Founded in 2020, Barcelona-based Onlive.site offers live shopping software for any brand with a digital presence, so they can create their own audiovisual channel and put a face and voice to their products and services.
Onlive.site was founded by Alfredo Ouro (CEO) and Liesner Acevedo with the mission to democratise the use of real-time video technologies so that any brand could create its own video shopping channel or section and sell via video live.
Live shopping became a hit in China during the lockdown in 2020, and it is a new trend with massive growth potential. It’s predicted that live shopping will move €22 billion in 2023. Onlive.site is on a mission to pioneer this new consumer trend in Europe and further afield.
After launching commercial activities earlier this year, the innovative company is now already active in 7 European and LATAM countries, with a portfolio of clients in the fashion industry, beauty and healthcare, real estate and consumer electronics industry.
While live shopping is having huge success in China, it’s only just beginning in Europe and the US, and so the forward-thinking startup has a great opportunity to enter this new market.
TikTok and Instagram are perhaps leading the way with live shopping in Europe and the US, and it highlights the benefit of using video for commercial brands. We’re now all familiar with the likes of the Instagram shopping feature, and the ‘lives’ that influencers host on Instagram and TikTok to sell and advertise different products and services. Tommy Hilfiger did its first official live shopping test in August 2020, reaching more than 14 million spectators and selling 1,300 products in just two minutes, a testament to the power of this technology.
Onlive.site was developed with the awareness of the growing potential of video in e-commerce. According to Cisco, more than 80% of the content consumed on the internet will be in the form of video in 2022. These videos are mostly produced by brands and users to be broadcast through marketplaces or social media networks in both live and pre-recorded formats. Video sells, and the authenticity of it being live boosts the intrigue that consumers have, and the likelihood that they will buy.
Alfredo Ouro, CEO, said: “Brands must have video shopping capabilities on their sites if they don’t want to lose sales from their direct channel when faced with all the e-commerce movements coming out of social media platforms and marketplaces”.
Onlive.site operates by integrating into a brand’s website to sell through video in two formats; ‘one-to-many’ group sales (i.e live shopping), or private ‘one-to-one’ model (i.e personal shopper)
The one-to-many format is a live event for many spectators where a host presents the products or services. The audience watches the show as if a TV programme except they can buy any of the products shown. The audience and the live shopping host interact through chat, likes, surveys, games and even by inviting someone from the audience to participate in the show.
One-to-one shopping is more directed for high value-added products, for products that need more explanation and determination to close the sale, for example, cars, computers and so on. Having someone on the screen personally sell an object makes the shopping experience more tailored, and leaves consumers more likely to buy.
Alfredo explained: “What we basically aim for is to help brands offer a live video shopping experience that is completely immersive and we create that experience by working on four areas: e-commerce, entertainment, multimedia capabilities and real-time analytics.”
The funding just picked up by the startup will enable them to drive growth and continue product development. The investors that participated include an international business angels group and entrepreneurs such as David Nuthaker, Julius Koehler and Nicolaus Schefenacker, co-founders of the German unicorn Sennder; digital industry executives like Angel Sáenz de Cenzano, Managing Director of LinkedIn Spain and Portugal, and the early investment funds Onset Capital and Estinvest.