Jude Okafor, a menswear dealer on TikTok, isn’t any stranger to stay promoting. No less than thrice every week, he goes stay to showcase a mixture of new and thrifted denims to his viewers. Earlier than every stay session, Okafor posts reminders to make sure his followers know in regards to the upcoming sale. Through the stay sale, which can stretch as much as 4 or 5 hours, Okafor holds up a pair of denims, exhibiting them off to the digicam. He proclaims the value, options, and high quality—particulars that static photographs or textual content descriptions can’t seize.
His viewers of 200 viewers bid on objects in real-time. As soon as he agrees on the value, consumers ship cost to the account particulars displayed on the display screen and observe up with a direct message to verify receipt. The dynamic mirrors the power of a bustling Nigerian market, the place merchants name out to draw consumers and haggle to strike a deal.
“I’m grateful for social media, I don’t have a store so I get gross sales principally from TikTok, associates and referrals,” Okafor stated, highlighting how TikTok has grow to be an essential gross sales channel for small enterprise house owners.
Okafor’s success is a component of a bigger pattern: stay gross sales on TikTok have gotten a most popular technique for small companies to extend gross sales and enhance model visibility. The rise of social commerce on TikTok is occurring regardless of the absence of TikTok Store, a function that enables customers to purchase immediately on the platform.
Distributors promoting stay on TikTok
The rise of social commerce
TikTok Store was launched in 2021 by a collaboration with Shopify, enabling companies to promote immediately from their movies and stay streams. Customers within the U.S, UK, and different Asian markets can use the Store function, however it’s unavailable in any African nation. Livestreams are filling this hole.
Screenshot TikTok store within the US and Malaysia
Social commerce, or procuring on social media platforms, has grown explosively globally. In 2023, social commerce accounted for 18% of on-line gross sales, with over 85% of consumers procuring on-line. This progress is essentially pushed by elevated smartphone penetration and web entry, making social media platforms like TikTok an integral a part of day by day life.
For small companies, social media platforms like TikTok are a less expensive various to conventional commerce. In contrast to bodily shops that require intensive overhead, platforms have minimal prices.
“Our unstable economic system and excessive unemployment are driving people to discover entrepreneurship. Reasonably priced options like WhatsApp Store present a straightforward setup to achieve goal audiences with out the hefty overheads of an e-commerce platform,” Majolie Obaje, Advertising Lead at Jiji, stated.
Influence on Nigerian companies
For companies like Okafor’s, TikTok provides an interesting technique to attain prospects. With out TikTok Store, nevertheless, the method might be tedious. Consumers should go away the app to finish their purchases, a layer of friction that may result in attrition.
But, enterprise house owners are adapting. Maryam Musa, who runs a vogue model goes stay not less than twice every week.
”In December, I used to be very constant, and I remodeled ₦500,000 in three nights,” she shared.
For Koforowola Adedeji, a thrift vendor in Abule-Egba, the frequency of her stay gross sales depends upon how rapidly she makes use of up a bale of garments. “On some days, I make ₦70,000, and if I haven’t made sufficient from the bale I acquired, this implies I nonetheless have extra stay periods to do,” she stated.
Charles Udeozor, former Head of Logistics at Konga, factors out that stay promoting on platforms like TikTok provides a way of management that conventional e-commerce platforms can’t match. “When sellers realized they may bypass the danger of unfulfilled logistics and excessive commissions, they moved away from e-commerce platforms. There’s an actual sense of empowerment in controlling the method,” he says.
Shifting shopper behaviour and conventional e-commerce
Whereas TikTok’s Stay gross sales provide new alternatives and channels for companies, conventional e-commerce firms like Jumia and Konga nonetheless have an edge, with options like supply monitoring, refund insurance policies, and pay-on-delivery. They enchantment to customers who worth reliability and transparency, which can be a problem within the unregulated world of stay gross sales.
Nevertheless, as social commerce grows, even conventional e-commerce gamers are integrating social parts into their fashions.
“E-commerce platforms must proceed promoting on social media platforms and I consider a partnership with these platforms can even assist,” Konga’s Udeozor instructed TechCabal.
“To remain forward, e-commerce platforms will combine social parts, companion with social commerce sellers, and leverage their attain and group belief,” Majolie added. “As an illustration, Jiji already encourages sellers to interact immediately with consumers by built-in chat choices,” she provides.
Regardless of the future brings to e-commerce and social commerce, the current seems good.
“Even when TikTok Store was out there in Nigeria, I’ll nonetheless be doing the stay sale. I can’t commerce the visibility it brings,” Sylvia Ebere, stated a material vendor. On the energy on what the livestreams provide proper now, the current is wanting good.
