Guest Bio:
Benjamin Henriksen is the founder of Denmark-based Live Shopping agency “Let’s go live!” and by now has organised hundreds of live shopping events for successful brands.
Episode Summary:
In this conversation, Benjamin L. Henriksen discusses the evolution and future of live shopping, detailing how it emerged during the COVID pandemic and its ongoing relevance in the retail landscape. He emphasizes the importance of authenticity, engagement, and the integration of technology in creating successful live shopping experiences. The discussion also covers the strategic aspects of going live, including the selection of software, the process of planning events, and the key performance indicators that define success in this innovative sales format.
Main Takeaways:
- Live shopping gained traction during COVID as a necessity.
- Authenticity and trust are crucial for successful live shopping.
- The integration of live shopping into omnichannel strategies is essential.
- Choosing the right software can enhance live shopping experiences.
- Engagement through comments can significantly boost viewer retention.
- Quality production does not negate authenticity in live shopping.
- KPIs for live shopping include revenue, viewer retention, and engagement.
- Frequent live events can help build customer loyalty.
- Customization of live events is key to maintaining viewer interest.
- The future of live shopping is promising, especially with AI integration.
Full Transcript:
Moritz Schröder (00:01.547)
Cool. Benjamin, really excited to be talking to you today. You are based in Denmark, live in Aarhus, and you have founded an agency called Let’s Go Live, already back in 2022, that is entirely focused on helping companies, brands to go live and sell life. Can you speak a little bit to what got you interested in that field initially?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (00:10.061)
Yes.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (00:28.652)
Yes, of course, of course. And thank you so much for the opportunity, Moes. I look forward to be a part of this. So I will try to make a very long story quite short, so we also can talk about other things. year before we started Let’s Go Live, I was actually working in a supermarket in Denmark. It’s a part of co-op.
Moritz Schröder (00:42.564)
Well, it’s a podcast. Feel free to go along.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (00:58.124)
which is the second largest grocery retailer in Denmark. And I worked just in a local store and it was under COVID. And this store was in a mall and no other shops beside this supermarket or grocery store could be open. So there wasn’t really that much customers within this mall during COVID. So we needed to do some different things. And then my boss and I, my previous boss and I,
we found out that there were lot of fashion stores, just local fashion stores that started to go live on their social pages. Basically because they didn’t have a webshop and they couldn’t open their store, but they had a Facebook. Okay, let’s try to do something. So we said to ourselves, okay, maybe we should try this as well. And my former boss, Anders, he has just bought, you know, days before the lockdown, he has just bought lots of wine.
And we thought, okay, people are at home. Why not, as we say in Denmark, why not hygge? Why not make it little bit cozy? So we figured out that we could do these lives on our social pages, on our Facebook and Instagram. And I think two, two days or three days afterwards, we did the first live. My boss and I, we were also the hosts and we, I think we had about 30 wines that we sold to the ones that are watching from home.
We hadn’t done any really magical marketing and stuff like that, but I think that we had about 200 or 300 people watching from their homes and that was just a huge success. And then we did it one more time. And after these two lives, was within a month, I think we had sold more than a thousand bottles of wine. And this is a lot in itself, but it was really a lot when the revenue in the store wasn’t that big.
I figured out, okay, there is something about this live shopping. started to do more within Co-op. lots of other supermarkets and stores within the chain could do the same. And then suddenly it shifted from being a local initiative to suddenly it was the headquarter that did all of this. And I played a part in that as well. I had some dialogue with Christian, who’s the CEO from the software Spree. I don’t know, have you talked to him yet, Moet? So you will do it.
Moritz Schröder (03:19.786)
I’m about to, I haven’t spoken to him yet.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (03:20.75)
So stay tuned, stay tuned. But Christian and I, have a connection. We are the agency, they are the software and Spree. And before it wasn’t really Spree, he just wrote to me, would you like to try this software? I can see that you are doing lots of great lives and lots of great engagement and orders and stuff like that. So I just got a connection to Spree and then we started Let’s Go Live. And we have been the go-to agency first off here in Denmark, but now in the Nordics, Netherlands as well.
So, yeah, don’t know, does that make sense? It became a thing under Corona, under COVID, and I thought that, you know, there is lots of potential still. And then I thought, okay, let’s make a business out of it. If Co-op needs help, there’s lots of other Danish companies that also need help.
Moritz Schröder (04:08.585)
It’s actually really cool that Co-op was willing to let a fairly unexperienced employee like you just try something new. I mean, COVID was a time where everybody…
Benjamin L. Henriksen (04:12.962)
I guess.
Moritz Schröder (04:20.745)
kind of had to scramble and figure out how to make ends meet in an unconventional way and abandon a little bit of what worked when everything was open and people had the possibility to just come into the store, right? But it’s cool that a big company like Coop just let you do this.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (04:39.15)
And I think sometimes we forget that out of COVID also good things happened, wasn’t only bad things. Of course, there’s lots of bad things and people got sick and died and stuff like that. That’s not a good thing. But innovation wise, I think a lot of great stuff happened just because we needed to do something different. And that was what we did. And that was also my opportunity because nobody had did it before. And I just thought, okay, let’s try it. And then suddenly I was the guy who has did it before.
driver within the organization.
