curious what what your strategy is to get more adoption and grow your platform here in the US and abroad.

Liyia: [00:25:30] Right now, we are focused on growing users on ShopShops, and the users, we define them as the viewers who actually watch and buy, as well as the vendor sellers who are live themselves on ShopShops. So right now, we're very focused on the vendor or the seller side. And so they are the host seller themselves or they are the store boutique retail brand owners. So that is the current strategy. We are pitching to a lot of retailers. We're pitching to a lot of existing retailers that we work with for our Chinese market to have them start English versions of their livestream themselves in-store. I think that is where our focus is in the next six months. And then by end of the year, we want to open up the platform to more individual sellers who are willing to try it out, and be the host, and curate their own show and content on ShopShops.

Brian: [00:26:42] This is all super interesting to me. I love for you to dive a little further into your monetization model. How do you make money? How are retailers making money? How are your creators making money? And how do people actually buy? Are there any attribution issues involved? That's a lot of questions. I'll let you start there. {laughter}

Liyia: [00:27:05] Well, very honestly speaking, we are still in the process of figuring a lot of the process out. For monetization we are a platform. So we do charge a platform fixed fee based on transactions. And that is basically the cost for any sellers or retailers to be ShopShops' platform. We also provide what we call a host service and also a logistic service because we've been shipping and selling to China for the past three or four years. So we do have a lot of our current retailers to make that last mile fulfillment to their Chinese viewers and Chinese customers. So we continue this service for our retailers when they are selling outside of us. So we do provide that as a part of service. For the host service it's basically we will connect a host to a retailer, so that they will be able to choose who they want to work with. And from that, there is an affiliate fee sort of involved there. For the US side, I think this is the structure we're currently building out. That's why we're recruiting hosts, and that's why we want to eventually make these hosts available for retailers to pair up to work with.

Brian: [00:28:45] That's really interesting. I think that answers a lot of questions for me. One last question on this sort of line of thinking, are you also gating which types of retailers and brands that you have on the platform?

Phillip: [00:29:01] Curating. We like the term curating, Brian. Gating is so, you know... You don't do that.

Brian: [00:29:08] I know. But are you the one that's sort of like picking and allowing retailers... That sounds even worse. Curating is fine. Are you curating what brands are actually on the platform? And are you trying to set a specific tone for the types of brands that will be shopped on the platform?

Liyia: [00:29:26] For the China side, yes, we are. For the US as our opening up to this new English market, we are very open minded. Like I said, where even we have our host curate their own shows. Basically, they look for the stories that they're interested in. They look for content programing that they would like to create. So I think there's a lot more freedom in terms of selecting what retailers they would like to work with. But for our China side, it would be, I would say, more a curation based on our selection of brands and retailers that we want to showcase to the Chinese market. I think because that there's the cross-border element, there's also a lot of shipping and fulfillment issues, there are things that just can't ship or sell to the other side of the world. So basically, that's why there's that layer of curation. But for English programing, we are very open minded.

Phillip: [00:30:40] There's something to be said, too, about finding the product market fit in a different geography. It's going to be different. The mode of delivery might be the same, but the thing that hits in certain territories... Miami is going to be very different to Akron, Ohio. Right?

Liyia: [00:30:58] Yes.

Phillip: [00:30:58] The way that you resonate in a certain territory and the way you actually get in front of someone in different parts of America could be vastly different. There's something to be said around your model of helping curators. You yourself started on another platform. Is ShopShops growing along with the following of some of your creators and keeping pace that keeps them helping feel like they have ownership of the ShopShops platform? They've they don't have to take their audience somewhere else in order to be successful. I'm curious about the potential for really striking growth in some of your creators. And what's your thoughts around that?

