- We have seen ecommerce boom during the pandemic as most, if not all, brands operating in South Africa featuring some sort of online presence.
- Now ecommerce startup Shopstar is aiming to give local retailers the ability to interact with their customers in real-time with its app – Flick Live.
- It will allow sellers to use live streams as another element to add to their ecommerce mix.
Both during and after the pandemic, we have seen ecommerce prove to be a crucial space for South African businesses. Those with an existing ecommerce solution thrived, and those who did not have one quickly got an offering up and running.
With ecommerce remaining a significant area of focus for many businesses, now local startup Shopstar has debuted an interesting app in the form of Flick Live.
As the name would suggest, Flick Live leverages live streaming for sellers to engage with, and sell products, to customers in real-time. It has also been christened the country’s first live shopping app by Shopstar, which developed over a period of five months.
“This live shopping platform works by seamlessly integrating with any existing e-commerce store, such as those already run on Shopstar, or by other third parties, such as Shopify, WooCommerce and others. All inventory is automatically synced, and any new orders are created on the source platform. Sellers then host a live show on Flick Live, selling their products via highly personal and engaging shopping video experiences,” the startup notes in a press release sent to Hypertext.
Shopstar believes live shopping is the next evolution of ecommerce, with it already said to be influencing other markets similar to that of SA.
“Live shopping has been a global phenomenon in Asia, Brazil, India and the Americas, and with conversion results upwards of 40% on sales, it was hard to ignore that the African continent was lagging behind the rest of the world. And yet, having the youngest population and the highest smartphone penetration worldwide (just under 90% of all traffic across the Shopstar customer base is mobile), we knew that this was technology that needed to be developed for the African market,” explains Elizora Olivier, Shopstar COO.
“Flick Live is the next step in helping South African creators, entrepreneurs and brands build and grow their businesses. We believe that we can play a vital role in contributing to the South African economy by building our entrepreneurs,” adds Mike Joubert, Shopstar investor and chairperson.
Those retailers interested in checking out Flick Live are advised to visit its website, with consumers capable of downloading the app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store.
[Image – Provided]