Moritz Schröder (05:11.666)
Yeah, you were truly a trailblazer. I was working at Klona, the payment company during COVID and
Clearly they also did very well during that time because e-commerce was booming, but it seems like you were even one step ahead of that because e-commerce had been around for 20 plus years at that point, whereas live shopping just had started to make some inroads here in the Western world. It was already a big thing in Asia, even though COVID also accelerated that, but here it was really something completely new. So that is really cool to see.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (05:41.102)
That’s true.
Moritz Schröder (05:47.237)
How do you experience the development of live shopping since COVID has faded away? Are people going back to just buying in store and online or do you see that this momentum that had been building for live shopping is continuing?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (06:04.846)
Yeah. So first off, I think it’s great to have a reference in Asia and the US and stuff like that. But I also think that it’s important to understand that live shopping here in the Western part of the world in Northern Europe and stuff like that, that’s something different. Of course, it’s live. It’s based on engagement from the viewers, but it’s a totally different format. Just to be clear on that one. That said, of course, it’s, you know…
Yeah, or let me start another way because you know, when I started doing live shipping here in Denmark, it was only shopping so people could buy and it was a great offer and the discounts were really high because we had so much stock in our warehouse and you know, fashion, local fashion stores, you know, they needed to get rid of the actual collection that they had in their store. So yeah, big savings and stuff like that was a big part of it.
The last two, three years, it has really developed. So now it’s more a part of the omnichannel strategy in most retailers and a part of the e-commerce strategy in most e-commerce companies. So when talking about retail, I often see live shopping as the glue or the connection between the physical retail and the digital retail or e-commerce. One of our great customers, leading Danish.
baby and kids retail are baby some when doing when doing lives with baby some we do that Yeah, more than every month. So maybe 14 16 times a year When when we have finished that life and look into the orders we can see that it’s it’s quite often that 50 or even more percent of all of the orders or the customers from the life they choose click and collect which means that they also you know that they collected their orders in within their local store
And that’s more revenue because it’s competent people working in that store. can sell a little bit more a guide in the right direction and stuff like that. So what I’m trying to say is that, you know, it’s, it’s, yeah, it was more of a pop-up store maybe under COVID, but now it’s, it’s a, it’s an actual part of, of most businesses that, that means retail and, and e-commerce and
Benjamin L. Henriksen (08:31.81)
That said, it’s not only shopping, competitions and just entertaining and letting the viewer sort of decide the direction of the live show. It is live. So let’s make it feel live. That has just, you know, become even more present after COVID. And I also think that’s basically because we have gotten to understand the format and what it takes to create success. So yeah, a little broad answer, but I hope it gives some answers.
Moritz Schröder (09:01.179)
think it’s also cool how live shopping is a niche sub part of what we already are familiar with in terms of social media. And in that sense, it keeps evolving. It keeps changing trends come and go. And I think we’re gonna keep seeing more of that as live shopping becomes more popular around the world.
So I think it’s good to have that flexibility and be willing to see what works best with the customer engagement, what sells the most, and then be willing to mix things up and also be willing to.
you know, take a little bit of a leap of faith when it comes to customer interaction and actually change the course of what you maybe had initially planned for the live shopping event. So to have that kind of engagement, I think is super crucial. And I mean, you mentioned already, you’re working very closely with Spree as the software that is fueling all of that. Can you speak a little bit to that decision? From what I understand, you’re exclusively working with them. What made you make that business
Benjamin L. Henriksen (10:02.328)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (10:10.72)
decision and why not branch out a little bit more and work for example with people who want to go live on TikTok shop or Bamboozler as a third party software. All these other options are out there. Why do you stick with free?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (10:23.884)
Yeah. So first off, it’s not totally exclusive. So we can also work with TikTok shop or Bamboo Sur and stuff like that. But we have done almost a thousand live shopping shows. We know what works and we know we can make it work through or you know, when we’re using Spree. So basically it’s because of best practice and performance that we’re using Spree.
And I also must say that many of our customers, go live on Facebook, their Facebook, their Instagram, their website, and actually also their TikTok. But we’re not using TikTok ship. We’re just linking to a landing page or stuff like that. yeah, so it is multistream and stuff like that. So we can actually make totally the same. And Spree helps us with that. But yeah.
Spree is a pioneer within video and live commerce and they are a great and innovative company. And of course, we have this partnership, which means that are they feeling that there is a new customer who needs a little bit more help or they don’t have the capabilities to do it themselves or they don’t have the creative mindset or understand what it takes. Then of course we also pitch them.
And, and that’s just a great thing. So I, what I’m trying to say is basically this partnership between a pioneering software and a dedicated and yeah, proactive creative. can say many good things about ourselves, but an agency also, that’s just a great combination. I have respect for people, you know, going live on their own. And I know a lot of, a lot of companies, both Danish and
and foreign that are doing lives just by using their iPhone and doing it more, yeah, of course, more frequent, but also a little bit more low quality and they’re just doing it. And that can work if you have the ability to do that. And that takes a good host, for instance, it takes that you have some room within your business to do this. And for some others, mostly bigger companies.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (12:40.054)
It’s just great to have a partner who also does other live streams and can, yeah, or live shopping events that can also take inspiration from their learn best practices and bring them into the partnership. yeah, the combination between a software and an agency working in the same direction. It’s just great.
