Amazon Live: Shoppable livestreams bring influencer culture to Amazon

What is Amazon Live?

It’s like a cross between Instagram Live and the TV shopping channel QVC: a place to show products in action, and also to engage an audience as they’re actively shopping.

It features ‘shoppable livestreams’ — live videos, as well as livestreams that have finished — of influencers talking about products. The products talked about are presented below the video — clicking on them takes the viewer to their Amazon listing.

How does it work?

Amazon Live is populated by ‘creators’, and there are two types: brands and influencers. A seller on Amazon can promote their product through their creator account, or alternatively, find an influencer with their own creator account and pay them to promote it through theirs.

Amazon has taken cues from the likes of Instagram in designing the platform: just like an Instagram livestream, viewers can press a ‘reactions’ button as they watch, and their live comments appear at the side of the screen.

What are the benefits?

It allows you to showcase your product to a live, interested audience.

Viewers can follow the creators they like, allowing brands to build up an audience. When a creator starts a new livestream, their followers are alerted in the Amazon mobile shopping app.

There’s also a ‘from creators you follow’ section on Amazon Live which shows the follower streams from the last 14 days.

It allows people to see products in action before buying — or even as they’re buying. There’s an interactive element: we’ve seen viewers leave in-stream comments like “I have this in my cart. Is it suitable for my kids?”