Liyia: [00:31:46] Like I said earlier, I think that we keep our creators, although we hand picked them right now, but we keep their creative decisions to themselves. What we do along the way is provide data and also suggestions and experience we seen from especially from China. Because there's more of success stories or more of existing user behavior. [00:32:14] So for our creators, we do share insights, industry insights, cross-border insights, as well as the data that we analyze with them. And I believe that for any platform to start that with content or content to commerce, people need to build that audience themselves. You have to have the ability to identify who your customer is and be able to attract and retain these users yourself. So as a curator, I think this is what we sort of work with our creators on is how we provide tools or trainings for them to be able to attract and retain their viewership or their viewers on ShopShops and really build a fan base for them here. [00:33:10] I started on Taobao. I have a fan base there, and I was successfully able to start ShopShops basically. Still, all our creators on the China side are building out their own user base from that very small pool of people I was able to gain from a very large platform. So what I'm trying to say is that it's really why we all come together and go download an app and go to the same shopping experience over and over again, is that we are curating content to make sure people who love shopping come in and really enjoy that shopping experience itself.

Phillip: [00:33:58] Are creators collaborating among each other and helping each other grow their audiences collaboratively?

Liyia: [00:34:05] Yes, definitely. We're still very new into the US market, but we definitely see that starting to grow or starting to have that sense. We have seen that our hosts would bring on their friends, bring on their boyfriend or even their husband to go on live shows together with them. So I think this is a collaborative work that helps each other to learn how to do it. Pre-COVID for our China side we actually have hosts who traveled from Beijing to Tokyo, or New York to Tokyo to different events, even on their own personal travels. They can go live whenever they want. And we actually saw friendship being built among of hosts. So they've never met each other before, but they were on ShopShops and our hosts hosted at two designated locations and then one is traveling together as they met and become friends. So this is where the community is literally being built. And we are actually seeing on the China side that our viewers become our hosts. So they started livestream after shopping for two years on ShopShops and it was like, "Oh, I have this best restaurant next door that sells amazing fish balls, and I want to share it with my other shoppers that I've become friends with." And so she went on live and did her own show off her recommendation and then she started livestreaming. So we've seen these examples on the China side. I wouldn't say hundreds of them, but there's definitely a small growing pool that people are becoming more adopting to live themselves from a different role than just the customers or just a host.

Phillip: [00:36:05] Nice.

Brian: [00:36:06] So cool. Something that you said also triggered another question in my mind, which you mentioned earlier, that our current eCommerce shopping experiences were built by men for men.

Liyia: [00:36:19] Yes. {laughter}

Brian: [00:36:19] I would be curious what demographics are you seeing, or even psychographics are you seeing, for your hosts? And do those match up with your shoppers? And are you seeing them in a specific generation? And do you see one segment of the market picking this up more quickly than others?

Liyia: [00:36:41] We are definitely more female audience focused. Majority of our hosts are also female. I think it's where I guess I already sort of defined it in the beginning. [00:36:53] I think women and men shop differently. Women shop for entertainment. Men shop for a purpose. That's how I define it. And a majority of our current customers are between the age of twenty five to forty. So they're the millennials and millennial moms because I guess right now a lot of our business is still very much generated from the China side. So that's where currently our target is in terms of age group, in terms of demographic. Gen Z is where I see the US growth is in terms of adopting to this behavior faster. But I do believe that the millennials, the millennial mom groups are also the early adopters of this behavior, because I think the US millennial, millennial mom age group, they are very mobile savvy and they learn quickly of what's new, what's out there that their kids are doing. [00:38:04] So I think that is where we are targeted also for the US market, the millennials.

Brian: [00:38:12] They also have the most spending power right now.

Liyia: [00:38:15] Exactly. And also, if you look at the age group, by the time you're twenty five or above, you have the opportunity to really travel the world for most people, or to travel at least outside of your location. And that's where you start to appreciate, in my opinion, that's where the age of you start to appreciate differences. You start to appreciate curation, you start to appreciate culture, the cross-border culture or culture differences. I think that's where the focus of shopping shifts from, "Oh, I must have this certain item because it's interesting," into it's a discovery where it's something that I want to buy. It's a destination I want to go. It's that learning that I want to spend time on, and that's where we start really appreciating the difference between Cheddar A and Cheddar B or olive garlic or olive pepper oil. I think that that's where we see the differences start to evolve as the age is also where you start adopting to different types of experiences is the millennial group.