Moritz Schröder (13:01.413)
It seems like you definitely carved out a nice niche there for yourself. Also capturing a lot of the Danish market, I would assume. How does that look like if a client wants to go live for the first time, they’ve never done it before, they approach you, what does your process usually look like? Can you walk me through that?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (13:04.984)
for you.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (13:22.254)
Yeah, of course. So basically I tend to say that we work within two pillars. So we have, and this is zoomed in on one single live event. course, before the first live, there is some strategizing, we do some workshops, finding out what is our actual goal. Do we want to sell? Do we want to create customer retention, loyalty, stuff like that. But maybe we can talk a little bit more about that later on, but zooming in on one single live event.
We work within two pillars and that’s the marketing part of it. We want to get a lot of people to watch. We want to tell them why they should watch. And then of course, the program part of it, which campaign are we tapping into? What products are we selling? Is there any special discounts? Is there a theme? Is it a birthday? Is it a warehouse sale? I was talking about Babysom before.
We have different kinds of life within BabySum, so we have the more sales driven, the more campaign driven, then we have, you know, you know, the expertise from the host and, just advising the customers that, that, that plays a huge role. then the more entertaining and engaging ones. But it’s just to say there is the program and there is the marketing and that’s within those we work. And then, you know, we just have a process with some meetings and these meetings, are basically just.
defining the entire process. in terms of, you know, tasks that needs to be done, things that need to be discussed and yeah, basically just making sure that we are getting in the right direction and that we are taking off the right boxes in right time. So yeah, that’s the way we do it. And looking at workload, it’s different, but you know, when doing a live stream for a bigger Danish retailer, let’s say that I think that
Between 60 and 70 % of the workload is on us and then the rest is on the customer. Yeah, good Christian. Of course, finding some products. We have some guidance and stuff like that, but often it’s an existing campaign where the live is an activity within that. So we need some information there. We need to figure out, we cannot take all of…
Moritz Schröder (15:24.983)
What do they have to do typically?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (15:44.664)
There may be 1000 products we need to find, maybe 30 that we think are the best ones that are best fit to this live event. So that’s one thing. And that’s where they spend the most time, their buying department or their categories. Then our main recommendation is that we use a host that is actually from the company. So if it’s a retailer with physical stores, it could be one from the store.
And it could also be someone from the buying department or customer service or like that. So that person of all needs to practice a little bit beforehand and yeah, just learn the specific products and stuff like that. So it’s mainly on the product side, creating program, doing the marketing, all of the above that’s on our shoulders and our responsibility. If we’re doing this.
you know, black and white and very, yeah.
Moritz Schröder (16:47.075)
It’s an interesting choice that normally it’s the brand, your customer that provides the host because I would imagine that there’s a huge discrepancy between a very unskilled social seller and someone who has been maybe even professionally trained for this very task. And it’s not something that you just pick up in like an hour of preparation.
At the same time, it can make or break an event, right? So how do you manage that discrepancy?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (17:18.168)
That’s a really good question. And we have tried lots of different things. this is the best practice. And let me tell you why, because when I look at the live format all in all, but also zoomed in on live shopping specifically, trust and authenticity is really important things. And if I am about to present a baby stroller or something like that,
And I am not working with this every day and know what questions my customers are normally asking in the store and stuff like that. It can easily be shown that, that I’m not really into these products and don’t know that much. And it’s very scripted and stuff like that. And that’s, you know, that’s not the way to build trust and authenticity. So I always say that first step is that they can present, present our products, you know, in a trustful way, authentic way.
And basically just, you know, doing this connection with the customer, could say. And then, then the second step is whether they are good in front of the camera or not. Because actually my experience is when we have an expert, they don’t need to be for the first time, they don’t need to be very used to be in front of camera and stuff like that. Because, you know, when they have, when they know something about something, they really know it and it just…
You know, their whole body tells the audience that, you know, they would do everything for this product. that, you know, looking at the balance that weights higher than doing great in front of camera. And then my experience is that actually after the first live or the second live, of course it always gets better. But we are at a quite high level actually after just the first and the second. And often, you know, of course we do a lot of practicing and stuff like that.
So it’s very fine the first time, but we need to connect with the viewer. we also just transparent and saying, you know, I’m not used to stand in front of a camera. I like these products. I like to sell them at some great price to you, but I’m not used to stand in front of camera. So give me some hearts in the comment section and stuff like that. And then actually it works even better than it was, than if it was just professional and no mistakes and a of that authenticity mistakes. That’s a part of it.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (19:44.191)
so, so yeah.
Moritz Schröder (19:48.032)
It’s nice to hear for someone like me who is typically on the audience side of things that being authentic and keeping things very authentic is something that actually does very well in terms of engagement and conversion. It’s a little bit comparable maybe to what you’re seeing with UGC created content on TikTok shop that is doing really well.
I actually got the impression that with live shopping, the trend seems to be going a little bit in the different direction where some of the very successful live sellers have like amazing sets and it looks very professional and the products are displayed in a very professional manner. Is that something that you share as a general observation or do you feel like it can be even with live shopping, very raw, authentic and this way actually engage customers?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (20:39.646)
Yeah, I think it’s not that black and white or if you can call it that because what is important when going live is that you could see this as a pop-up store maybe that you open. I know that I used this picture beforehand in another way, but let’s say that our live is a pop-up store. And when you do this pop-up store, you do everything you can to make it a good experience.
