Contextual eCommerce: How to Meet Today’s Consumer Demands

Contextual eCommerce: Let’s learn about the future of eCommerce!

Welcome back to the eCommerce Forum!

Contextual eCommerce allows consumers to buy services or products online at the moment they are needed. For example, you might want to order pizza at your friend’s house. This would be a great time for your Domino’s online app to send you a pizza. Thus, contextual eCommerce offers purchasing options based off customers’ interests, location and activities.

Who Is Using Contextual eCommerce?

Looklive is using contextual eCommerce to change the online shopping world. They are a community/marketplace that lists all contextually relevant information within popular media. More specifically, Looklive offers products seen on:

• – TV shows
• – magazines
• – music videos
• – movies

They also cover all merchandise from popular global sources.

With over 11, 000 images of celebrities from events and social media, customers can find the latest styles. Additionally, they can click anywhere on the image to see where they can buy that item. Customers can also see similar items at a lower costs. Looklive gets 15-35% of all sales. They also work with some companies directly–like retailer, Barneys New York and communications agency, Staple Design. Finally, Looklive has over 1 million users and sold over $120,000 in gross merchandise in July.

What’s Looklive’s Secret to Success?

One of Looklive’s secrets to success is not owning merchandise. Greg Selkoe, co-founder of Looklive, found this out the hard way. Although his previous company, Karmaloop, did more than 1 billion in sales, it filed for bankruptcy in 2015. Karmaloop could not recover after a series of poor eCommerce investments. Inventory also became too costly.

Customer engagement is another secret to Looklive’s success. They understand that today’s consumer is drawn to celebrity culture. People spend hours looking on social media, in magazines, etc. to find something they saw a celebrity wear. Often times, consumers find clothing they can’t afford or don’t know where to get. Looklive solves these problems by directing users to what they want and providing pocket-friendly options.

What’s to Come?

Looklive is becoming more comprehensive and user-friendly. They launched an iOS app a few weeks ago. It has already reached 60,000 downloads. Looklive also plans to launch an Android app within two weeks or so. Furthermore, they want to combine content, community and commerce.

Looklive wants users to become fashion influencers within their community. Just as consumers look at celebrity photos, users can become style icons too. Finally, Looklive wants to use contextual eCommerce to become the go-to platform for fashion.

A Solution to Retailer Failure

Traditional retail is failing because it does not have what consumers really want and makes customers come to them. Sears has over 9 billion in losses, and Macy’s just announced that they’ll be closing 100 stores. Looklive uses contextual eCommerce to overcome those obstacles and enhance customer shopping experience.