Brian: [00:39:34] Does that have to do with sort of a shift in mindset of community as well? I think you mentioned people coming together to sort of collaborate on selling, well, on hosting new ShopShops streams and so on. Do you think this is representing a shift in how we think about interacting with each other and growing together?

Liyia: [00:39:59] Yeah, I totally believe so. It's just... [00:40:03] Using an offline retail example, we open a store, you will select a neighborhood, and from that neighborhood you basically design, decorate your stores. Every day you open your store up talking maybe to the same crowd of people walk in every day just to say hi to you. And there's also new customers walk in because your window display changed the lighting or change the backdrop of from a hat to a different hat. I think that's the same thing it's just right now we brought it on to a different way of presenting, which is livestream. You're opening your 24/7 virtual store. You are the star of that store and you curate your own show with your things that you want to share with other people and it's your own margin you're trying to make. And it's also a competition that you want to keep these viewers keep coming back or shoppers keep coming back to your store. But that store itself right now becomes virtual. [00:41:19]

Phillip: [00:41:20] There's so much there and we're just about out of time. I guess that leads me to a natural question, which is, is this a new channel that will engage a new shopper who otherwise wouldn't have been inspired to buy something online? Or is this a channel shift or an evolution of how we understand eCommerce to be today, and it's taking on a new form that has a new modernity to it?

Liyia: [00:41:49] To answer that question, I think it's both. I would think that you start with what... We start with what we know, which is our existing customers that already know our products. So we highly encourage our current retailers to share to their existing customers because they couldn't walk into the store anymore. They couldn't have that direct access to the store due to COVID. And then that is where the relationship starts to build as the host or the store owner gets better at managing their own virtual store. There is the ability to bring other eyeballs to allow other people around the world or destination shoppers to discover what you have and discover what's interesting in the store. So I think it's a channel that's built to start from your own existing audience with your existing products and later on towards where will be more people who never know there's a store in New York on the street corner of 13th and 4th that is a beautiful accessory store that only a probably a handful of people walk in one day on a daily basis. But if you're online that virtual store, you can have thousands of people walk in that day or during one hour or two where they come in and see how you have new curations of product lines. So I think that is how that market will evolve.

Phillip: [00:43:35] Wow, well said. Liyia Wu, the Founder and CEO over at ShopShops. Go check it out. Where can they find you online, and where can they find ShopShops?

Liyia: [00:43:47] Please go to... So this is my ad time right? {laughter}

Phillip: [00:43:52] Yeah plug away.

Liyia: [00:43:52] Please find us on Apple Store. Type in ShopShops. It is exactly how you hear it. S H O P S H O P S. And if you want to be a curator and content creator, also download ShopShops Hosts. It starts with H O S T. We are open to all markets, focusing with US and Canadian content creators first. And also we're online, as well. You can get to us on the website ShopShopsLive.com. Thank you!

Phillip: [00:44:31] Of course. Brian, are you going to launch your Costco channel?

Brian: [00:44:34] I actually might do that. {laughter}

Phillip: [00:44:37] That's freaking hilarious. That's awesome. Liyia, this has been so wonderful.

Brian: [00:44:40] So fun.

Phillip: [00:44:41] Thank you for coming and sharing on the show.

Liyia: [00:44:43] Thank you so much for having me. This is amazing. I would come back any time. And Brian and Phillip, I will take you guys on any minute or any second. Let's do Shopping with Brian and Phillip on ShopShops.

Brian: [00:44:59] Yes!

Phillip: [00:44:59] I love it. Let's do it. We'll hold you to it. And if we do that, you'll hear all about it on Future Commerce. Thank you for listening. You can find other episodes, more episodes, almost two hundred of them, in fact. Coming up on our 200th episode of Future Commerce. You can find it anywhere where podcasts are found. But the best place to find every word we've ever said that's searchable is at FutureCommerce.fm. And while you're there, why don't you subscribe at FutureCommerce.fm/Subscribe? And it takes very little of your time, but it'll keep you in the know and informed about everything that matters in commerce. And anyway, well thank you, Liyia. And thank you for listening.

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