And you do everything you can to make it as seamless as possible, a good customer experience and stuff like that. authenticity doesn’t mean that it’s low quality and it doesn’t mean that it cannot be high quality. It’s more of the person in front of it and the way they are presenting. you know, we also mostly creating some kind of studios that, you know, that are in a specific area and they are also
You can see that this is sort of a studio that we have built within a store or something like that. But that said, it’s not a television studio and the lightning could be even better if we wanted to, but it’s just enough. if we want people to buy from us and sit alongside for an hour, we just do what we can to make it a good viewer experience. So I always say that the reason why we are using our cameras and all of our graphical overlays and doing it through a computer and stuff like that.
and not an iPhone is actually not, it’s not really because of the quality. It’s more because of, know, within our setup, it is not an iPhone. It’s more, yeah, I tend to say complicated because I don’t understand it, but the other guys does luckily, but, but it just makes more opportunities within the, within the setup. So yeah, my whole point here is that, you know, authentic things can also be in really high quality. It’s more about who you are.
What you say and how you say it, think. Does it make sense, Mois? And how do you see it?
Moritz Schröder (22:43.539)
I agree. As someone who is usually part of the audience rather than behind the scenes like you are, think that’s a good observation that you can have the best of both worlds. We did touch on the
Benjamin L. Henriksen (22:57.858)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (23:01.084)
different factors that play a huge role in live shopping. We talked about building the stage, we talked about the host, we talked about the software you’re working with, and obviously the products are super crucial. If you had to pick one of those parameters though, that you can focus on to make a live shopping event as successful as possible, which one would you emphasize on?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (23:26.158)
in terms of quality versus authenticity or…
Moritz Schröder (23:28.99)
in terms of actual results, in terms of conversion and the revenue generated from it.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (23:36.268)
Yeah. So, so yeah, let me start by making, you know, a little bit of a bigger picture and maybe we can zoom in then Mois because I think this, you know, the reason why we’re working in two pillars, marketing and program. Then of course we also have a third one, the production, it’s, yeah, it’s not a part of the process. It’s just because we want to make sure that we, that we do it the right way. But the reason why we as an agency work within these two or three fields, all of them.
Moritz Schröder (23:45.374)
Please.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (24:06.124)
and has a responsibility and the overview inside all of them is basically just because talking about marketing, of course, we want to make sure that what we plan in our program is also sort of shown in our marketing in the right way. And also the other way around, what we tell in our marketing should also be showed in our program. And what we plan in our program should also be produced in the way that we marketed and planned it in our program. So all of these things work together.
And that’s actually my entire point that you need to look at it as not a quick fix. You cannot just do this thing, this thing, or this thing. It needs to work together. yeah, that’s needs to be one experience both before, during, and basically also after. That said, I think the picture about having a pop-up shop is quite fine actually, because you know, if you had a little…
webshop might and you would like to do a physical pop-up store. You maybe rented a little store in some corner of the city. But you would also do everything you could to make people know that it is at this point, at this time, this exactly address. Why should they come? That’s because you have some great products. There’s a great guy in the store selling these products that you can talk to, tell about your brand.
Yeah, it’s just to say that you need to do this right. It’s not a quick fix. It’s like if you were about to do events, physical events in the real world, you would do everything you could to make a good experience. And this event experience, you need to create in a digital manner. Yeah.
Maybe now I’ve told a lot of things, Mois, can zoom in on some things and just test me whether you know what is most important because it’s really hard for me to kind of point out one thing because it is really all of them.
Moritz Schröder (26:06.781)
I understand that it takes a holistic approach and you can’t just pick one of the factors. I think that’s also what makes live shopping so fascinating that it is this whole almost science behind it and all the different pieces of the puzzle matter equally.
What are some of the KPIs for you, but also for your clients in terms of defining a successful event? Obviously they will look at the bottom line, they will look at how much revenue they generated through it, but are there other KPIs that maybe the audience is not so aware of and that really matter to you and your clients?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (26:44.652)
Yeah, so we do maybe 70 % of our lives that’s within live shopping. So products need to be sold. Then we have around 30 % and that’s the growing part of the business, where we do within the experience industry. That could be sports clubs, theme parks and stuff like that. Sort of creating these gamified television shows just on social pages where the viewers, they play a huge role. It’s just to say that we create different formats, social live shopping or live.
But zooming in on live shopping and basically us being engaging or entertaining lives. Of course, as you said, when doing live shopping, revenue is a factor and we do everything we can to make that as high as possible. But the good thing here is that when you create a good viewer experience, when people are sort of deciding the direction of the life through the comment section, when they are smiling and stuff like that, that’s also the boxes that you need to tick off if you want to make a good revenue as well.
But yeah, so revenue, that’s some quantity. There’s also some quantity in terms of how many are watching. You can also talk about social proof and lemming effect and stuff like that. when I, you know, in the comment section, I see maybe 20 people that have wrote shop 20 for this shirt and I haven’t done yet, but I see all the other guys are doing it. Maybe I should do the same. This is quite popular. It’s nice product. So volume counts here.
And know, this is based through the comment section and we use the viewers for questions and stuff like that. So some kind of a volume means something. But when I have a new customer, always say, of course the quantity, it means something, but let’s look at some more quality, to say. So let’s look at the retention for how long are we keeping the viewers watching? From my perspective, it tells whether or not we are making some content that people actually want to watch.
