It is not true that there are only fake news and verbal fights on the Net. On closer inspection, for a year now there is a phenomenon that is emerging with more and more evidence: it is that of live sales. The Web is becoming a giant shopping mall (New York Times analysis here).
Of course, I’m not just referring to Amazon, which has long been the largest store on the planet (and that a year ago it debuted the Amazon Live Creator App), but to the social networks that are contaminating themselves to become ecommerce platforms themselves. The last to move was Twitter, which on Sunday will host a livestream in collaboration with the mall giant Walmart, during which people can buy live with a click. without leaving the site (better: live with singer-songwriter Jason Derulo as host and entertainer).
A few days ago Facebook, that is Meta, has unveiled Live Shopping with Creators, what we call influencers, users with millions of followers. AND YouTube for the holidays has created a week-long event called Stream and Shop. In fact, it is the return of teleshopping, the phenomenon that spread to local TV stations from the 70s with formidable sellers who managed to place batteries of miraculous pots and creams live. The same mechanism brought to the Web works great, confirming that even in the digital world we are above all consumers. We have seen in China, where the phenomenon has started for some time: it is especially the very young who prefer this mode of purchase, which are now reaching impressive volumes.
A few days ago a guy who calls himself Fratello Rossetto has sold nearly two billion dollars worth of products with a day-long web sale. This trend is an indication of the fear of social networks of being cut off from the key moment of purchases (just as the traditional advertising market is becoming more complicated due to the obstacles to user profiling): it officially transforms many influencers into sellers and it further lowers the already fragile barriers to consumerism. The distance between a product they are telling us about and its purchase is now just a click away.
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