Want to give your shoppers an exciting and highly-engaging shopping experience? Live selling is how! Read on to learn more.
Live selling lets shops provide their customers with an engaging and interactive buying experience. Shops showcase products, highlight details such as fit, texture, and material, and provide an easy way for customers to make a purchase.
CommentSold offers a multi-channel live selling experience which means your shop can "go live" across your social media accounts, webstore, and mobile app simultaneously.
With live selling, you can:
- Build trust and connection with shoppers by responding to their comments and questions in real-time.
- Provide shoppers with a highly-branded buying experience that reflects the personality of your shop.
- Plan ahead by creating a product selection or create your sale on the fly by scanning barcodes or searching items by SKU or name.
- Look back on past live sale performance to gain insights into customer engagement, inventory performance, and more.
Go Live with CommentSold
To get started with your live sale, you'll want to head over to your live sale overview. This is where you'll verify your broadcast stream, choose your products, and pick where you want your live sale broadcast to appear.
Before your first live sale, you'll want to make sure you have the following tools in your Go Live space:
- A computer where your team can manage the live sale overview, such as responding to shopper comments and questions.
- A mobile device with the CommentSold Broadcast app installed. This app is available on both Android and iOS.
- A strong internet connection. We recommend an upload speed of 10 Mbps on the mobile device you'll use to stream.
- We recommend using Google Chrome as your web browser (over Safari, Firefox, or Edge). Chrome offers a more user-friendly and optimized experience when it comes to CommentSold.
- Optional: If you want to scan item barcodes to add products to your live sale, we recommend either the Zebra DS9208 Series Scanner with USB Cable or the BCST-70 Bluetooth Wireless Barcode Scanner. You may also use any 1D scanner that is a keyboard emulator.
- Select Live in the side menu of your CommentSold dashboard.
- Select Live Overview from the menu options at the top of the page.
Once a sale is live, this overview becomes your "control panel" where you can keep an eye on important sales details. More on that below.
Before each live sale, you'll want to review your live sale settings to ensure your preferred settings are enabled for your upcoming sale.
You can locate these settings at the bottom of your live overview page, beneath the Real-Time Comments section.
- Hide Sold comments on this page. Hide "Sold" comments in your real-time comments feed. This would allow your talent or behind-the-scenes team to see questions easier.
- Cross out sold out variants on Overlay? Cross out sizes and colors as they sell out so your shoppers know what's still available. This can also create urgency to purchase.
- Create "Sold" comments when App or Web Users add items to their carts. Generate "Sold" comments in your real-time comments feed when app and webstore shoppers grab an item.
Step 1: Set Up Your Live Sale Broadcast
First, you'll want to start your live sale broadcast on the CommentSold Broadcasting app installed on the mobile device you'll be using for your live sale.
CommentSold Broadcasting app on an iOS device
- Log in to your CommentSold Broadcasting app. Use the same login credentials that you use to log in to your CommentSold dashboard.
- If you are using an iOS device, you will be taken to a Products listing. Select the Broadcast icon at the bottom of the screen. This takes you to your broadcast camera view.
- If you are using an Android device, you will be taken directly to your broadcast camera view.
- When you are ready to continue setting up your live sale, tap the red record button. Don't worry—you're not live yet.
CommentSold automatically detects your stream. You should see a banner appear at the top of the page to indicate the strength of your broadcast.
Your live stream preview should refresh and display in the Live Stream Preview section. Do note that streams play on a slight delay. If your feed does not refresh, select Refresh Stream.
Make sure that the video and audio look and sound how you want them to for your live sale. If your video is blurry or choppy or if your audio isn't coming through, it could be that your connection is not stable.
Contact our CommentSold Support team via chat if you need assistance—they'll be able to see your preview and help you identify the issue.
Step 2: Choose Which Products You Want to Sell
When it comes to selecting products for your live sale, you have two options: you can create a product selection ahead of the live sale or you can scan or add items on the fly.
If you wish to feature a product selection in your live sale, then you will need to create a product selection prior to going live. You'll also want to order these items in the order you wish to feature them during the sale.