And if, if, if, if we do that, if people want to watch in quite high time, I can give you some numbers in a minute. But if they do this, then we know that, you know, our life that’s actually quite fine. So maybe we should do something in the marketing part of it, of our process, because we need people to, discover this big, because when they are inside our life story, they are quite, quite happy and they are buying lots and there is, you know, looking at, at, at revenue and
Benjamin L. Henriksen (29:11.374)
and retention, these two things works together and you can totally see if people are watching for maybe 20 minutes compared to 15 minutes, even more are also sold. So our average through all of our lives is around 25 minutes in average watch time between all of our viewers and that’s based on a live shopping show that is about an hour. So 40 to 50 % retention.
Yeah, and looking in numbers, it’s just crazy, especially in this world where we are scrolling through our feeds, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok and stuff like that. So spending 25 minutes with your customer, your target audience in prime time, that’s unique. And that’s also why I’m saying that you need to create this really exciting experience. I think live shopping is the perfect…
or is a hybrid, as I said before, in terms of going into a local store, talking to a dedicated and experienced guy, selling the product and then having this seamless and wherever you want experience, like, know, from traditional e-commerce. Yeah. So of course, both quality and quantity, but I always tend to look at the retention and the engagement because it tells something about how our viewers experience what we’re doing.
and what we should change.
Moritz Schröder (30:42.811)
That’s actually very interesting that in the end, your relevant KPIs are very similar to people who are pure content creators who maybe make YouTube videos or TikTok shorts or whatever it may be. They basically focus on click-through rate, right? Which would be on your end, marketing part, like how many people actually get to watch in at the beginning, then what is the retention and what does the engagement look like? And if you have retention that is upwards of 25 minutes, sometimes that’s
Massive, I mean, that is so wild. As you said, in the world that we live in where it’s always instant gratification, where people keep scrolling through hundreds of videos in one TikTok session to be able to captivate them for as long as you do, that’s super impressive. Do you have some tips or tricks that people could potentially even copy when it comes to retention that you’re using in your lives?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (31:37.038)
Yeah, sure. Sure. First, first I would just, I was just thinking about an example that I often give to, to both existing customers, but also new potential customers in terms of, you know, understanding numbers or the data from our live session. So I tend to tell it like it was a, a, you know, customer journey for a physical store, could say. So, so what, what we measure on is of course, you know, the reach, how many exposures and that’s.
sort of similar to how many people are walking by our store, looking inside the windows and maybe going to the next store. Then we are looking at the viewers and here there are some different numbers. So we have what we call one minute viewers and that means people that have watched the minimum of one minute. And with my words, it also means that they have actually invested sometimes in discovering this.
And that’s how many people who are going inside our physical store. Then we also have to peak viewers for how many have been inside our store at the same time. So that could be maybe 500 or 1000. And often it’s a lot more than many of our customers experience in their physical retail. At no time they’ve had so many customers inside their physical store at the same time. Then there is the comments.
Are they having fun? Are they asking questions to the people in the store? Are they talking with each other as well? That also tells a lot about the experience, all in all. And then it’s not the last thing, but it’s the last thing that I’ll mention here. And that is what we end with before. For how long are they staying in our store? And I have customers, big retailers in Denmark, where I think it’s less than 10 minutes in average that people spend in their store. And we have 25 minutes.
So it’s a very deep impression. It’s a very deep impression. And that’s a perfect way to talk about your next question you had here Mojt, because how do you do? People want to do this, of course. And basically you need to make sure first of all that the things that you are promising in your marketing plan or what you’re telling the customer, you need to live up to that when going live.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (34:01.678)
because otherwise we will start maybe if we have promised more than we can deliver, we will start on a very high and then it will just fall. And as I said, if people are writing shop 20, shop 20, shop 20 for this shirt, I’m more willing to buy it. And the same thing, if I can see maybe 400 people just walking out from my life story on my live shipping show, maybe I should do the same because they did it for a reason.
So first off, you need to deliver what you promised so you can have a retention line. That means something. And the best part of it could be if it was growing through the life. And a good way to make it growing is of course to really focus on your comment section because even though algorithms are changing, especially on TikTok and Facebook,
If you are commenting more, it’s then many of your friends will also see it in their feeds. So it is this snowball effect and it works really good in live shopping. So the life that we are doing are mostly focused on the people, know, every action that they take is through the comment section. So do they want to buy something? Then they write a code in the, the comment section and they receive a message with a, with a link to the basket and stuff like that. If they want to participate in the competition.
is through the comment section. Do you have questions? It’s through the comment section. So basically what we do when people are sitting with their phones on their couch, their fingers just needs to be placed on the keyboard all the time. So that’s a good way to, of course, make some engagement. Also, they are more focused because I think that many of our live viewers, is a second screen experience often.
you know, there is something on the television, then they can also just look at this live, but the more we can keep them attached, if you could call it that, to our live session, instead of the other things around, the better. So make it engaging. That’s my best advice. That’s definitely my best advice. And make it visible that when you are doing something through the comment section, then it has an influence on the content within our live stream. As I said in the beginning, when we are doing a live,
Moritz Schröder (36:04.183)
Right.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (36:24.706)
Let’s make it feel life. Otherwise, I could just watch it at another time.
