CommentSold launches on-demand live replay

CommentSold, a digital commerce solution that enables small and medium-sized retail businesses to unlock sales growth through live and social selling, has launched a new mobile app functionality that provides enhanced live-selling capability to its merchant partners. The new app features include Live Replay, which enables retailers to tap additional revenues by making their previous livestream videos available to shoppers on demand. Since the beginning of the year, CommentSold has seen a 270 percent increase in the number of retailers using its platform to sell via livestream and a 50 percent increase in spend per viewer.

“Our retail partners are finding that branded mobile apps are one of the keys to their live-selling success,” said Brandon Kruse, CEO of CommentSold, in a statement. “With the launch of Live Replay and other expanded app functionality, we’re helping our retail partners meet this demand for mobile shopping and access what is essentially another revenue stream. Live Replay allows them to sell more from their livestreams on their CommentSold-powered apps and their inventory is managed in real time to ensure shoppers can always see what products and sizes are available at any given moment.”

With Live Replay, previously recorded live sales appear like story cards at the top of a retailer’s CommentSold-powered app. Shoppers can scroll through and tap to view and shop any or all previously recorded livestreams at any time that is convenient for them. Live Replay allows shoppers to skip ahead or go back to an earlier featured item within the video, while seeing all the comments and reactions that other shoppers shared during the initial livestream. Shoppers can browse all the products that were featured and easily see photos and demonstration videos, availability, size and pricing information for the items.

“Given the current environment, shoppers are looking for the convenience, connection and safety that shopping via livestream provides,” added Kruse in a statement. “In fact, demand for live and social selling is so strong that, every week since the pandemic started, we’ve seen GMV on our platform that’s double what it was during Black Friday week last year.”

CommentSold is also enhancing the livestream experience by enabling in-video checkout. The new overlay enables shoppers to easily complete the checkout process without having to leave a live sale or a replay video. Another new feature allows shoppers to share livestreams and Live Replay videos with friends and family. Shoppers who share a retailer’s livestream information receive a referral bonus when the recipient makes a purchase. Retailers can also now automatically capture demonstration videos for products featured in their live sales, freeing them from needing to record separate demos for each product.

CommentSold recently expanded its platform by launching branded mobile apps for all of its eligible merchant customers. The CommentSold-powered apps allow retailers to livestream sales concurrently on their own app, their Facebook page and their Facebook Group, as well as curate and recommend complementary products, send push notifications to shoppers, and pre-record videos for product demonstrations.

With livestream e-commerce expected to reach 25 billion by 2023, CommentSold is ahead of the game. In a world where the internet continues to rule retail, virtual shopping is the next frontier.