- Locate the Products section on the left side of your overview, beneath your live broadcast preview.
- Select Choose Product Selection from the options listed. Learn how to create a product selection here.
- From the pop-up window, select which product selection you'd like to feature in the live sale.
- Select Next.
Dynamic product selection allows you to create product selections on the fly by entering or scanning items during your live sale. This approach gives your shop the flexibility to add items before or during the sale and to adapt which products you feature based on the response you're getting from your viewers.
- Locate the Products section on the left side of your overview, beneath your live broadcast preview.
- Select Use Dynamic Selection from the options listed.
- Choose your products.
- Using a scanner? You can scan the barcode of an item to pull up the details and feature it in your live sale.
- Adding items on the fly? Simply select Add Product at the top of this section to view available products. When you find one to add, select the Add button at the right of the item's row. You can also search for an item by the item name or SKU.
Items you've scanned or added will appear under the Products header. Simply select a product when you're ready to feature it in the live overlay at the top of your live sale broadcast. If you scan items, you can expect a 10-15 seconds delay before the product displays in the live overlay.
If you need to make any last-minute edits to an item, select the product’s name. This will open a new window where you can make changes.
You'll have the option to save your dynamic product selection when you end your live sale. Note that a product selection is required if you wish for shoppers to shop the live sale replay.
Step 3: Choose Where to Go Live
- Locate the Real-Time Comments section on the right side of your overview, and select Choose Where to Go Live.
- Choose whether to Go Live Normally or to Copy & Paste Your Stream URLs. You would choose the second option if you wish to live stream on Facebook using stream keys.
- Once you select an option, you can choose the Stream Targets where you wish to go live. Options include your Facebook page, website, and mobile app.
- If live selling on Facebook, you can include a Post Title and Description to appear as the title and caption of your live sale on Facebook.
- If selling on your mobile app, you can include an App Notification Title and Description that will push to those shoppers with app notifications enabled.
- Last, you can send a live sale notification using Messenger in the Messenger Text field.
- When you are ready to ✨ GO LIVE ✨ select Go Live in the bottom-right corner of the pop-up window.
Step 4: Manage Your Live Sale
Once your shop is live, the right side of your live overview page will refresh to show real-time comments from your shoppers.
This allows your live talent to interact with your shoppers and answer any questions. If you have team members managing the sale behind the scenes, they can respond to shoppers by typing an answer or comment and selecting Post.
You can also:
- See where a shopper is viewing your live sale (e.g., mobile app, Facebook page, etc.).
- Quickly identify your VIP shoppers and new customers.
- View "Sold" comments, if desired, and encourage shoppers to complete their checkout.
During the live sale, you'll need to advance from one product to another in order to change the live overlay that your shoppers see. You have options here:
- Scan the product barcode of a product to pull up the product details.
- Select the product in the product listing in the lower-left corner of your Live Sale Overview.
Step 5: End Your Live Sale
When you're ready to end the live sale, you can select End Live Sale at the top of your live overview page.
You will also need to end the broadcast on the CommentSold Broadcasting app by tapping the red stop record button.
If you created a dynamic product selection during your live (i.e., you scanned or added products on-the-fly), you will have the option to save this product selection. You can also post the products in the selection to your mobile app and/or webstore.
Shortly after you end your live sale, you will be able to view in-depth reporting in the Live History section of your Live page.
Learn more about viewing and analyzing live sale history here.
Learn More
- Download and Use the CommentSold Broadcast App. Learn how to download and navigate the CommentSold Broadcasting app on both iOS and Android devices.
- Generate Automatic Product Videos from Live Sales. Learn how to enable automatic product videos, which take a snippet of your live sale product feature and turn it into a product video for the item.
- Publish Live Replays on Your Webstore and Mobile App. Learn how to empower shoppers to “shop the replay” on your CommentSold webstore and mobile app.
- Analyze Performance Data for Past Live Sales. Learn how to gain insight from past live sales by looking at customer engagement and inventory performance.