Moritz Schröder (36:31.062)
You said something really interesting there that I honestly wasn’t aware of. You said that if somebody comments in the comment section and you’re on Facebook, that would actually then make it more likely that the stream is pushed to also their friends. Is that correct?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (36:46.594)
Yeah. Yeah. So it was more a thing in the early days of Facebook. But as know, Facebook also have the discovery page or for you page. when you’re scrolling through that, high engaging content is prioritized, you could say. On TikTok, it’s how it’s made, you could say. So of course it is on TikTok. On Instagram, unfortunately.
I think it will change actually. I don’t know why it’s just a feeling that I have because all of other social media social medias are doing this. But for now, the live part or the live feature in Instagram is, as I said, featured in the storyline. So it’s only, you you will only be your lives will only be shown to your followers when you are live. Of course, you can market it to other but
Yeah, on Facebook and TikTok, it can also be to people who are not following you already, right?
Moritz Schröder (37:50.135)
Wow, that’s a great hack that I was not aware of. Happy to be able to catch that and try that out at some point. We talked quite a bit about best practices for live shopping. If we look at the other end of the spectrum, what are some common mistakes that you see people make over and over that you just wish that people would stop doing to maximize their engagement, maximize retention, and maximize their revenue?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (37:56.887)
Action.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (38:15.83)
Yeah, there’s different things, but maybe I would start off, know, we had this sort of discussion. What is authenticity? And some people think authenticity is just doing it bad, know, bad lighting, bad sound, stuff like that. And it isn’t, it really isn’t. Of course you need to create a good experience. So make sure that you have a good internet connection, that you have at least a fine picture, video, and then good sound. means something, right?
And then, you know, it’s a plus if you have some simple and that’s important, some simple graphical overlays or a Sign or whatever you can call it. They can just activate the viewers and, of course, of course also guide them. You know, what is next up? How do you do this? And so on and so on and so on. So that’s one thing. Make sure that, that, that you create a good experience in terms of the hardware and the software you can see.
Another thing is, especially talking about live shopping shows is that sometimes I see, maybe there’s two points here. I’ll start with the first one. know, having our, um, sortiment with, with products, many people, they just have lots of products and maybe they have 20 dresses and a 30 pair of, uh, boots and stuff like that. But I think the magic in live shopping is that you get this, you know, that there are other people as well.
But when you’re sitting in your home and if you were hiding the comment section, then you would feel like that, like you and I here at Moritz that is just you and I talking. So I’m getting a one-to-one advising session, you could say. So, you know, if I should have a new shirt and I went into Zalando I would be shown for 20,000 different shirts. But the magic is when talking about live shopping and of course also other formats, but let’s focus on live shopping.
is that someone with some expertise, some knowledge within this person’s field has made some choices for me. So maybe instead of 20 different dresses, there is three different ones, but one is long, one is short, one is colorful, one has a different pattern or something like that. So guide, do whatever we can to make the choice as easy as possible for the viewer. That’s the opportunity that you have.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (40:38.092)
You can do a lot more than just letting people, you know, go on their own in this crazy jungle of products. And, know, when they’re inside this crazy jungle of products and Solando and stuff like that, it’s a really poor product description. So you can do it more, yeah, playful and just something that you actually can use for something, right? So there is really something about how you present the products and, know,
just your strategy in terms of your product selection all in all. Yeah, I think that are some of the bigger mistakes. And then of course, this is similar to what has been my message throughout this entire session is that make sure that you are aligned in all parts of your process, the marketing, the program and the production or the actual live stream because you don’t want to disappoint people.
then this format will not grow for you. You must deliver what you promise, not under deliver. It’s not a good way to go.
Moritz Schröder (41:50.646)
assume that you also only get one shot. If you under deliver, then nobody will tune in the second or third time that you go live. So every time you have to bring your egg in. What?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (42:02.124)
Yeah, you take it back at least, of course you can change it. Of course, if you have done it before and have done it not that good, we can of course do everything we can to make it a good experience and it’s back to authenticity and being transparent that, you okay, sorry, we have learned from our mistakes, let’s try again. Then maybe you are two steps behind, but let’s take one step at a time, creating a success. I know I understand your point, Mojtse, and in some way I agree.
Moritz Schröder (42:05.907)
Right.
Moritz Schröder (42:31.337)
With social media content, there are a lot of people having opinions on how frequently you should be posting to maximize engagement and basically optimize for the algorithm and what the algorithm wants you to do, right? Is there an optimal amount of go lives for live shopping? And also with the kind of live shopping that you do that is quite…
a lot of work, have to have the stage, you have to have the crew there. Obviously your entire team is present helping out. I would assume that it’s a lot of work that goes into just one session. How frequently should or could companies utilize this tool?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (43:10.796)
Yeah. So of course, easy answer is it depends on your strategy. But let me zoom a little bit in on that because, you know, most retailers, do it about one time a month. And that’s because we kickstart most of their campaigns with the live shopping show. So that’s the first step when doing a bigger campaign, both digital and physical, it is to create this live event where we just, you know, make a blast and…
Lots of reads and people, know, they just get the message of this campaign right from the beginning. So for bigger retailers, yeah, 10 to 12 times a year would be my recommendation. I also have a lot of, or we also have a lot of fashion and beauty customers. Some of them are one time a month and that’s fine. There is, you you need to have some…
amount of products to do that because we cannot do the same life every month. Then we need to theme it. You know, what time of year, you know, what other campaigns do we have and, know, didn’t take one of our customers e-cooking. We maybe do 10 lives a year and then it’s a spa life from the founder’s bathroom. Then it’s more of a sales driven live in November and December, of course, in December we have focused on Christmas calendars, maybe.
Then just before the summer holiday, there is some tanning products and you know, keeping your skin hydrated. In the summer, maybe it’s some makeup because a lot of people are going to weddings and stuff like that. trying to do some different lives, you could say. But I also have some customers and I really liked these ones as well. Even though that they don’t pay that much because it’s not that frequent.
But format wise, concept wise, I really like it where it’s more exclusive as well. And we’re going live on Monday with one of our really great and really well performing customers. It’s the Danish, a little bit high end skincare brand, the Trompo. And we do between four and five lives here instead. So we also frame these as master classes. It’s with the founder herself. So we want to make it seem more exclusive.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (45:30.998)
and not a part of the normal shopping or the normal shopping journey within this brand. Where the other strategy is that this is a part of how you meet the brand. This is more rare than one that I’m talking about now, the more exclusive ones. So it depends on the strategy. Both things can work, but I more sales and campaign driven. It’s have a high frequency, 12 lives a year or even more. Yeah.
That’s two directions and I like both but it also depends on what company you are.
Moritz Schröder (46:04.765)
with so many live events that you’re then part of with the different clients that you have and a lot of them going live 10 to 12 times a year at least. How much of the work that you have to do as a live shopping agency can you repurpose for each event and how much do you actually have to customize for the…
different products, the different brands. I know that you work for example, with selling Legos. I know you work with selling pillows. Then you mentioned you’re obviously working in the beauty industry as well, which is huge on live shopping. All of those are so different and so unique. Do you as the agency behind that have to always customize it for each customer or is it a lot of repurposing what you had done before?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (46:54.126)
Live shopping or one specific customer’s journey, it’s also fun where we create loyalty. So we cannot do the same live or that it must be quite different from time to time because otherwise people will say we have been at this live before. So it’s not that much that we’re repurposing.
within one customer, then we create an entire program every time. There can be some formats and some segments, know, regarding competitions and engaging the viewers that, you know…
can come from time to time because then people understand them. it’s a long time since we have had this one. It’s funny to do again and stuff like that. So, so inside our toolbox, we have different tools that we just put out in, in different lives, but they can also be, you know, you know, but yeah, often then it’s not the first time that they are shown within this life, between segments and categories and products, product types and stuff like that.
Sort of the metrics in terms of engaging a viewer and retention, know, creating high retention and stuff like that. They’re quite similar. So it’s more the packaging you could say. Of course, know, master class beauties, are really much focused on the effect of the product and stuff like that. maybe not them, but all of the other ones, it’s, yeah, the metrics are quite the same. And then it’s the packaging, during LEGO lives.
then everything is themed around a specific LEGO theme or a specific LEGO product or stuff like that. And if it’s a gaming gear or televisions or computers, then it’s more inside this world that we are framing competitions and stuff like that. So behind the scenes metrics are quite the same. Of course, there is some different ways to go and stuff like that. And in front of, on stage, you could say.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (48:57.518)
then it’s mostly the packaging, of course. But it is quite unique from time to time because it is a format that creates so much loyalty. we want to keep these people watching from life to life.
Moritz Schröder (49:12.355)
If we look a little bit about, if we talk a little bit about the money aspect of live shopping, how much roughly would it cost a brand to go live with the setup that you usually provide where.
a stage is either built by you or at least facilitated in some ways, then you have the software behind it. You have the products that are involved. You have you as the agency itself being present. How much would you roughly say that costs for one event?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (49:43.598)
Yeah, it’s really different because it is so different, but it can be everything all in all. Now, talking marketing, spend us free software, all in all. So it can be everything from maybe 4,000 euros to 12,000, 15,000 euros. But what we always have in mind is the outcome. in no world, I would recommend a…
way to go or a setup or a strategy where I don’t think we can get this money out it again or you know, earn this money again. So, so yeah, it depends, but you know, yeah, this is a span at least.
Moritz Schröder (50:24.914)
Okay, and with that in mind, I know that life shopping can be hugely beneficial when it comes to return on investment, but how often do you think a brand needs to go live to actually make that money back that they have to put in upfront for life shopping?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (50:44.374)
Yeah, so often, you know, when we do first lives with bigger customers, is some use value in it, if you would call it that. So just the fact that they are going live, it attracts a lot of people. But, you know, all in all, after two to four or five lives, then we we used to, then we often, then we tend to find a where it’s around this every time. Of course, it depends on what type of life, what type of products.
the way we do it and stuff like that. of course, for most most ones, it’s still growing. But we take a huge step the first time, you could say, and then it’s more steady from there. Yeah. Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (51:32.315)
think there’s also a lot of things that are hard to put into numbers, like the social content that you potentially can generate out of it, publicity you mentioned. So there are a lot of things that come with it that maybe doesn’t have a money value attached to it right away, but in the long run will have a positive net impact on the company and the branding.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (51:55.63)
Totally, think, know, Mois, just this week, and this is not a peak week for us. I think that we have done four or five lives, which is, of course, nice and it’s good. The coming month and weeks, it will be much higher. And that’s a good thing. There is some great times of year to tap into. But my point here is that, you know, just this week, I think that we have had as peak viewers, people watching at the same time, I think all in all, we have around, yeah.
15 or 20,000 people watching at the same time. And our region this week, hundreds of thousands. So as you said, this also really has a value. when you kickstart as a bigger retailer, instance, when you kickstart a campaign and create lots of sales during this live, but the effect that it has on the rest of the campaign, it’s really hard to measure, but we can see with our customers when we put it up.
to the year before where they didn’t do the live within the birthday campaign, for instance. You know, we break such high records when we put live into the campaign. It’s a part of the campaign, right? So I just want to agree that your point here is that’s something that I’m battling with because, you know, it is hard to measure, but when we side by side, we can see that there is a difference. And of course, if a guy is spending
25 minutes within your life, you are making some kind of an impact. It’s hard to say something different, I think.
Moritz Schröder (53:29.304)
If we zoom out a little bit and look at the live shopping industry as a whole, now it’s 2025, pandemic is five years ago. I think it’s fair to say that there’s a quite significant positive trajectory that live shopping is on. But then again, if you look at what is happening in China, particularly the Western market can’t quite compare to it yet.
What do you think the future for live shopping will look like going into 2026?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (54:00.268)
Yeah, so, so,
You know, Denmark has been a front runner in Northern Europe because of, you know, there is us and Spree and also other ones helping with this. So I have this feeling, I have this analysis that maybe we have got started or getting into life, not too early, but a little bit early. And then, you know, it has got a lot of help from us, Spree and other…
once helping companies. The reason why I’m saying this is that I just see the potential is so high and I don’t think that have seen the limit, not something similar to that yet. right now, of course, live shopping and live commerce is a big part of it, but it’s also more social commerce and this putting people in front and stuff like that. I think that the way that
Our industry is changing right now. Mojt, you have a lot of experience within e-commerce. You have also experienced that at first hand, it was just that you could buy on a webshop. Then it was to create as seamless as possible. Then it got more personalized. And now we’re seeing, you
What I’m saying is that I think the personalization is getting a little bit behind right now because AI and effectiveness and stuff like that. So I just think that the ones that are prioritizing video commerce, social commerce and live commerce, they have such huge potential because the contrast will just be very big because people are taking some different steps.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (55:49.568)
My main point here is that it can be a format that works quite good for, know, creates the, yeah, it makes a huge impact within existing activities. needs to be a kind of your entire business, both video commercial, live commercial, social commercial. And if these works together, it’s sort of one experience, then yeah, then we haven’t seen some somewhat the top yet.
Moritz Schröder (56:15.138)
Right.
Moritz Schröder (56:18.808)
think people are sleeping on social commerce right now because so much attention goes to what is happening with AI. And I don’t know if you saw the news, Shopify and Stripe just announced that they are gonna collaborate with open AI going forward. So you can buy directly through ChatGPT Obviously, agentic AI is just a matter of time until that’s gonna be a major factor.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (56:25.176)
Yeah.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (56:35.448)
Yes.
Moritz Schröder (56:42.04)
But I agree with you that I think personalization at the other end of the spectrum is gonna equally benefit from that AI trend because people want to go against the grain, right? They want to have that personal experience. They want to actually feel that connection with the brand. And I think live shopping is a fantastic way to do so.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (57:02.604)
Yeah. So, so maybe a perfect way to me to round up is that, you know, faces, it just works and it’s not either or, but faces and real people, real authentic people. It is, you know, it is so much stronger than just a logo and the easy way to take out and stuff like that. And, you know, I’m not saying bad things about AI because it’s, really, you know, you can do lots of great things. I know that, but, but, you know, if you
also implement social commerce, video commerce and live commerce, then your businesses, yeah, it will boom.
Moritz Schröder (57:39.127)
And I think it’s one part of a whole marketing strategy, right? You don’t have to put all eggs into one basket. You can have AI and you can have optimization for agentic AI where there’s no customer relations at all, while at the same time still doing live shopping in the way that you’re doing for your customers.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (58:00.942)
Sorry, one more time, why did you just fill out? You’re Christian, Wes.
Moritz Schröder (58:04.949)
Yeah, was just saying you can do both sides, right? As a company that is selling products online, you can do the agentic AI optimization and fully optimize it while at the same time still doing live shopping and having that really direct connection with your customers.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (58:20.782)
Yes. Yes.
Totally agree, totally agree.
Moritz Schröder (58:27.073)
Benjamin, really appreciate talking to you. Where do you want to redirect people? Where can they check out you or your agency?
Benjamin L. Henriksen (58:33.676)
Yeah, I think that they should first off follow me on LinkedIn. I try to post as much as possible, both behind the scenes results and all that kind of stuff. Of course follow, let’s go live on LinkedIn as well. On other way, just go to our webpage, book a meeting if needed. I’m more than willing to talk. And of course we’re based in Denmark. We work through the entire Nordics, also taking some big steps right now in the Netherlands and stuff like that. So yeah, let’s have a chat. I think that’s the easiest way.
Moritz Schröder (59:02.794)
Awesome. Really enjoyed talking to you. Thanks for taking the time.
Benjamin L. Henriksen (59:05.326)
You too Moritz, thanks.